RIP Midway Games 1958-2009 (In Name Only)

TRMK writes: "We're got confirmation this morning that the name Midway Games is no more after today. The company will drop it's almost fifty year old name, and continue operations under a Warner Bros. moniker effective Monday July 13th, 2009. It is likely they will be operating now under the Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment moniker, but I haven't heard that officially yet. Development of Mortal Kombat 9 should be unchanged but will just continue under the new company name. I'd also expect to see re-releases of any of intellectual property purchased by Warner Brothers earlier this month without the Midway name attached to it."

[Elven6]

Stupid move, the Midway name is more recognized than the Warner name in gaming.

RIP Midway Games 1958-2009, I wish those that lost their jobs today and will in the future the best of luck.

[Sarcasm]

Wait, did it say they lost their jobs too? I thought they were just changing their name under Warner Bro's Interactive?

[FantasyStar]

According to the article. There's no record of any layoffs or anything. The only thing anyone needs to know is that Midway was bought out by Warner Bros. The exact same way Eidos was bought out by Square-Enix. The only difference is that Eidos keeps it's development name. But the Midway Games name is entirely eradicated and the team is absorbed into the umbrella. Again, I see no records of any layoffs.

[Elven6]

I believe it was on Kotaku where it said the Newcastle deadline to find a buyer was up around the same time this deal closes.

[Number 9]

The company will drop it's almost fifty year old name. Almost 50 year old name? Good maths.

[PirateThom]

Yeah, Midway are actually over 50 years old.

[Elven6]

Although they were called Midway Mfg before, Midway Games officially recognizes themselves has a company with "over 50 years" of history or something along those lines.

By the end of today the Midway name will be no more and this legacy will cease to exist. This is also significant because Midway was one of the if not the last true classic American gaming companies.

[ThatArtGuy]

Just adds insult to injury knowing that Midway had the Atari Games (the arcade division) catalog.

[ThatArtGuy]

Warner Bros. is still an American company.

[Cajun Chicken]

Bad idea, bad idea.

[Jockamo]

This could be beautiful.

[Evil Rant Monkey]

that's awesome!

bubble for you

[DuneBuggy]

I played alot of good Bally/Midway Pinball machines, but they dropped out of the pinball biz years ago.

[brandynevils]

Aww..I grew up with Midway... I don't wanna see it's name just disappear. I hope they know what they're doing...

[CarlosX360]

Warner Bros owns other studios under their different moniker, I don't understand why they threw away the Midway name. This is stupid.

[gumgum99]

well, here's the Midway website, in case any of you wanna cherish the last hours of what will be the last time you will probably see "Midway Games" written on their website.

[PeterGriffinSays]

...how it lived for the same amount of period as MJ. And they both start with M.

[MK_Red]

Good call. Also, MJ was fan of Midway's MK.

[Elven6]

Weirder because Jackson was also in a few Midway games!

[ambientFLIER]

So what will this mean for Rush 2049 on XBLA?

[MK_Red]

RIP Midway. You were kinda like a rockstar. Were hugely successful in early days and made many classics including MK1-3, then the drugs came and downfall began with trashing of your classic works (new Spyhunter, Rampage, Area 51 and many more) and finally died while writes to your songs were seperated by different bidders.

Hopefully Warner respects MK and makes it as good as it should be.