Friend who used to work for them has told me that Acclaim (the whole company) went titsup today. No link to verify yet, unfortunately. I will miss their inept marketing strategies and sup-par games.
It’s okay, they’re passing on the torch of stupid, boneheaded, and outright creepy marketing to whoever is publishing BloodRayne.
From GI.biz:
The situation at struggling publisher Acclaim took a turn for the worse this morning, as staff at the firm’s UK offices reported that their salaries have not been paid - and those at the Manchester studio were allegedly sent home.
Earlier this week, the company confirmed that its credit facility with GMAC Commercial Finance has expired without a deal being struck with a new lender, despite two separate extensions which were granted by GMAC.
This morning, sources at the company told GamesIndustry.biz that staff at the UK studios in Cheltenham and Manchester have not been paid their salaries - and that while the Cheltenham studio remains open, employees in Manchester have been told to go home.
It’s not clear as yet whether this represents official redundancies being made. A few days ago, staff at the firm’s development studio in Austin, Texas were also told to go home after the company’s landlords locked them out of the building for defaulting on rent payments.
Not that I’ll particularly miss the company (though were would we be without Burnout 2), but I feel bad for the folks there.
Awesome.
Now I would like to see Midway go tits up please, and after that Atari can eat a bag of Hell, as well.
My my. I can understand the Acclaim hate but was is the deal with Midway and Atari (infogrames)? Both of them have produced solid titles.
You mean like Driv3r and Enter the Matrix?
You mean like Driv3r and Enter the Matrix?[/quote]
Every publisher makes bad games. You might as well close them all down if that is a reason to hate them. Sure with Acclaim, they didn’t make good games, so what if they go off into the sunset? But Infogrames has published many good titles. Civ III, Neverwinter nights, UT 2004, Rollercoaster Tycoon series, and so on.
(and for the record I did like Enter the Matrix but I do realize many didn’t)
The last game Acclaim did right, as far as I can remember, was Star Control.
Personally, I’m really going to miss Acclaim UK’s marketing department. Their games I can easily do without, but will we ever again see such unique ad campaigns as “Name your baby TUROK!”?
I hope this means I can now legally change my name back from Turok Brownlee. It was cool for awhile to be a Native American dinosaur hunter from the future, but in retrospect, I think my original name was probably worth more than an X-Box. Grandma’s grave is probably due for an overhaul as well.
And even in that case, it was actually Accolade.
Acclaim and Midway make me think of games with the cheatiest AI ever made. NBA Jam, Blitz, MK2+. I don’t have a grudge with Atari/IG but I wouldn’t mind seeing Midway go away either.
Midway has turned around a bit recently. Psi-Ops is a lot of fun and I’ve heard some pretty good things about The Suffering.
And even in that case, it was actually Accolade.[/quote]
Well, shit, you’re right. I haven’t made a mistake like that in at least three or four hours.
OK then! I can’t remember any game Acclaim did right.
There’s at least one thing Acclaim did right. They published a number of Japanese shooters and puzzle games no one else would touch here in the US. Things like Galactic Attack and Darius Gaiden on Sega Saturn. Those both rock and we were lucky to get them.
It’s kinda sad that Burnout 3 will probably outsell BOTH iterations of the game now that it’s at EA because that game deserved to do better than it did the first two times around.
–Dave
I will gladly reinforce those positive opinions about both Psi-Ops and The Suffering with a thumbs-up vote for each. They may not be top-notch games, but they’re definitely good in so many ways.
I won’t go so far as to say Midway’s on a Blizzard-like roll or anything, but those two games alone make their track record infinitely better than Acclaim’s. I honestly can’t think of one Acclaim game I enjoyed since Winter Games (and even then all they did was publish the NES version).
Huh, I did not know that Acclaim published those. Okay, so we can add that to Acclaim’s list of accomplishments. IIRC isn’t Darius Gaiden the utterly whacked-out shooter featuring flying penguins? Or is that Parodius?
I still don’t think Acclaim’s in the same league as Midway.
I do remember Turok. It actually didn’t look bad, either.
I recall thinking the sequel looked crappier, though.
So Turok was their last decent title.
Think fish…
The NBA Jam ports were pretty damn good too. As was the MK2 port on 32X. QB Club on 32X was a great football game. They weren’t all bad. Far from it. They just were badly run. They made stupid decisions on what to create and ran their best properties into the ground with bad games (Turok). Well…they also made a lot of bad licensed games too of course.
–Dave