Acclaim file for bankruptcy

satchmo

It's been coming for a while, but now it seems definitely Acclaim are going to file for bankruptcy on Monday.

From spong.com:
We are getting reports that Acclaim is seeing massive redundancies across its entire operation, with one source close to the ailing publisher claiming “This is now the end.”

We began taking calls on the subject this morning, with various credible sources calling to make claims that the once-mighty publisher had delivered news of almost total shutdown to its staff.

Calling Acclaim this morning sees the phones at head office switched to out-of-hours mode, hinting that this is indeed the end.

Stay tuned for updates on this story as the day unfolds.

UPDATE:

We have received further unconfirmed reports that around 130 staff from Acclaim’s Manchester studio have been made redundant, with suggestions that these unfortunate staff members have not been paid for what was described as a ‘considerable amount of time.’ Reports that the rent for the office is outstanding have also reached us.

However, one Acclaim staffer has contacted us to say that until further notice, everyone is still employed by Acclaim, returning to work on Tuesday.

Acclaim’s Texas office was closed yesterday, with the loss of almost all employees there.

However, Acclaim is keeping its New York head office open and operational at this time.

We’ll bring you more as we get it.

UPDATE:

We can reveal at this juncture that Acclaim will be filing for bankruptcy on Monday 30th August 2004 under Chapter 11. This news derives from the most credible of sources and will be officially announced in New York on the above stated morning.

And that, as they say, is that. We’ll promise no more updates: as this would appear to be the conclusion of Acclaim’s sorry decadency from publishing giant to ruined failure.

The dissection of exactly how the firm fell from grace so conclusively will have to wait for another day.

SPOnG would like to wish everyone at Acclaim whose lives were so adversely effected by the decision-making processes of their superiors the very best of luck in finding future employment.

bus77

Acclaim logo on the cover of many of my games over the years and systems. sad to see them go down like that. RIP

Spacedog

good! all they were ever good at was making beat-em-ups/streetfighter clones. and I never really liked them anyway. goes to show, that if any games companies deviate from my opinion, they will fail miserably! HA!

Stormfox1020

Few... I thought you were on about Activision there for a sec. Meh Acclaim werent my favorite of companys anyway. The only real problem would be the Job losses.

ykt0di9url7bc3

NBA jam amoung other great titles throughout the years...

/me sheds tear...

RIP

Wolfy

NBA jam te is the only game i can think of that was decent from akklaim... it was simply great specially all the silly teams

edit but all those ppl losing their jobs i do feel sorry for.... would be a terrible thing to happen to anyone

Tusky

I always found their games felt unfinished adn a bit...crap really. Apart from one or two.

Wolfy

remember the over hyped muck that was turok 2 :eek:

Celt

They made many good spectrum and mega drive games, they kind of died after that

projectmayhem

bleh. i'd care if they made good games. though, if they made good games, they wouldn't be filing for bankruptcy

KdjaCL

projectmayhem wrote:

bleh. i'd care if they made good games. though, if they made good games, they wouldn't be filing for bankruptcy

Oh right like EA games sell a lot of games therefore they are good games?

/me tips hat to Acclaim they made some good games but let 2 idiots run the company. I would imagine their franchises will rake in some cash.

kdjac

Mikill

NBA Jam was excellent alright.
They did Mortal Kombats didnt they?
I remember my Mortal Kombat 3 on the Mega Drive was by Acclaim.
Maybe it was just the older ones.
As was said earlier, Very sad to see them go.

RIP Acclaim.

KdjaCL

Midway made MK Acclaim published it irc

kdjac

Deadwing

Well acclaims heyday was back in the 16 bit days tbh, and even back then they werent that great.

orangerooster

I just went looking through my old 16-bit systems and their games collections-Acclaim made some fairly decent games-dont have anything by them on the newer consoles though.Still its sad to see them go.

honru

The only Acclaim-published games that I liked were Ferrari F355 Challenge, the Bust a Move series, and the surprising (for Acclaim) Burnout series (which is over at EA now). There are other above average games, but the majority are just licensed crap (Mary Kate and Ashley??). Plus Rise of the Robots is one of the worst games ever.

amp

Chapter 11 bankrupcy is a bit different from our kind, it protects the company from being sued by it's creditors allowing it to re-organise finances etc. However I doubt they'll recover, they've nothing really to sell apart from a shít backcatalogue and a recognised logo.

Maybe in years to come some games company will buy the name and then start pumping out crap titles trading on the nostalgia for Acclaim. Oh hang on, Infogrames already did that.

tipperaryboy

It should be atari that are going bankrupt!Atari are s.h.i.t.e & keep making s.h.i.t.e games!Atari should be going bust not anyone else!

Retr0gamer

It should be atari that are going bankrupt!Atari are s.h.i.t.e & keep making s.h.i.t.e games!Atari should be going bust not anyone else!

They gave me Ikaruga and I was clever enough to avoid all their crap games like Driver 3/10 and Do not enter the matrix so i'm happy enough with them.

I remember my Mortal Kombat 3 on the Mega Drive was by Acclaim.

Forgot about that. Thanks Acclaim for giving the developement of MK 2 and MK 3 to Probe software who turned out the two worst conversions of these games while the snes people got all the combos that were taken out and far more fluid gameplay.

RuggieBear

It's sad to people losing thier jobs...the problem now is that the games market is begginning to be dominated by onlt a few big companies which means that we will suffer more EA 2009 ****e and foockall originality...

p

KdjaCL

Chapter 11 was wrong seemingly its chaper 7 whish is the bad liquidation kind.

kdjac

shurl

Agreed the games where not the mae west.

However RIP and good luck to the Staff!


S.

Stormfox1020

Recently Acclaim released Juiced ( a car/mod racing sim). Anyway I was just wondering if the game will either Drop price due to the company filing for bankruptcy or will it go up?

adnans

haha. good luck. they were awful at making games recently. i'll leave you with the words from their last game they released.

TITS UP, CLUTCH DOWN, PEDAL TO THE FLOOR!

adnans

[edit] sorry, i meant to say the game that some disgruntled ex-employee released on BitTorrent [/edit]