Mortal Kombat as a brand is worth $20 mil alone.
its only worth that if somebody is willing to pay for it. The Fallout IP went for about that much iffin I recall correctly, sure, now it looks like a smart move, but a couple years back I would have thought they overpaid.
My point is that unlike Fallout, which was a popular western RPG that sold to a RPG-centric company, there isn't hardly anybody making fighting games anymore, it doesn't really fit in to the existing portfolio of any big time publisher I can think of (maybe Capcom would buy it cheaply just so they can ridicule it in a future game, I dunno), unlike Fallout or Driver or any of the Sierra pickups that have occurred, all of those made sense to their respective buyers. Not to mention pretty much every publisher is tightening their belts at the moment.
Midway has a bunch of ancient and not easily exploitable IP, recent franchises that are worthless (I'll sell ya The Suffering/Spy Hunter/Blitz/Area 51 for twenty dollars, ten, two bucks...), and a slim future slate that holds no major promise (oh right, mystery game, ooohhh.). They're in the fix they're in now because they failed to sustain any new franchises since Mortal Kombat (which Acclaim actually did the legwork for making it a major hit at home). No sequels to their beloved titles like Hydro Thunder or Psi-Ops, tepid additions like the latest Rush and Area 51 games. Midway is fucked ten times over. They have been for a long time coming.
I do think they have the talent to turn things around. Their games don't suck(holy shit Psi-Ops was awesome), they've just got ludicrously bad management/bad luck. The most valuable thing they own is probably their rich back catalog of arcade games, but no way would selling off the assets of Midway cover even only 70 mil. If they had ever been smarter about diversifying their stuff, maybe didn't only publish their own internally developed stuff, they might be in a better position then they are now, but coulda, shoulda, woulda, etc.
its still a good opportunity for anybody who wants to get into the videogame biz, and even at their worst, they weren't as good at losing money as say, Brash entertainment or Atari has been. They could get scooped up by a larger company looking to expand into the business. Like Warner Bros. or Disney. But that's just me guessing and I've already put way too much thought and effort into this post already.
