Midway gets $33 million Warner Bros. bid

By Tor Thorsen, GameSpotPosted May 21, 2009 9:06 am PT

Media giant offers to buy assets of bankrupt publisher, including Mortal Kombat and Wheelman; deal would not cover TNA license, San Diego and Newcastle studios.

When it took back the Lord of the Rings license earlier this year, it was clear Time Warner was beefing up its game arm, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Today, the company made an offer that, if approved by the bankruptcy courts, would make the division positively brawny, thanks to the Mortal Kombat license.

A Warner buyout could portend a Batman film/Mortal Kombat cross-over.

This morning, Midway Games corporate communications director Geoffrey Mogilner confirmed to GameSpot that the media giant has put a bid down for most of the bankrupt publisher's assets. "Warner came in with an initial bid for $33 million for consideration for inventory, accounts receivable, and most of the US assets, including the Mortal Kombat and Wheelman assets," said the executive.

The offer does not include Midway's Newcastle (UK) and San Diego studios, nor the TNA Impact wrestling license, said Mogilner. Nor would it make the buyer assume any debt or liabilities of Midway, or entangle it in the legal actions surrounding its sale to a mystery buyer last year.

The "stalking horse" asset purchase agreement--so named by the vagaries of finance after the ungulates that helped the British hunt foxes--is the first step in a month-long court-supervised auction. "There's going to be a bidding process initiated as soon as there's a hearing to approve this motion for about 30 days," said Mogilner. "The bidding process ends with a hearing which will determine the winning bidder. It could be one group which buys pieces [of Midway], it could be one buyer that takes it all."

As for Warners' possible competitors, Moligner declined to name names. "There's a number of interested parties, but this is the first one that came forth with a written offer," he said.

88 Comments

  • Kombatchamp

    Posted Jul 21, 2009 7:10 am PT

    Hmm, well now this is interesting.....so many different cross overs that spring to mind here. But if they made a fighting game with all the looney tunes, DC characters and mk, then you would have a funny, disturbing gory game. Imagine bugs bunny doing a fatality with his big bunny feet or Elmer Fudd saying "be very quiet I am hunting rabbits" before he blasts away.

    Jokes aside though it may not be a bad thing for midway as they have struggled a bit and it's time they had a rehash and shake up of new management as clearly there has been some very bad choices made in the past.

  • risk93

    Posted May 27, 2009 9:34 am PT

    Shame, TNA 2 could have a lot of potential...

  • hannify

    Posted May 26, 2009 3:34 pm PT

    Hmm this bid seems too much in Warner Bros. favour. No debt assumed or anything

  • SciFiCat

    Posted May 26, 2009 10:12 am PT

    Mortal Kombat VS. Looney Tunes, confirmed!

  • combatsoldier

    Posted May 26, 2009 8:34 am PT

    I love warner bros. and I love midway. This is a win win situation in my book.

  • Briantb_2008

    Posted May 25, 2009 8:19 pm PT

    this scares me i don't really play any midway games but I stay well clear of any games that warner bros. has any fingers on. If they take over it means that many more games I have to weed thou.

  • MrG31

    Posted May 25, 2009 8:07 pm PT

    I agree that they should start from scratch and create a new Mortal Kombat. They'd have to take full advantage of graphic capabilities and make it as gory as possible though. I mean really realistic gore. Hear bones crunching, have the controller vibrate as you slide the spinal cord out....

  • simonsworld

    Posted May 25, 2009 1:45 pm PT

    thats a dam shame, tna needs that game its massive for them, but kudos to warner bros for giving a helping hand!

  • jimbo102671

    Posted May 25, 2009 6:23 am PT

    While I'm not too big on Mortal Kombat, I do wonder what this will mean for the other IPs Midway controls (Gauntlet, Spy Hunter, etc.), including the 1980s classics originally by Williams (Defender, Joust, etc.).

  • luvthyherbals

    Posted May 24, 2009 5:12 pm PT

    Just please dont screw up Mortal kombat. lets get real fatality's in the next one

  • Microwin

    Posted May 24, 2009 5:02 pm PT

    "Warner buyout could portend a Batman film/Mortal Kombat cross-over"

    oh lord...

  • tonicmole

    Posted May 24, 2009 11:49 am PT

    If they put a real dev team behind Mortal Kombat franchise they might have something. I don't think it's worth $33 million, but oh well.

  • maverick_76

    Posted May 24, 2009 7:05 am PT

    Well this could be a very lucrative deal for Warner Bros. if they can rejuvenate some of the classics that Midway has to offer. I think a good step for them to take is to start coming out with their sports titles again, unfortunately the NFL and MLB is tied up so only NBA Jam and NHL Hitz can be made right now.

  • supezombiejesus

    Posted May 24, 2009 5:46 am PT

    all right GeigerdolylWodd calm down .... rant much

  • Targzissian

    Posted May 23, 2009 10:45 pm PT

    I've got the art book that Midway released. Cool concept art and designs in there. Too bad about the bankruptcy.

  • GeigerdolylWodd

    Posted May 23, 2009 9:57 pm PT

    cardinalphoenix
    Posted May 22, 2009 2:09 pm CT

    If Warner wants to do something cool with the Mortal Kombat premise, they should start from scratch. Give us maybe 10 or so really deep, interesting and brand new characters, add in some crafty body damage aspects, maybe some storyline branches, some in-between beat 'em up segments for good measure...and I think it can go somewhere...what does anyone else think? :-)

    @ the proposed crafty body damage: I think that would kind of be a rehash of what they did with MK Deadly alliance, and MK Armageddon.

    If not it would definitely be a rehash of what John Tobias and Studio Gigante did with their attempt at a rival fighting game called Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus.

    Like you said there's not much they could do with MK although here's a thought. You know how they've tried to do the whole fighting style switching thing in the aforementioned MK Armageddon and MK Deadly Alliance?

    What if they did away with the current 2 punch 2 kick button setup and adopted the traditional 3 punch 3 kick setup but had 2 buttons devoted to 1 of each of the 3 fighting styles.

    In other words let's say Liu Kang has wing chun, Okinawan karate, and traditional boxing as his 3 fighting styles. So the 1 punch and the 1 kick button directly below it would be devoted to 1 punch and 1 kick in the wing chun style.

    Likewise the punch right next to it and the kick below that punch would be devoted to traditional Boxing (where the kick would be used to deliver right hand punches and the punch button would be used to deliver left hand punches).

    The punch next to that and the kick below it would be devoted to the Okinawan karate fighting style. Instead of having to press a style switching button you go straight to the fighting and the mixing.

    Throw in the inclusion of some natural limb self preservation AI, allow blocking (maybe it could be done by mashing the movement joy button in so it could work in any direction) and the matches would not always play out the same.

  • evildevil97

    Posted May 23, 2009 3:16 pm PT

    I'm looking forward to LEGO Mortal Kombat.

  • ele975

    Posted May 23, 2009 1:46 pm PT

    Disney knows what people should stick to, in Midway's case, Mortal Combat, they totally should make a new one, the bloodiest fighting game ever made, PERIOD.

  • thenephariouson

    Posted May 23, 2009 12:54 pm PT

    I completely agree, a 'Revamped' Psi-Ops game would be great, i also really enjoyed the 'Head Pop' ability.

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