Quote:Acclaim has released its financial report for its fiscal year ending on March 31st, and the numbers aren't good: In the past year, the company has lost $56.4 million. (Then again, they lost $84.4 million the year before, so it's not that bad...) These massive losses don't bode well for the credit line, and if Acclaim doesn't find a new source of money to help counterbalance these debts, they'll have to file for bankruptcy.
To add insult to injury, Acclaim has lost two if its biggest remaining franchises, mostly because of failure to pay royalty fees. The Major Leauge Baseball Player's Association has dropped All Star Baseball from its list of licenses, meaning Acclaim can't use the names or likenesses of MLB players in its game, effectively making ASB worthless. More embarassing, however, is that Acclaim no longer holds the rights to Turok. The first-person shooter that made a name for the publisher (in both a good and bad way) was taken away from them last month from Classic Media, creators of the franchise.
These latest two franchises lost can be added to the list of big-name games taken away from them. The first to go, of course, was the then-named WWF series of games to THQ, and recently Criterion's Burnout series to EA. With virtually no licensed or familiar game properties left in their lineup, Acclaim's future is very bleak, if they even have a future left.
Just to put into perspective how bad it is for Acclaim, their stock price on the NASDAQ is currently around $0.25 a share, which is well below the $1.00 minimum stock price the index requires its listees to hold.
It's always a bad thing when a company goes under.
Planet Gamecube
Hopefully they'll go under and sell the rights of Shadowman and Turok to someone who can do those licenses justice again.
They don't own the rights to Turok anymore...as the article clearly states.
Acclaim stock is a quarter a share, that's BAD :D.
After Turok: Evolution, I'm surprised they've still got their heads above water at all. They probably took a huge loss on that game.
It is sad though. Acclaim is one of those storied developers who've been making great games way back since the NES and before.
Yeah, they made some great games in their time, but it looks like their time is fading quickly.
Great Rumbler Wrote:They don't own the rights to Turok anymore...as the article clearly states.
Well ex-
cuuuse me for not reading the entire article! Yeesh!
That's great news, though. Maybe now they'll bring back the comics and let a more competent developer make a nice game out of it.
I hope the same happens to Shadowman soon as well.
Quote:Well ex-cuuuse me for not reading the entire article! Yeesh!
It was only one of the main points of the biggest paragraph of the article. :p
They should let Micheal Moore make a video game, Fahrenheit 64! :D
Well they could try buying Fallout and other desperate interplay franchises seting up for auction to make up for it. Also try to find a new invester looking for one of those beat up dieing cars to pimp and rebuild.
They'd better do something soon, becuase I really doubt they can handle to lose much more money.
Great Rumbler Wrote:It was only one of the main points of the biggest paragraph of the article. :p
Kiss my shiny metal ass. :shakeit:
Hahaha!! You said "shiny"! Ahahahaha!! :D
...
...
I thought he had a rusty ass!
And you would know this, how?
They lost the MLB liscence? That is embarassing... wonder why. ASB has always been a pretty good series... did they not pay or something? Too bad, ASB was one of their best franchices... that, XG, Burnout, and (sometimes) Turok... But three of those are gone. So the only Acclaim franchise I really like that they have left is Extreme-G... but I do like that series, as owning all four games proves. And it's always sad when a big old developer goes down... I hope it doesn't happen.
EdenMaster Wrote:And you would know this, how?
I thought he was the Tin Man in the wizard of Oz!
I guess he retired and became a part time Toaster to pay the bills.
Quote:More embarassing, however, is that Acclaim no longer holds the rights to Turok. The first-person shooter that made a name for the publisher (in both a good and bad way) was taken away from them last month from Classic Media, creators of the franchise.
Sell it to Nintendo SELL IT TO NINTENDO!!
And have Retro make it or something? ... it's a good idea, but unlikely, I think.
Quote:And have Retro make it or something? ... it's a good idea, but unlikely, I think.
I can dream can't I?
You can dream if you want, sure. And it is a good dream, for sure...
Retro could probably make a really good Turok game.
I think someone like Ubi Soft should get the Turok lisence. License. I always spell that wrong.
I think Nintendo should purchase both the licenses to Vexx and Turok. Turok can be maintained by a group with experience in First-Person Shooters, such as N-Space, and Vexx can be helmed by an appropriate developer with some experience in creating those kind of platformers.
Unfortunately, I can only think of Naughty Dog & Insomniac when it comes to creating more refined and edgier platformers akin to Vexx, and they're in bed with Sony.
This guys all smart and stuff!
Well, not that we're not an intelligent bunch ourselves, but...
<marquee>
:goron: <font color="red"><b>Darunia: DIE, DIE!</font></b></marquee>
I never eally enjoyed the Turok franchise that much, and the excerable Turok: Evolution pretty much killed my interest in it entirely. As for Vexx...never played it. What is it?
Ubisoft, OB1? Huh? What good FPSes have they done? XIII didn't get the best reviews... and Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia aren't FPSes. :)
Platformers... um, Sucker Punch? Rocket for the N64. Are they still called that? I know they hooked up to either Sony or MS though... Right, Sony. Sly Cooper.
Vexx... mediocre platformer, right? Didn't play it, but that's what it looked like...
Turok, I have only played the first one. And I never beat level one. But it seemed fun, and if Nintendo does it like the first game (with the dinosaurs and not all the scifi stuff of later games) it could be pretty cool.
Turok Evolution was dismal, but the others were good. Nintendo always guides their developers through their projects anyway, so if Nintendo owned it, it'd come out good.
Vexx was a "darker", more gritty platformer that several unique attributes. He has metal gauntlets grafted to his hands that gve him many different powers -- flight, dozens upon dizens of attack combos, projectiles, hanging, etc. I heard as well that the player could even traverse in and out of 2D and 3D in some areas. Nintendo could do some good stuff with that, as I said above.
I want XG5. On a Nintendo platform. So I'd rather that Acclaim survives... :)
But in this shape I don't know if they can. And losing most of their big franchises can NOT be good for their chances of survival... so I don't know. I know selling off franchises they do have left is one way of making money, but without recognizable games they well might not sell as well, leaving them still in bad shape...
Acclaims golden years were with the NES and SNES days. Their bottom line is falling out, all of their best franchises are dying, and the games they are making aren't that great.
Sounds to me like the death knell is ringing from Acclaim.
Pity.
Hell yes Ubi Soft, right now they're the best damn third-party developer out there. And ever heard of Rainbow Six, ABF? They can handle FPS' just fine.
Turok Evolution would have been good if it weren't for the insane amount of bugs everywhere. If only Acclaim Austin had been given more time to develop the game.
Oh, Rainbow Six, right... but that's a pretty different kind of FPS than Turok. Good, though. But anyway, you'd rather they do it than Nintendo? :)
I know a lot of people seemed to dislike Acclaim's N64 stuff, but while some was certainly bad they released enough good stuff to make them a decent publisher, if certainly not one of the best. But almost all publishers do SOMETHING right...
Ubi Soft Montreal made Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, and Rainbow Six 3. Those guys could definitely make a kick-ass Turok game. It doesn't even need to be a FPS.
What's Michel Ancel working on right now?
Good question, but I have no idea... he must be working on something after BG&E though...
I hope it's even awesomer than BG&E... and not Rayman. Rayman is pretty fun, but BG&E really showed off (gameplay-wise and artistically speaking) what Ancel is capable of.
As much as I liked the people at Acclaim, I think they've had their time, and now they'd be better off going their separate ways and pursuing other ventures.
I had hopes for Acclaim Cheltenham's next futuristic racing game after XGRA ended up so good...
And I still like Rayman 2 more than BG&E. Sorry. :)
You're absolutely nuts. But I'm used to it.
As for Rayman 3, it's a bit harder. The game is more pure fun than BG&E, but it also clearly is not as good as Rayman 2... so it's pretty close to BG&E. But I'd still probably rather play it... though having both is definitely the best way. :)
The Rayman games are average platformers with great art. At least BG&E was ambitious.
BG&E is an awesome game. Like Pokemon Snap, but instead of Pokemon it has armed guards that you can kill simply by shooting them in the back. It's funny to watch run around in circles after you hit them in the back. :D
Very good platformers with great art, that is. :)
And BG&E is certainly ambitious and also has very good artwork, but as I've explained before I think the game was lacking in a few areas and I didn't find it to be as good as I was hoping it would be (yeah, I was somewhat dissapointed by it once I played it some...). But we've been over all that before. And it is a very good game.
It's so much better than any of Ancel's previous games that it's simply absurd to compare them to each other. BG&E is the culmination of all of the skills he's accumulated to date. Before BG&E, he was simply a pretty talented developer, but after it people started comparing him to the likes of Miyamoto. I don't quite agree with that sentiment, but I do agree that it showed what Ancel is really capable of.
He didn't do Rayman 3, you know. That was other people. He did Rayman 2... and Rayman 1? Probably, but I'm not sure. But Rayman 2 was a fantastic game. Easily one of my favorite platformers ever... BG&E has a great concept and is fun but the bad elements drag it down and make it not as fun (as Rayman 2). I've gone over all of it before... weak story, too simple combat, "stealth" that barely deserves the word, etc...
I'd rather have a ten-course gourmet meal that gets the foie gras not-quite-so-great than the best meal McDonald's has to offer. Rayman 2 is just a pretty fun platformer with great art direction, and doesn't try to be anything more than simple, generic fun. BG&E shoots much higher, and while it doesn't completely succeed in all areas, overall it's a far more impressive package than Rayman.
And yes I know that he had nothing to do with Rayman 3.
