Acclaim Entertainment

Infobox Defunct Company
company_name = Acclaim Entertainment
company_
fate = Bankrupt (brand and logotype were purchased by Acclaim Games and are now used by this unrelated company)
successor = Acclaim Games
foundation = 1987
defunct = 2004
location = Glen Cove, New York,USA
industry = computer and video game industry
key_people = Gregory Fischbach: founder, co-chairman, CEO
products = video games, comic books
num_employees =
parent =
subsid = Iguana Entertainment, Sculptured Software, Valiant Comics

Acclaim Entertainment was an American video game developer and publisher. It developed, published, marketed and distributed interactive entertainment software for a variety of hardware platforms, including Sega's Mega Drive/Genesis, Saturn, Dreamcast, and Game Gear, Nintendo's NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, GameCube, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance, Sony's PlayStation and PlayStation 2, Microsoft's Xbox, and, to a lesser extent, personal computer systems and arcade games. It also released video games for the Sega Master System in Europe.

Since Acclaim Entertainment's 2004 demise, the Acclaim brand and logotype have been purchased and are now used by Acclaim Games.

History

Founded in 1987 as a Delaware corporation, Acclaim maintained operations in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Australia, and Japan. In its first years, Acclaim was exclusively a video game publisher, either farming out the creation of its video games to external developers or localizing existing video games from overseas. But as it grew, it purchased some independent studios, including Iguana Entertainment of Austin, Texas, and Sculptured Software of Salt Lake City, Utah.

The name of the company was picked because it had to be alphabetically above the co-founder's former place of employment, Activision, and also had to be alphabetically above Accolade (another company formed by ex-Activision employees). This was a common formula for picking names of new companies that were founded by ex-Activision employees (the founders of Activision used this formula when they left Atari).

Many of Acclaim's products were licensed titles, almost universally panned or ignored by critics: Games based on comics, television series (including wrestling shows) and movies. They were also responsible for the ports of many of Midway's arcade games in the early-to-mid 1990s, including the "Mortal Kombat" series. They also published some games from other companies that at the time of publishment didn't have an American branch, such as Technos Japan's "Double Dragon II" and Taito's "Bust-A-Move" series. Several games in the Acclaim catalog are frequently cited as among the worst of all time, a fact that has continued to earn it the derision of gamers and gaming media.

The waning of the arcade game industry, coupled with some poor sales and public enthusiasm from several key titles led to the eventual loss of many of their licenses. One result of this was their late refactoring of the Dave Mirra's Freestyle BMX series. Late into development, semi-nude, nude and Porn content (e.g., full motion video of strippers and nude female riders) was added in hopes of boosting sales. However, like most of their other contemporary titles, "BMX XXX" sold poorly and was derided for its trashy content and porn gameplay. Dave Mirra himself publicly disowned the game, stating that he was not involved in the decision to include nudity. To add to that, their arcade game "Batman Forever" had poor sales also due to poor gameplay.

A less significant aspect of Acclaim's business was the development and publication of strategy guides relating to their software products and the issuance of "special edition" comic magazines, via Acclaim Comics, to support the more lucrative brand names.

During Acclaim's decline towards bankruptcy, they made several infamous business and marketing decisions. One example was a promise to UK gamers that a £500 prize would be awarded to up to five winners who would name their baby "Turok", to promote the release of "Turok Evolution". Another was an attempt to buy advertising space on actual tombstones for a "Shadowman" game.

The company also had a history of shady dealings with its employees. Roughly two years after its 1995 acquisition of the Salt Lake City-based Sculptured Software, during which it offered Sculptured Software employees what looked like iron-clad contracts and stock that would be vested over the course of the contracts, it abruptly laid off about half the company, violating its own contract terms. The lay-off, however, came so abruptly that the employees had to choose between taking a reasonable severance package (whose terms altered several times during the initial weeks after the layoff) and not suing, or taking a number after a number of other creditors to sue and losing the severance package. (Personal communication from Paul G. Webb, a mid-level manager caught in the lay-off.) In 2007, one of numerous class action suits filed on behalf of stockholders was won, allowing some of these employees the chance at least to realize a return on some of the stock that had been vested. (http://www.sbclasslaw.com/settlements/Acclaim%20Entertainment%20-%20Notice.pdf). Named in this particular suit were founder and CEO Greg Fishbach, Edmond Sanctis, James Scoroposki and Gerard Agoglia.

Acclaim also suffered multiple lawsuits, a portion of them with former partners. Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen sued over unpaid royalties. Dave Mirra sued for fear of being associated with "BMX XXX". Another was from Acclaim's own investors, claiming that Acclaim management had published misleading financial reports.

Acclaim suffered severe financial problems in 2004 , the result of most of their video and computer game titles (like ) selling very poorly. This resulted in the closure of Acclaim Studios Cheltenham and Acclaim Studios Manchester in England and other places and their filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, leaving many employees unpaid. Amongst the titles under development at the UK studios were "Emergency Mayhem", and "Made Man".

On 1 September 2004, Acclaim filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of New York, which would virtually annihilate their company in liquidating all possible assets to pay off their enormous debt which reportedly tops USD$100 million.

An attempt to reopen the Cheltenham and Manchester studios (under the new name Exclaim) failed due to legal wrangling over IP, with both the US and UK administrators claiming rights.

In August 2005, former Activision executive Howard Marks purchased the name "Acclaim" for a reported $100,000. In the beginning of 2006, Marks formed a new company called Acclaim Games. According to a job listing for the company, Acclaim Games is aimed at the US and UK preteen multiplayer markets.

Valiant Comics

Valiant Comics stormed onto the market in the 1990s, selling more than 80 million books in its first five years. Its characters have seen print in numerous languages across the globe and have featured in best selling video games. The Valiant universe includes X-O Manowar, Shadowman, Quantum and Woody, Harbinger, Archer and Armstrong, Eternal Warrior, Bloodshot and Rai, along with Gold Key Comics' characters , and , among other original Valiant creations.

In June of 1994, Valiant Comics was sold to Acclaim Entertainment for $65 million. Acclaim renamed the line Acclaim Comics in 1996. Their primary motivation was to make the properties more suitable for use in video game development. This created notable video game successes out of the Shadowman & Turok properties.

Bankruptcy

In 2004, Acclaim filed for bankruptcy and shut down its offices.

In 2005, Acclaim's trustee auctioned off the rights for the original (non-Gold Key) Valiant characters as part of the bankruptcy proceedings. The characters auctioned included (but were not limited to) Archer & Armstrong, Armorines, Bloodshot, Doctor Tomorrow, Eternal Warrior, H.A.R.D. Corps, Harbinger, Ninjak, Quantum & Woody, Rai, Second Life of Dr. Mirage, Secret Weapons, Shadowman, Timewalker, Trinity Angels, Troublemakers and X-O Manowar. After a complicated and drawn out process that involved numerous parties, a group known as Valiant Entertainment were recognized as the new owners of the Valiant properties, despite not being the highest bidders, with a purchase price of approximately $1.5 million.

As of May 2006 [ [http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/turok/news.html?sid=6150247&mode=previews] ,] Disney Interactive (formerly known as Buena Vista Games) announced that it will publish a new game in the Turok series, which means Disney Interactive somehow acquired the rights to the Turok character. Turok was originally a Gold Key Comics character, which means he was not included in the deal mentioned above.

Acclaim's labels

*Acclaim
*LJN (used since the late '80s until 1994 for Nintendo's consoles, revived briefly in 2000)
*Flying Edge (distributed Acclaim's games for Sega's systems until 1994)
*Arena Entertainment (acquired from Mirrorsoft in 1991, they also distributed Acclaim's games for Sega's consoles until 1994)
*Acclaim Sports
*AKA Acclaim (Athletes Kick Ass)
*Club Acclaim

Game titles

ee also

*Acclaim Cheltenham
*Acclaim Studios Teesside

*Valiant Comics
*Turok
*Shadowman

References

External links

* [http://www.Acclaim.com/ Acclaim Games]
* [http://www.mobygames.com/company/acclaim-entertainment-inc MobyGames' entry on Acclaim Entertainment]
* [http://www.gamespot.com/news/6140923.html "Acclaim: back from the dead"] at GameSpot
* [http://www.gamespy.com/articles/545/545684p1.html "Top 10 Acclaim Games"] at GameSpy
* [http://extremesports.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3134385&did=34 1up.com's list of the ten worst titles published by Acclaim]
* [http://www.frictionlessinsight.com/archives/2004/08/acclaim-a-retro.html An employee's account of the late years at Acclaim]