14 DAY TRIAL // Midway was a great publisher that, with the likes of Mortal Kombat and Ms. Pac-Man franchises under the belt, was doing really well in the 1990s. But ever since the takeover of the company by the Redstone family, a wealthy group of people from the United States, in 2005, things haven't been going so well anymore.
Its stock price has been continuously decreasing, with the publisher barely having enough money to continue the development of future games. Now we hear that Midway has opened a credit line from another company under Redstone ownership, National Amusement, and don't think they are borrowing just a couple of dollars, because the credit is extending to 40 million dollars.
The publisher needs the money to complete the development of the titles it has announced for the winter holidays, like Mortal Kombat vs DC, TNA Impact and Blitz II. "Keep in mind that Midway is borrowing this new $40 million from NAI just to manufacture its fall slate of games. We're talking about a company so short on cash, and losing money so fast, it can't even afford to manufacture its own games. As of June 30, it had just $14.6 million in cash on hand and if it's borrowing this new money, you can safely assume that figure is down substantially in the current quarter, which ends September 30, so we will get the official figures in early November" reads an excerpt from the official story on Variety website.
It's really sad that once mighty developers and publishers can barely stay on the profit side of their business nowadays. Midway brought some pretty exciting stuff to gaming in general and it would be a pity if the company couldn't generate some pretty decent profit with its announced games for this winter. And let's not forget that in 2009 it'll also launch This is Vegas and Wheelman, both of which promise quite a lot of interesting features. But I guess only time will tell what the fate of this once great company will be.