The GameShadow Blog

As we tweeted on Friday, Unreal Tournament 3 has had a giant update.

The patch brings the first person shooter to version 2.00 and applies a heap of fixes and features.

The Titan Pack, weighing in at over 900MB, supplies players with new maps and units.

The 2007 title, developed by Epic Games and published by the now in trouble Midway, is still going strong.

After filing for bankruptcy in February, American publisher Midway has announced it is looking to sell the rights of its Mortal Kombat series.

Midway has already sold The Wheelman rights to Ubisoft and this latest move continues the bid to re-structure and save costs.

There is also news that Midway is to withhold all Holiday/PTO payments to employees as well.

It’s been confirmed that American publisher Midway has filed for bankruptcy.

The publisher’s troubles had been widely reported and this announcement is meant to enable a complete restructure.

The studios and offices outside the US will not be affected though.

Reports have now surfaced that The Wheelman, one of Midway’s upcoming titles, has been picked up by Ubisoft.

The American publisher Midway has announced it is cutting 25 percent of its staff, closing its studio in Austin, Texas and cancelling unannounced projects due for 2010/2011.

Midway is struggling badly with large debts and these cost cutting measures are part of the consequences.

Earlier this year, one of the biggest titles Midway released was Mortal Combat vs DC Universe and 2009 should still see the release of The Wheelman and This is Vegas.

Worst part of my job - another (two!) bite the dust. It’s not so bad this time (neither studios ever produced a well received game), but it still grates.

First up is Flagship, developer of Hellgate London, and formed from ex Blizzard North (ie Diablo) developers. Following major internal shit storms a month ago and poor reception for Hellgate, the developer announced its closure a few weeks ago. “It is with deep regret that I must announce that Flagship Studios has laid off most employees,”said studio Lead Bill Roper.

I’m terribly torn on this one. On the one hand, it’s always rubbish to see a developer close its doors, but on the other, it seems to me too many devs lack the business nouse to maintain profitability. It doesn’t take a lot to produce a cheap innovative game (see Braid or Darwinia), and it doesn’t take a lot to make a profit from a cheap game. The problems arise when you make a vaguely interesting game on a large budget, then bugger it up and make no money. Essentially being Diablo III Online, Hellgate didn’t even qualify as vaguely interesting.

The other thing that sours me is the way the company silenced its staff as soon as they started to speak out about their woes. Granted it’s in the best interest of the firm, but a lie is a lie, and forcing programmers to lie on their blogs about the status of the company pretty much switches me off.

Still, the team that was working on Mythos seems to have partially reformed as Runic Games, while Namco appears to be setting itself up to take over operation of Hellgate.

Next up is Midway Austin. The studio was a short lived independent called Inevitable Entertainment, before it was purchased by Midway four years ago, and has done pretty much nothing of real value in that time. The Hobbit and both Area 51 games are the greatest claims to fame, in addition to the high profile sacking of (ex-Looking Glass man) Randy Pitchford last year after he publicly criticised the Area 51 sequel.

“While this was a very difficult decision, we feel it was the right thing to do for the future of Midway,” said Midway CEO, Matt Booty. The full internal email is here.

You know what? Screw it. By all accounts, Midway Austin developed some awful games. Dissension in the ranks occurred last year, and it was quashed. Every week we get awful, cynical games like The Hobbit, Spiderman, X-Men, and every week some clueless marketing man waxes lyrical about how great the games are going to be.

Sod it. Most games are rubbish, and this is what happens when you produce rubbish games.

Well, actually the news is that Mortal Kombat 8 is now Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, but Batman was the only character I knew. And he’s in the pretty picture.

Following in the line of classics like X-Men vs Street Fighter (I didn’t recognise any of the X-Men either, but it was still fun Honda belly flopping them), the cross franchise breeding could mean a reinvigoration for the aging MK series.

The bad news is that, presumably as a result of DC not wanting their cherished icons to be beaten to death with their own spines, fatalities and gore are out. Which, lets be honest, were the only good bits left in Mortal Kombat since we all realised the video captured animations were actually rubbish.

“This project was so f*cked up.”

Harvey Smith’s words concerning the poor organisation and design ethics at Midway’s internal Blacksite team. Smith - creative director on the project - damned the game at the Montreal Game Summit on 29th November, saying he thought it was a boring game before he started, and deserved a ‘critical hammering’ by the time he’d finished.

The Summit was certainly a plain speaking one.

“How the hell is he going to get away with that?”

My words on 30th November.

“Smith’s departure was a mutual decision.”

Midway’s words soon after. Unsurprisingly, Smith and Midway have parted company, to the distant ring of a 69/100 score for Blacksite on Metacritic.

I’m not quite clear on Smith’s motivation for putting himself in that situation - it was common knowledge that Blacksite was the rushed sequel to an already average FPS: the world didn’t really need to be told it was going to bomb.

Good on him, though. Smith’s descent from being part of the teams responsible for System Shock and Deus Ex, through the lacklustre Thief Deadly Shadows (Thief 3), and finally onto Blacksite is a sad one. He left Ion Storm Austin shortly before it released Thief 3 and closed doors - in conjunction with fellow ex-Looking Glass member Randy Smith - and seems to have been plagued by cheap, cash-in projects ever since.

Midway released Q3 results this week, with revenues 6% below targets and a net loss. Midway has made losses in 30 of the last 31 quarters. The company saw cash outflows of $26 million in Q3 and now has approximately $31 million left in the bank.

It’s not all bad. Stranglehold has sold 1 million units, and there are other key titles like Blacksite and Unreal Tournament 3 due out in Q4.

But investment firm Credit Suisse has just revised their outlook for Midway. They now have a target price of $0 for the company (in case that wasn’t clear enough, they believe that it will go bust)

So if you really want to play Unreal Tournament 3, I’d hurry up and buy it.