Formerly | Midway Studios San Diego (1997-2009) |
---|---|
Company type | Subsidiary |
Industry | Video games |
Predecessor | Leland Corporation |
Founded | 1997 |
Defunct | 2012 |
Headquarters | , |
Parent | Midway Games (1997–2009) THQ (2009–2012) |
THQ San Diego, known as Midway Studios San Diego until 2009, was an American game developer based in San Diego, California. It was the successor to the Leland Corporation and Cinematronics.
In 1994, Midway Games parent WMS Industries bought the Texas-based game publisher Tradewest and its San Diego–based subsidiary studio Leland Interactive Media to expand into home console publishing. [1] Tradewest became known briefly as Williams Entertainment before being renamed Midway Home Entertainment in 1996; Leland was absorbed into Williams Entertainment while the original company was reorganized into a holding company. Midway Studios San Diego was formed shortly after the original company went defunct. The two offices were combined in 2001. In addition to original games, Midway San Diego developed home-console versions of arcade games produced by sibling studios Midway Studios Chicago (the original Midway Manufacturing Company), and Midway Games West, the former Atari Games, the arcade division of the original Atari Inc., which Midway acquired in 1996 and was closed in 2004.
On July 10, 2009, Midway confirmed all their remaining assets would be sold off to Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (now Warner Bros. Games). Midway Studios San Diego however was not included and would be closed down. On August 9, THQ announced they had acquired the studio from Midway for $200,000. The sale of the studio included all assets, except for TNA Impact! as the license went to SouthPeak Games (THQ San Diego would keep the source code for the original 2008 game). [2] [3]
The first game the developer released under the new name was the game WWE All Stars . THQ would later make them the main developer for future UFC licensed games, but it on June 4, 2012, THQ announced that not only that the UFC license would be sold to Electronic Arts, but they would also close THQ San Diego. [4] Each of its assets were sold individually, such as the WWE license going to Take-Two Interactive and the Darksiders license going to Nordic Games GmbH. [5] Nordic would later buy the THQ name and become THQ Nordic, but the San Diego studio remained closed.
Atari is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French holding company Atari SA. The original Atari, Inc., founded in Sunnyvale, California, United States in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, was a pioneer in arcade games, home video game consoles, and home computers. The company's products, such as Pong and the Atari 2600, helped define the electronic entertainment industry from the 1970s to the mid-1980s.
Atari Games Corporation was an American producer of arcade video games, active from 1985 to 1999, then as Midway Games West Inc. until 2003. It was formed when the coin-operated video game division of Atari, Inc. was transferred by its owner Warner Communications to a joint venture with Namco, being one of several successor companies to use the name Atari.
Midway Games Inc., known previously as Midway Manufacturing and Bally Midway, and commonly known as simply Midway, was an American video game developer and publisher that existed from 1958 to 2010. Midway's franchises included Mortal Kombat, Rampage, Spy Hunter, NBA Jam, Cruis'n and NFL Blitz. Midway also acquired the rights to video games that were originally developed by WMS Industries and Atari Games, such as Defender, Joust, Robotron: 2084, Gauntlet and the Rush series.
THQ Inc. was an American video game company based in Agoura Hills, California. It was founded in April 1990 by Jack Friedman, originally in Calabasas, and became a public company the following year through a reverse merger takeover. Initially working in the toy business, it expanded into the video game business through several acquisitions before shifting its focus away from toys entirely. THQ continued its trend of acquiring companies throughout the 2000s.
Cinematronics Incorporated was an arcade game developer that primarily released vector graphics games in the late 1970s and early 1980s. While other companies released games based on raster displays, early in their history, Cinematronics and Atari, Inc. released vector-display games, which offered a distinctive look and a greater graphic capability, at the cost of being only black and white (initially). Cinematronics also published Dragon's Lair in 1983, the first major LaserDisc video game.
Jakks Pacific, Inc. is an American toy manufacturer founded in January 1996. The company is best known for producing licensed action figures, playsets, dolls, plush toys and dress-up sets.
Tradewest, Inc. was an American video game company based in Corsicana, Texas that produced numerous games in the 1980s and early 1990s. The company was the publisher of the Battletoads and Double Dragon series in North America and the PAL region. In 1994, the company was acquired by WMS Industries and became Midway Home Entertainment when WMS spun off its video game operations as Midway Games.
Ivan 'Ironman' Stewart's Super Off Road is an arcade video game released in 1989 by Leland Corporation. The game was designed and managed by John Morgan who was also lead programmer, and endorsed by professional off-road racer Ivan Stewart. Virgin Games produced several home versions in 1990. In 1991, a home console version for the Nintendo Entertainment System was later released by Leland's Tradewest subsidiary, followed by versions for most major home formats including the Master System, Genesis, Super NES, Amiga, and MS-DOS. A port for the Atari Jaguar was announced but never released. Some of the ports removed Ivan Stewart's name from the title due to licensing issues and are known simply as Super Off Road.
A video game clone is either a video game or a video game console very similar to, or heavily inspired by, a previous popular game or console. Clones are typically made to take financial advantage of the popularity of the cloned game or system, but clones may also result from earnest attempts to create homages or expand on game mechanics from the original game. An additional motivation unique to the medium of games as software with limited compatibility, is the desire to port a simulacrum of a game to platforms that the original is unavailable for or unsatisfactorily implemented on.
Midway Arcade Treasures 3 is the third and final compilation of classic arcade games published by Midway for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox. This compilation includes 8 racing games that were not in the 2003 and 2004 releases Midway Arcade Treasures and Midway Arcade Treasures 2. Like the first and second installments, however, the Xbox version is not compatible with the Xbox 360. Unlike the other installments in the Midway Arcade Treasures series, it is rated E for Everyone by the ESRB. It also differs from the other installments by focusing on one specific genre, while the first two featured games from a wide variety of genres.
Torus Games was an Australian video game developer founded in 1994 by Bill McIntosh. The company is located in Bayswater, Victoria. Its managing director is Bill McIntosh. The company being a family business. Torus has developed over 145 titles. The company is most known for family action/adventure games, based on well-known licenses.
Warner Bros. Games is an American video game publisher based in Burbank, California, and part of the Global Streaming and Interactive Entertainment unit of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). The publisher was founded as Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment on January 14, 2004, under Warner Bros. Entertainment and transferred to its Home Entertainment division when that company was formed in October 2005. Warner Bros. Games manages the wholly owned game development studios TT Games, Rocksteady Studios, NetherRealm Studios, Monolith Productions, WB Games Boston, Avalanche Software, WB Games Montréal and Player First Games, among others.
The Leland Corporation California-based was an arcade video game company formed on June 5, 1987 from the assets of Cinematronics. It was a subsidiary of arcade and home game producer Tradewest, which acquired those assets out of the former company’s bankruptcy. After 1992, the company moved to development of home games to be published by Tradewest and other companies like Williams under the name Leland Interactive Media. In 1994, when WMS Industries acquired Tradewest, Leland was absorbed into their internal development.
Atari SA, also known under the Atari Group moniker, is a French holding company headquartered in Paris that owns interactive entertainment properties. Atari SA is made up of several video gaming related subsidiaries, including: Atari, Inc., Nightdive Studios, Digital Eclipse and Infogrames, and a blockchain division, Atari X, and additionally owns the websites MobyGames and AtariAge. Through these divisions, the company owns the rights to many video game properties that originated from Accolade, Atari, Inc., Atari Corporation, GT Interactive, M Network, Intellivision and others. It is the sole owner of the Atari brand since 2001, through its subsidiary Atari Interactive Inc. which licenses the brand to other entities in the group.
NetherRealm Studios is an American video game developer based in Chicago and owned by Warner Bros. Games. Led by video game industry veteran and Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon, the studio is in charge of developing the Mortal Kombat and Injustice series of fighting games.
THQ Nordic GmbH is an Austrian video game publisher based in Vienna. Formed in 2011, it is a publishing subsidiary of Embracer Group. Originally named Nordic Games, as was the parent company, both companies were renamed THQ Nordic in August 2016 after the parent company had acquired the "THQ" trademark in 2014.
Embracer Group AB is a Swedish video game and media holding company based in Karlstad. The company comprises 10 operative groups: Amplifier Game Invest, Asmodee, CDE Entertainment, Coffee Stain, Dark Horse Media, Deca Games, Easybrain, Freemode, Plaion, and THQ Nordic.