Acclaim Entertainment

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Acclaim Entertainment
Acclaim logo
Type defunct
Founded 1987
Headquarters Glen Cove, New York,USA
Key people Gregory Fischbach: founder, co-chairman, CEO
Industry computer and video game industry
Products computer games, video games
Subsidiaries Iguana Entertainment, Sculptured Software, Valiant Comics
Dissolved 2004

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 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.

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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 but as they grew, they purchased some independent studios, including Iguana Entertainment of Austin, Texas, and Sculptured Software of Salt Lake City, Utah

Many of Acclaim's products were licensed titles: 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 Rare's Wizards and Warriors, Technos Japan's Double Dragon II and Taito's Bust-A-Move series.

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, nude, and semi-nude 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 poor 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 pound 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.

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 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 will 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 will "be the first US major brand to bring some of the most successful online games in the world, specifically designed to meet the community and multiplayer experience that the 36 million U.S. tweens and the 41 million European tweens want."

On 7 July 2006, Throwback Entertainment announced that it had acquired over 150 Acclaim-published titles and vows to bring some into the next-generation.

Main article: Valiant Comics
Company logo
Company logo

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 characters are often called the most important of those created after the Marvel revolution in the 1960s (when Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four etc were created). 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 Magnus: Robot Fighter, and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, 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 runaway video game successes out of the Shadowman & Turok properties.

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 [1], it has been announced that Buena Vista Games will publish a new game in the Turok series, which means Buena Vista 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
  • 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

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