For all of you that don't repeatedly sit on gaming sites to reap the fresh off the presses news of what is happening in the gaming world, Acclaim Entertainment had offically announced that it will be leaving the videogame industry.
The gaming company that has made household names out of games such as Mortal Kombat and Bust-A-Move is seeking Chapter 7 bankruptsy, which means that there is no coming back. This isn't reassessing the assets, this is saying "we pissed it all away".
17 years ago, the company was founded and quickly made games for the NES, bringing the many movie license games that we know and hate from that golden era to our homes, either as a rental or purchase. Some of the spectacluar failures were Friday the 13th and Total Recall, both abysmal failures. While other games series kept them steady, the movie licence was their downfall, according to the industry.
In the 16-bit era, the company made a comeback with some of their titles, including the world loved Mortal Kombat series, and NBA Jam series. The hey days of the company seemed bright with the next generation consoles, since then world leader in games, Nintendo, kept Acclaim as one of it's few third party developers. That brought Turok to us, and the picture looked good. Not great, because Acclaim was never a Electronic Arts or a Sega when it came to games. See, the idea is to always bring freshness to the gaming world, and I personally think that Acclaim didn't have it. When Acclaim started to make Turok after Turok game for the Nintendo systems, it showed weakness.
But what about the world of the next gen console?
Turok: Evolution was put out and bombed. Thousands of copies were returned and it looked like the line was dead. The next blow was the folding of their NFL Quaterback series, and then what? They had very little left.
When there is little left, that is where the stupid mistakes lead.
BMX XXX, Acclaims last game by favored developer Z-Axis was a embarressment and a let down. Dave Mirra, who's name was associated with the game, turned and sued the company. Earlier this year, the multi-million dollar Olsen Twins sue for loyalties duw ot them by the company and brand damage done by incredibly lame games. Major LEague Baseball and the Turok licenses soon followed out the door. Finally, with nothing left to do, the company saw where they were heading and folded like a card table. Who can blame them?
While it is sad to see a long time campaigner of the videogame wars finally breath it's last, we also have to shrug and go on. THis thing is starting to happen, and maybe it should. I don't like the idea of all video games being made by only a few companies, but it might encourage the underdogs to sit up and get creative. The gaming genre is starting to hit a low point again, where the sequels are starting and the ideas seem to be getting scarce. This is another year of the sequel, where we anticipate big games like Doom 3, Half Life 2, and so on.
Maybe if Acclaim had seen it all coming. How many other companies are going to survive the coming next generation, when the competition gets more and more furious? Apparently not Acclaim.