Not a good way to leave thats for sure. I wonder how difficult it will be for him to find another job.

@DigitalHero: Oh don't worry, he's probably gotten enough money, even though he's driven the company into the ground, in order to last him for quite a long time...

Cruisin' wii is going to be the best game ever. Poetic Irony is going to slap all of you upside the face.

HUMILIATION!

I'd feel sorry for him, if he wasn't goddamn rich anyway.

Yeah.. we aren't stupid that the WII can actually run Crusin at the same spec level as the original arcade engine.

Sumner Redstone? Did they name a mage in Gauntlet after him?

You mean Midway still makes games...?
(Kidding, of course. But they should've just quit after the N64)

Bye, Sumner!

Someone should acquire them.

haha i lol'd pretty good at the Cruis'n reference

so sad. so true.

@Wait: Atari perhaps

@Wait: I think this industry has seen enough corporate takeovers for one eternity.

DAVID ZUCKER.

You've been served.

*burn*

@ErskinPig: Sure, but it doesn't mean we're out of the woods yet. Like odyeiop, I foresee Atari/Infogrames making some moves in the acquisition department, what with Phil Harrison in charge over there and all.

Rival publishers like EA and Activision are probably just laying dormant, waiting for Midway to hit rock bottom before buying them up.

All paint a bleak picture, but me, I think Zucker's fate was sealed the day somebody at Midway saw Cruis'n on the Wii and said "yes, brilliant, let's release this".

No kiddin'. :/
But, it's not like Midway has exactly been pumping out stellar games lately...

The word "ouch" will never touch this article.

Heh. Could good ole' Chuck Norris even heal the hole in the pocket?

If Zucker actually tried then I feel sorry for him, and wish him well wherever he may land. If he didn't try, however, then he pretty much deserved the boot.

I think Midway would do well to bring back Body Harvest, Hydro Thunder, San Francisco Rush, and even War Gods with A++ quality and polish, I believe they could be at the top again. They were really great around the PSOne/N64 era and with some hard work I think they could be that good again.

I can't understand why the Board of Directors didn't force him to resign sooner and waited so long to do so. $300 million is a huge chunk of money!

@NeoStarr: I don't think so...I can vaguely remember a Sumner in the 64 Gauntlet, but that's before 2004 of course

"Yes, brilliant, let's release this."

Statement of the century.

As an extra note, where in the fuck is the new Mortal Kombat?!?

@Wait: EA ftw?

@CitizenInsane27: LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! Mortal Kombat: THE NEW GENERATION!

Some fun games, some sad ones. If I was in charge: Cut the crap, start an in house suggestions box, listen to it. I bet there is more than enough good talent at Midway to pull itself out of this hole.
I don't want to see another sad Acclaim fiasco.

@Wait: Someone already did for the most part, the renaming to Paramount Interactive/Paramount Games is inevitable.

@Custom Reality: Infogrames owns the rights to Body Harvest, which I guess could be considered fairly ironic.

Luke, shouldn't it be "Sumner Redstone has" rather than "Sumner Redstone have"?

According to SEC filings, this douchebag was paid pretty well to tank Midway into the ground.

According to his employment agreement, he was paid $600k a year, was available to recieve a yearly bonus of up to 100% of his base salary, given 4 weeks vacation per year, and typical executive bennies. Plus, if he is ever terminatied, he gets the rest of the years base salary and bonus, and is given 2 years base salary on date of termination.

Man, if I get terminated I probably wouldnt even get a pink slip, let alone 2 years pay. And this was his original employment agreement. Odds are it got better as the years went on but I am too disgusted to look into it further.

I would actually applaud Zucker for running that abomination into the ground.

Well its not like they have had any great selling games. Blacksite was horrible, and Unreal has not sold very well.

The only games I can think of by Midway that I liked in semi-recent memory were the two Shadow Hearts games they released back in 2001 and 2004 respectively. And they didn't even develop them, just localized.

I wonder what his severence package includes. Maybe some free crappy games?!?

@onomeister: There is more to this than Zucker, the Board is asleep at the wheel and Sheri Redstone probably just wanted to piss off dad.

"Sumner Redstone have lost over $500 million in equity since taking over Midway"

Sumner Redstone HAVE lost? Sumner Redstone is not a plural noun, Sumner Redstone is a MAN. A single individual. You guys are taking to the extreme your obsession with transforming singular to plural nouns.

@bluerondo: Yeah I think it's just that they thought it was a company name... I was going to say it if you didn't. lol

I think my entire point can be summed up in 3 words:

Hour of Victory.

How stupid can a company get, they go from making good games to games that look like a college essay written the night before its due, while the writer was downing a fith of vodka.

So because of this guy, Area 51 Blacksite could have been really good, but is buggy, bloated and crappily finished.

@Sinnbox: Those are sometimes the best of essays.

midway makes bad games because there are people that by bad games. this doesn't only apply to midway but to many other companies. perhaps if people stopped buying bad games and crying about how bad they are maybe companies might "try" to make more quality games.

@Jesus Christ: They did publish Unreal Championship 2...

*shrugs*

Sumner Redstone is a vile old bag of shit who is responsible for the backwards state of the music industry and now is showing his corporate fuckery chops in the gaming sector.

I'm sure he was just swell early on in his professional lifetime but old senile media kings should die when the time comes, not hang on to the last shred of relevancy like its his last breath of oxygen.

they haven't got a new Mortal Kombat game in a while, so that's why it doesn't bring some income. And the bad decision to release Unreal Tournatment 3 exclusively on PS3 first definitely hurts the sales in the long run.

I know some guy who worked for Midway as a programmer. Needless to say, now I know why he left. :P

I don't feel bad for Midway.

@reptile168:

ut3 isn't a ps3 exclusive. it was a timed exclusive. the 360 version is coming out this year.

I used to work at Midway during the time Zucker took over I will be the first to tell you it was better when Niecastro was in charge.But to be fair to Zucker, Midway has been going down for a long,long time Midway never recovered from the death of the arcades. Midway was a giant Titanic that just couldn't be turned around.Its sad too they have a few great game designers left over from there hey day that made huge multi million dollars games ,and I believe could do it again given the opportunity .But these days Midway has become so corporate they don't trust these guys to make good games anymore.Midway frowns on new ideas and innovation. So as a result Midway has become a bunch of rats and snakes fighting for the scraps that fall off Mortal Kombat's table. its a sad ending for a once great studio.

@dozogovi: Neil "I own your dreams" Nicastro was a better CEO? Give me a break.

Theres no doubt Mr Nicastro wasn't in the business of making friends. But to his defense all game companies have the same "I own your dreams" policy that they make you sign upon being hired.However the only point I was trying to make is that all the Midway successes were during his tenure.And since the death of the arcade era Midway hasn't been able to be successful.I am sorry if i offended you.

Whoever was in charge of Midway since the death of the arcade era doesn't change the fact that Midway continued to produce more bad games than quality games. The blame can not be pitted on a single person in charge but starts from the top and goes down to the bottom levels of management. It starts from the minute a game proposal is approved down to the minute a game is submitted to Sony, MS, and Nintendo.

If there is a single thing to blame, then blame the fact that Midway could not over come their arcade ways. Creating games that allow players little input and thought with arcade style game-play and throw in the recent quality issues in their games with a $60 price tag on them will hurt any game company.

@amisenior: So this Sheri Redstone... Is she hot? and/or single? And since she's CEO of Midway, can anyone be hired to be responsible to lose 300 million? I probably couldn't do worse than Zucker losing that kind of money... I'll send in my resume today...!

Shari was appointed Chair of the Board by dad ...oh and she is on the compensation committee...at $600k/yr ++ who cares if she is hot...Midway needs an gamer vs a suit

We need to stop linking the death of arcades and the on-going death of Midway. Midway could have avoided this, plain and simple. They decided to make crap games and not invest enough in their developers.

With that said, Sumner Redstone is an idiot. Zucker is an idiot and clearly performed like one. I hope the best for Shari, she hasn't had everything handed to her on a silver platter. It will take a lot to bring Midway back. But what they need to do is CLEAR.

Mortal Kombat comes out this year for next gen consoles and we'll see how well it does but quite frankly, I'm not even sure if its success is guaranteed. Remember when Ed Boon said the franchise/series was going to be rest with a completely new story and completely new characters? Mortal Kombat has to do well. Hopefully Ed Boon made the right creative decisions. And if he didn't, the bigwigs can't be afraid to delay the game. It's clear that so many of Midway's latest crappy releases needed more time in the oven: Blacksite and LA Rush and all these other titles. Midway can't be afraid to invest in their developers, give them the resources that they need, and delay a game if it HAS to be delayed.

Secondly, Midway needs to resurrect its arcade franchises in the best possible way. Make a next gen Spy Hunter, Rampage, and get back to making awesome arcade sports games. I STILL play NFL Blitz to this day. While EA has the NFL license, Midway can go back to making NHL Hitz games. What happened to Red Card soccer? The NBA Ballers franchise hasn't kept up with the gameplay quality of the NBA Street franchise either. And where in the holy FUCK is a new San Francisco Rush game? Rush 2049 was the best arcade racing game that came out before Burnout 3 and Midway never capitalized on that franchise, like a bunch of brain dead dullards. Their titles need effort, they need polish, and they need next gen arcade gameplay. And their new titles need to be IP that they can readily take advantage of. Going from SF Rush to LA Rush and becoming a piece of shit "fast and the furious" knockoff is not going to cut it.

And they need to do what every other developer is done and milk their classic franchises in the right way. They need to put their old goddam games on Xbox Live Marketplace and the PSN store with HD graphics, legitimate online gameplay, leaderboards, voice chat, and all that other jazz. No piece of crap ports like Mortal Kombat 2 on PSN. Everything needs to be "UMK3 on XBLA" quality. They can still get money out of their old franchises if they just put the right amount of time and effort into re-releasing them.

This is the strategy Midway needs to follow if they want to be relevant and successful in the gaming industry again, instead of the chum-bait waiting to be gobbled by a mega-publisher that they are right now.

@Gagamus: Clearly you are currently an employee/fanboy of midway and one of those that continue to hurt the company and not help it. Ed Boon make the right creative decisions? Give me a break, he hasn't made the right creative decision since mk2. FYI keeping a bad game in the oven longer only ends up costing the company more money and will not make a poorly designed game better. In most cases it only helps the game have less bugs, which is not a bad thing of course. I think many will agree with me that giving blacksite and la rush more time in the oven wouldn't help it a single bit unless it was to completely redesign the games. Next gen Spy Hunter, Rampage, and Blitz? Lawlz @ that. They tried and they failed. They have already milked their old franchises with compilation packs to the bone already so there's really no point in putting any more old games for download when you can buy all their games for about $5 on a used ps2 bin. Even if they did re-do things in SSFII HD quality and put them up for download, this won't even bring them close to solving any of their real problems, which is a lack of creativity in their products. I certainly will not buy a $60 badly made arcade game in this generation. If you are willing to, then I can only feel pity for you.

Actually can you send me $60 instead and I'll make a bad quality midway style arcade game on flash instead of you waisting money and continuing to support a company that can't accept the fact that gamers today will not buy games that can't even score above an average of 7.5 from a game review. Yes, its true there are people that solely base their purchasing decisions on game reviews. Shocking I know.

@onomeister: Oh good grief, no. Shari is NOT hot. She looks like her father in a dress. It's a good thing that family is already rich because they'd be boned if they had to get by on their looks.

By the way, this wouldn't be the first video game company that Sumner E. Douche has ruined. Remember Viacom New Media? Probably not, because he drove that one into the ground too.

I think what amazes me the most about the comments regarding Midway is how ruthless and destructive they are. It doesn't get any more American then that! WOOT!! For those that bash constructive ideas and criticism - shame on you. You need to stop playing WOW and learn to program so YOU can make "great games"…or go get a job at Midway and help them out since you appear to have all the bright ideas.

I hope Midway can rise back to its glory days. Why not? The more competition the better the products, No? I think its terrible when any studio fails, that hurts us Gamers.

Also, lets not forget that Zucker didn't have a hand full of soulless people working for him…well, maybe a few robots dressed like clowns that shoot bee's out of their arms.

I am sure there has to be some creative geniuses at Midway…LOL Go team Fantastic 4!

Now to sing the Doom song.

The whole Stranglehold special edition for the PS3 with Hardboiled was a total let down.

I'm happy to see that every once in awhile when a company puts out crap they end up paying for it in the end.

@Shredshop: Well, Midway were ruthless and destructive when they closed down their Adelaide (formerly Ratbag) and San Diego studios.

Midway workers at those studios were told 2 weeks before Christmas they had no job, and given two days notice to leave the premises. People had moved their families from the UK to Australia with the guarantee of work, to be told they had no jobs. Other people had bought houses and were looking to start families in Adelaide, but friends and family were split apart, as people had to return to their own countries because they no longer had working visas, and other people had to move to another city or country because Ratbag was the only studio in Adelaide.

So fuck Midway.

@exstrat: exstrat, clearly you cannot read and I really regret this because you could have actually said something substantive.

When did I ever say that Boon made the right creative decisions? I said that I HOPE that he did and I'm implying that he might not have, considering he is resetting such a storied franchise with unforgettable characters.

Second of all, all you're doing is being pessimistic and all I was doing was laying out the conditions that would allow someone to be optimistic about midway. It's common sense that if the management approves a bad concept that turns into a bug ridden game with not enough resou