Author Topic: Acclaim Games Publishing Rights Auction (Read 6765 times)

WindyMan · « **on:** December 05, 2005, 04:43:51 PM »

Yes, you too can obtain the publishing rights to the Mary Kate & Ashley game of your choice.

Remember Acclaim? One of the game industry's biggest publishers during the late 80s and early 90s went bankrupt last year, then was auctioned off and pretty much forgotten about.

Well, Acclaim still has some assets up for grabs. The publishing rights to over 200 games, some as old as 12 years old, are on the auctioning block. Old game titles from the likes of The Simpsons, Bust A Move, Double Dragon, Extreme-G, Re-Volt, and Smash TV will go to the highest bidder. The auction seems to only be for the rights to publish the original games, and not necessarily the licenses that go with them.

The results of this auction may be of interest for those looking forward to Nintendo's Virtual Console feature on the Revolution. Since Acclaim no longer exists, there's no way they can offer all of their old games for download. Whomever walks away as the winning bidder for the Double Dragon games, for instance, will be able to offer it and reap the profits it generates.

Notable offers as of the time of this report include $25,000 for Mr. Domino, $40,000 for the two Re-Volt games, and $75,000 for the four Extreme-G games. To see the rest of the games up for auction, click here.

Arbok · « **Reply #1 on:** December 05, 2005, 06:38:23 PM »

I hope the first, and best without question, of the Extreme-G games makes it on Rev's download service, as I liked that game quite a bit. Still, I can't imagine someone making a profit off of these through the Rev service, assuming the prices are close to the one for Mr. Domino, as how many downloads would it take to have to cover the initial cost of buying the publishing rights?

UncleBob · « **Reply #2 on:** December 05, 2005, 06:53:21 PM »

$7,500 seems really cheap for all those Simpsons titles...

WindyMan · « **Reply #3 on:** December 05, 2005, 07:14:44 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Arbok
I hope the first, and best without question, of the Extreme-G games makes it on Rev's download service, as I liked that game quite a bit. Still, I can't imagine someone making a profit off of these through the Rev service, assuming the prices are close to the one for Mr. Domino, as how many downloads would it take to have to cover the initial cost of buying the publishing rights?

Well, there are two N64 games. Assuming a reasonable $10 per N64 download, then it would take 7500 downloads, which isn't too unreasonable either.

If the publishing rights to those games also included the rights to the franchise, that's another story. I believe the licensing rights have already been sold off, though. I don't know to who.

ruby_onix · « **Reply #4 on:** December 06, 2005, 12:20:53 AM »

Surprisingly, I wouldn't pay $50 even to get the licencing rights to more than 50% of these games, let alone to buy them. Very sad. No wonder Acclaim is dead.

Aussie Ben PGC · « **Reply #5 on:** December 06, 2005, 12:52:37 AM »

Oh man, if I had $5,100, I would snap up the rights to Trog like THAT.

Oh, and Kwirk, as well. That game was awesome.

Infernal Monkey · « **Reply #6 on:** December 06, 2005, 01:54:21 AM »

Haha, Trog was awesome. Especially when there were random still screen angry faces or something in-between random levels.

Oh shi-Iggy's Wreckin' Balls.

KDR_11k · « **Reply #7 on:** December 06, 2005, 03:47:25 AM »

No Shadowman? That game was easily worth the Euro I paid!

KirbySStar · « **Reply #8 on:** December 06, 2005, 04:16:31 AM »

Smash TV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nephilim · « **Reply #9 on:** December 06, 2005, 04:40:20 AM »

hopefully noone buys forsaken

I was tricked into hiring it by 8-9/10 reviews in n64 mags, talk about over hyped poo

mukanjou · « **Reply #10 on:** December 06, 2005, 09:15:28 AM »

So if these are the publishing rights, what happened to the licenses? I'd love to see a new extreme-g, provided the license went to a good home.

joedick · « **Reply #11 on:** December 06, 2005, 09:53:05 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: UncleBob
$7,500 seems really cheap for all those Simpsons titles...

Yeah but nobody except (I think) EA would be allowed to do anything with them...

joeposh · « **Reply #12 on:** December 06, 2005, 11:47:49 AM »

Someone is getting away with murder on the Double Dragon Series too. Seriously if I had money to burn I'd snap up a few of these properties just so I could lease them out for compilations and online services.

animecyberrat · « **Reply #13 on:** December 08, 2005, 04:49:41 AM »

I contacted the agency that is holding the auction, heres what i found out. Each game has different rights, and they are only auctioning the righst accliam had. It would only be worth buying the rights to these games either for Rev Download service, or [possibly even Xbox Live Arcade, but most games dont have sequel rights. Also there is a minimum bid of 5,000 dollars per game, so it could be costly to get more than a couple games.

They still havent told me when the deadline is but if theres time me and some friends are looking into buying the NBA Jam rights, so we can offer those to Nintendo for Rev at a really cheap price and make sure it gets exclusive. Well we would do other thinsg with the righst but it depends soley on how much time they give us to get the money and when the auction ends. Also there is some question as to what exactly the righst accliam holds to the series but considering Midway no longer holds the copyriughts to NBA Jam and all the recent sequels have been Acclaim I think its safe to assume they have pretty extensive control over the property. This sort of explains why NBA Jam wasn't included on any of teh Midways Arcade Treasures titles which always had me confused.

I just hope that if we win the bid that its more than just the righst to the SNES/Genesis versions of those games. I would love to do an NBA Jam Arcade Edition or something like that, with updated features and interviews with teh creators. Also Besides the ability to offer these games for DL theres always compilation disks and those ever increasing TV Plug N Play games. Anyways Ill post more info as soon as I get it.

ThePerm · « **Reply #14 on:** December 08, 2005, 04:16:20 PM »

what if pgc created some vast pyapal account to buy the rights to a game

animecyberrat · « **Reply #15 on:** December 08, 2005, 04:58:12 PM »

I got more info about these games, according to the lawyers each game has different rights and some games are limited to the original consoles they were first published on, for instance Acclaim had righst to Mortal Kombat and MK II BUT only had the rights to publish them for consoles from 1992 to 1995 after that Midway revoked thier liscense and gave it to Sculptured and then Williams sold the rights to Midway once it became a seperate entity.

So far I have been unable to get info on NBA Jam but what my friendes and I were discussion was getting MK and NBA Jam and doing a two pack or something but as far as we can tell it only relates to the code Acclaim had access to and not the full arcade code, which Midway still owns, so as far as Rev or Xbox Arcade goes it could still work, but to publish the games as say GBA or Game Cube ports only Midway can do that. At least on MK NBA Jam may have been sold out right I dont know but I will keep checking.

Anyways it looks like some of these games will be lost forever as theres many that have no bids, I sure wish Nintendo would start making bids on some of these old classics because thatw ay not only would they go to Rev DL service but would be exclusive to it.

Arbok · « **Reply #16 on:** December 08, 2005, 05:16:16 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: animecyberrat
Anyways it looks like some of these games will be lost forever as theres many that have no bids, I sure wish Nintendo would start making bids on some of these old classics because thatw ay not only would they go to Rev DL service but would be exclusive to it.

Has anyone attempted to contact any branch of Ninteno about it? There is always the chance that they simply don't know about this, although more likely they don't see it as worth their effort.

animecyberrat · « **Reply #17 on:** December 09, 2005, 04:16:38 AM »

I sent them an email they havent replied yet but they usulay do within a couple days. I have good relations with a couple reps so I usualy get reliable info. I will post what they say when they reply.

animecyberrat · « **Reply #18 on:** December 10, 2005, 08:24:22 PM »

Ok I got my response from Nintendo today, they just basicaly said they were thankful for my pointing that to thier attention, and they would forward the info to the "appropriate" people. Then they sent a second email saying that they were looking further into the matter and to check thier news page for updates as they become available, not a confirmation but hopefull news anyways.

KDR_11k · « **Reply #19 on:** December 10, 2005, 10:33:56 PM »

In the Nintendo HQ:
"Hey, Turok! That's been a big seller on the N64, let's make it our new mature franchise the kids have been whining for!"

Arbok · « **Reply #20 on:** December 11, 2005, 11:05:22 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k
In the Nintendo HQ:
"Hey, Turok! That's been a big seller on the N64, let's make it our new mature franchise the kids have been whining for!"

I know it was just a joke, but was Turok even owned by Acclaim? Because the character originated in the comics ages ago:

UncleBob · « **Reply #21 on:** December 11, 2005, 05:10:37 PM »

errrr... I don't think Valiant even exists anymore (although I could be wrong...)

KDR_11k · « **Reply #22 on:** December 11, 2005, 08:41:37 PM »

I think Acclaim bought up the company who had the rights to Turok but T was sold off long before this auction here began.

By the way, is that a G3 he's holding on that cover?

vudu · « **Reply #23 on:** December 12, 2005, 08:20:53 AM »

Quote
I got more info about these games, according to the lawyers each game has different rights and some games are limited to the original consoles they were first published on, for instance Acclaim had righst to Mortal Kombat and MK II BUT only had the rights to publish them for consoles from 1992 to 1995 after that Midway revoked thier liscense and gave it to Sculptured and then Williams sold the rights to Midway once it became a seperate entity.

Am I reading this right? Acclaim is selling the rights to go back in time to between 1992 and 1993 and publish MK and MK II?

animecyberrat · « **Reply #24 on:** December 30, 2005, 06:32:19 AM »

damnint somebody beat me to it I was gonna get those MK rights!

Anyways I hope that whoever bought them actauly does something with it. I have been WAITING for somebody to make a PERFECT MK1 arcade port forever!

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Author Topic: Acclaim Games Publishing Rights Auction (Read 6765 times)