14 DAY TRIAL // Midway will not have a very happy holiday season, as its recent games, Blitz: The League II or Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, haven't really broken sales records. The two titles, although being hyped up and marketed as innovative, weren't met with a lot of anticipation by fans.
Also, Midway has seriously been affected by the financial crisis, as its stocks went down in the NASDAQ exchange. These poor financial results, plus the fact that the company announced it would focus on franchises guaranteed to make a profit have led to a very tough decision today - firing over 25 percent of its total number of employees.
The product development, marketing, public relations, sales, accounting, submissions, QA, human resources and IT departments in its Chicago branch were heavily affected, and people from the marketing and PR departments in the San Diego branch were also fired. Such a tough decision has been explained by the company's CEO, Matt Booty, as necessary to ensure the survival of Midway, citing that the troubled times wouldn't forgive the publisher if it continued with the same work force.
“The actions we took today are intended to preserve the foundation of this company - our core franchises, fun arcade-style casual games, and world-class technology - in the hope that we can rebuild on that foundation in the future,” said Booty. He then reiterated the fact that Midway would focus on delivering profitable games, “We need to allocate our resources to projects that have either proven track records or significant future potential,” stating that a new IP might be “very difficult” to develop.
These are unfortunate pieces of news, as Midway has treated us with quite a lot of great games over the years. Hearing that it has been heavily affected by the financial crisis will certainly make a lot of fans very sad. Let's hope that the company won't be forced to take such measures again.