Talk:Midway Games/Archives/2015

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If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

I added fair use rationales for all three logo images. SteveBaker (talk) 20:40, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

http://kotaku.com/370220/midway-boss-resigns-board-makes-booty-call

--68.209.227.3 (talk) 22:53, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

From early 1982, I still remember some - even though few - Bally Midway games for the C64. Were these released directly by BM or were they only the copyright holder? Not quite sure, hence no edit. -andy 85.179.223.255 (talk) 23:44, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

why isn't there any information of the countertop touchmasters? --codebreak (talk) 02:29, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I was one of the ones fired today. There were exactly 85 people let go - mostly artists and designers - all working on a single unnamed title. The Austin studio is NOT being shut down. 24.27.6.132 (talk) 04:26, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Somebody should add information on this: http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/12/01/midway-sold-pennies-dollar#comments

This was removed because Midway is in Chapter 11, which allows them to continue operating and reorganize, as opposed to Chapter 7 which would see them cease operations and liquidate assets. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.107.68.50 (talk) 20:41, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I also changed the opening paragraph to incorporate Chapter 11 Tubularbells1993 (talk) 18:04, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Little Birdy (more specifically [1]) told me that the MK development team has been looking to break away from Midway. Perhaps the title of this discussion is misleading as the article I pointed out readily admits that if the team leaves, the MK franchise might only be down a few key people and it might not go with them, which may mean it will cease soon. Keep in mind, however, that more news is to come as this is a fairly new development and anything can change, or they can reach a mutual agreement with Midway and stay there.

Should this be touched upon in the article? Until someone can tell me why not I will add it. Tubularbells1993 (talk) 16:33, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

On second thought I will wait until I get approval. Tubularbells1993 (talk) 16:40, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Its still a rumor so I think we should leave it out, anyone else find it weird how Kotaku was the only major publication to be contacted about such things? --Elven6 (talk) 15:56, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Can we clean up the studios section a bit to differentiate between those studios that were shutdown and those that are still around? --Elven6 (talk) 15:55, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Midway Games has sold most of its assets to Warner Bros., but Warner Bros has no ownership interest in Midway. Midway continues to operate as a Debtor in possession under the protection of the bankruptcy laws. Information about the assets that Warner Brothers purchased belongs in the Warner Bros. article, not here. -- Ssilvers (talk) 23:19, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Midway still has separate stockholders and is currently in Bankruptcy. See, Midway's SEC filing: here that explains that Mark Thomas has given the bankruptcy trustees a proxy to vote his majority stock interest in the company. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:52, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Midway still exists and is a

I agree with Tim riley above. The lead is fine as it is for an article of this length. Jack1956 (talk) 11:33, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I reviewed the Lead section carefully and tried to streamline it. All the information in it now seems essential. It gives a very brief summary of the company's history and products, states the key facts regarding its unfortunate losses, acquisition by Redstone, eventual failure and curious sale to Mark Thomas, and summarizes the most important events connected with its bankruptcy and liquidation proceedings, including the lawsuit against the Redstones. All of these are given in much greater detail in the body of the article. After a few years, I think that the last two paragraphs of the Lead could be consolidated more, as the post-bankruptcy events fade into the past. If anyone thinks that there is any information in the LEAD that is currently not needed, please discuss it here. Thanks! -- Ssilvers (talk) 14:38, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I have rarely seen a Wikipedia summary that long. Not even Walmart has a summary that long. More than half of the summary emphazises of the company's financial problems over the last 10 years. This is disproportiate and not right. What about the other 40 years? I'm not saying my version is the perfect way. But there is definately something wrong with the other version which talk more about the financial problems than anything else. Compare it to summaries of other Wikipedia article and you'll see it doesn't make sense. Farine (talk) 14:56, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Readers need to know how and why the company failed. Many readers will be most interested in what happened to Mortal Kombat. I also note that your summary introduces unreferenced facts (last game and irrelevant info re: website). As I said above, in a few years, some of the details of the failure and bankruptcy will become less important, and it can be consolidated then, but I believe that the details are important now. You are now clearly editing against the consensus here, so I suggest you stop. -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:07, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

As I said earlier, the lead is fine as it is and should remain in full. This information is of interest to readers. I agree with the comments of Ssilvers entirely. Jack1956 (talk) 15:10, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Do as you want. It's not like I will be able to change your minds anyway. But I rightfully think, there should have been a better balance between the pre-2000 history and the post-2000 history on the summary. Farine (talk) 15:14, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid I disagree (and agree with Farine): the lead is simply much too long. Have a look at almost any other article, certainly any good or featured article, and the lead is usually no more than half the length of this one. The reason is it contains far too much detail, where it should only be summarising the article. In particular it contains far too much, over two paragraphs, on the last few months of the company's existence and the aftermath of its closure. This should be reduced to a sentence as it's covered elsewhere, then the rest of the lead rebalanced.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 15:31, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I have now streamlined the lead as much as I can. As I said above, readers need to know how and why this once-successful company failed, which requires, per

Midway failed as it ran out of money: it lost money year after year and after a few years Mr Redstone decided to stop covering its losses. The sale of shares to Mr Thomas was done for tax reasons; it made it inevitable the company would fail, but the actual cause was Mr Redstone stopping bankrolling it. And everything after mid 2009 is just what normally happens when a company closes: the courts decide who gets what. But the company as most people understand it stopped existing, except where it was sold as a going concern.

More generally the lead is meant to summarise the article, not go into great detail on any one area. The lead is still overlong, and focusses too much on the events since 2008. What goes into articles is not determined by how recent it is, as per

Notability is not temporary, so if something is only marginally notable in a few years it is as marginally notable now.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds

20:50, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The lede is indeed too long - but the information it contains belongs in the article somewhere. I reverted the deletion of that information - not because I like the super-L-O-N-G lede but because the information needs to stay in the article until such time as it gets the re-org it needs. We should extract out the couple of sentences that summarize the whole article, then move the rest into an appropriately named section further down the article. I support this kind of re-org. I don't support deleting the information. If there are issues of recentism then the correct fix is to write more about the old Midway in order to create a balance - and not to simply delete useful new information just because nobody wrote any older info. SteveBaker (talk) 21:23, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Nobody ever said anything about deleting useful informations off the article. Just restricting them to the body article because they don't belongs (or no longer belongs) in the summary. Midway has the strangest summary I have ever seen on any Wikipedia article since my arrival in 2005. As a matter of fact, I don't even think we can call it a summary anymore. That supposedly "summary" is a just the body article rewritten with different wording by Ssilvers and trying to pass for a "summary".

All of the information that I had "deleted" on the summary was already on the body of the article. If readers want to "know how and why this once-successful company failed" as Ssilvers is suggesting, they can always go to the body of the article. But in the summary, one or two sentences can summarize it all.Farine (talk) 21:50, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. First of all, everything in the summary is, indeed, in the body, as required by

.Midway Games, Inc. is an American video game publisher currently in liquidation following a bankruptcy filing in 2009.

Sure. We need to say, as the current Lead does, that the company is inactive - it could be a Debtor in Possession, but it no longer is. Plus, a paragraph is not supposed to be only one line long. - Ss

The company's predecessor was founded in 1958 as Midway Manufacturing, an amusement game manufacturer. Midway was purchased and re-incorporated in 1988 by

WMS Industries Inc.. After many years as a leader in the arcade segment, Midway moved into the growing home video game market beginning in 1996, the same year that it made its initial public offering

of stock. In 1998, it became an independent public company.

This doesn't tell when the company moved into the interactive entertainment industry (or define that term as required by

WP:LEAD

, so we need the current sentences that "The company scored its first hit with the U.S. distribution of Space Invaders in 1978" and "Midway was ranked as the fourth largest-selling video game publisher in 2000". The spin-off should be mentioned, to explain how it became an "independent" public company. - Ss

Midway's titles included

Gauntlet and the Rush series

.

Good, except do not use the plu-perfect (delete the word "had").

I'm sorry, I disagree. You need the last two paragraphs. -- Ssilvers (talk) 23:07, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I also notice that you did agree with this version according to your edit dating on March 26, 2011 because you've reverted your own edits to this version of the summary that day. It's when I've added the content about the company's website yesterday that you've decided to bring back that super long non-sensical "summary".

That was an error. After your edit yesterday, I looked again and realized that I had edited the wrong version in one edit, so I fixed it. -- Ssilvers (talk) 23:08, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Note that although I'm criticizing a lot about the article's long summary, the main problem is not that it's long but rather that all of the info about the financial problems can easily be summarized in no more than two sentences. Michael Jackson and United States also have super long summaries. But their summaries contains the essential informations without much possibility to make their summaries shorter. Such is not case with Midway Games where 75% of the summary talks about financial issues which can be easily summarized in one or two phrases.Farine (talk) 22:52, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

It is no longer the case (if it ever was) that 75% of the summary is about the financial (and bankruptcy) issues. It will not help us to reach an agreement here for you to exaggerate. I have tried very hard today to streamline the last two paragraphs to respond to your comments. Now we have three lines on 1958 to 1988, three lines on 1988 to 2000, and two lines on the products. Then we have only four lines on 2000 to 2009. Then we have 5 lines on the bankruptcy, the sale of the assets, the lawsuits, the Plan of Liquidation and the termination of the public registration. I disagree that the last 2 paragraphs can be easily or adequately summarized in one or two phrases. Now that I have streamlined the language, why don't you look at it again and explain which phrases or words in the current version you still don't think are necessary. Thanks. -- Ssilvers (talk) 23:13, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Well it's an improvement. But it still remains very odd when you compare it to the typical summary in Wikipedia. I don't think there's another video game company that has a summary that lengthy. Not even Nintendo and Electronic Arts have summaries like Midway does.

I'll take a better look at it later on and let you know which phrases should be removed or consolidated. Farine (talk) 01:28, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

More Leads of comparable length that I know of from FAs and GAs: The Beatles: Rock Band, Tower of London, School for Creative and Performing Arts, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Dungeons & Dragons and Wicked (musical). -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:27, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I never said you won't find on Wikipedia a summary as long as Midway's. I'm just saying that in the case of Midway, this isn't necessary. You asked me which sentences I think it's uneccesary so here they are. The sentences below in bold are the sentences that I believe should either be deleted or moved into the body if they're not already there. Or if you don't want to remove them from the summary, try making them at least a little shorter.

""Midway Games, Inc. is an American video game publisher. Following a bankruptcy filing in 2009, it is no longer active and is in the process of liquidating all of its assets. Midway's titles included Mortal Kombat, Ms.Pac-Man, Spy Hunter, Tron, Rampage and NBA Jam. Midway also acquired the rights to video games that were originally developed by Williams Electronics and Atari Games, such as Defender, Joust, Robotron 2084, Gauntlet and the Rush series.

The company's predecessor was founded in 1958 as Midway Manufacturing, an amusement game manufacturer. In 1973 it moved into the interactive entertainment industry, developing and publishing arcade video games. The company scored its first hit with the U.S. distribution of Space Invaders in 1978. Midway was purchased and re-incorporated in 1988 by WMS Industries Inc. After many years as a leader in the arcade segment, Midway moved into the growing home video game market beginning in 1996, the same year that it made its initial public offering of stock. In 1998, WMS spun off its remaining shares of Midway. Midway was ranked as the fourth largest-selling video game publisher in 2000. [2] After 2000, Midway continued to develop and publish video games for home and handheld video game machines, but it experienced large annual net losses and engaged in a series of stock and debt offerings and other financings and borrowings. Sumner Redstone, the head of Viacom/CBS Corporation, increased his stake in Midway from about 15%, in 1998, to about 87% by the end of 2007.[3] In December 2008, Redstone sold all his stock to Mark Thomas, a private investor, for $100,000, who assumed $70 million of Midway debt.[4]

In February 2009, Midway Games filed in Delaware for bankruptcy.[5] Warner Bros. purchased most of Midway's assets (including Mortal Kombat), and Midway settled with Mark Thomas to relinquish his Midway stock.[6][7] The U.S. District Court in Chicago dismissed a lawsuit against former officers of Midway alleging that they had misled shareholders while selling their own stock.[8] In 2010, the bankruptcy court dismissed claims against Redstone in connection with his sale of the company to Thomas and approved Midway's plan of liquidation. Secured claims were paid, and unsecured creditors shared a total of about $35 million.[9] The company terminated the public registration of its securities in June 2010.[10]""132.204.185.203 (talk) 19:46, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I address each of these below.

Midway was ranked as the fourth largest-selling video game publisher in 2000.

This is necessary to establish the notability of the subject of the article, explaining to the reader the prominence of this company in the industry. There are lots of other metrics that we could give, but this is a very concise one.

WP:LEAD says: "The lead should ... explain why the subject is ... notable". I don't see how to shorten this sentence and still comply with the guideline. -- Ssilvers (talk

) 20:36, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Sumner Redstone, the head of Viacom/CBS Corporation, increased his stake in Midway from about 15%, in 1998, to about 87% by the end of 2007.

I think it is very important to tell the readers, up front, that this famous businessman bought the vast majority of company and to give the time frame. During the period that he was buying, the company continued to experience huge losses and at least two CEOs resigned. Redstone's participation convinced many in the market that Midway was viable and convinced fananciers to keep financing the company. Shareholders and bondholders lost probably a billion dollars during this time. It is of key importance to indentify Redstone from the get go.

WP:LEAD says: "The lead should ... establish context ... and summarize the most important points". I experimented with a couple of ways to shorten it, but none of them seemed better. Do you have a shorter way to get these concepts across adequately? -- Ssilvers (talk

) 20:36, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Even Redstone finally concluded that the company was unsalvageable. It is not hard to understand why he eventually sold (as someone noted above, his company received a big tax loss). What is interesting is that Mark Thomas came out of nowhere to receive this huge gift. It is frankly very suspicious on its face, and it is hard to understand how Redstone sold this deal to the IRS. We need to give the reader a preview of this in the Lead.

WP:LEAD says: "The lead should ... summarize the most important points—including any prominent controversies." Again, I think the info is not set forth about as concisely as it can be. -- Ssilvers (talk

) 20:36, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, I have shortened this more, and I also deleted the whole sentence about the creditors. So, once we have alluded to the fact that the company lost so much of the shareholders' and bondholders' money with the enthusiastic help of Redstone (and Thomas?), I think it is worth noting, up front, that both the officers and Redstone were sued, but that the suits failed (the Bankruptcy judge said that the whole thing stunk, but no fraud was proven) [Since I deleted the sentence about the creditors, we don't even note that the trade creditors got screwed]. The failure of Midway is an extraordinary story of corporate greed, where the officers and directors continued to pay themselves tens of millions of dollars while the company lost a billion dollars and then went bust, causing the remaining loyal stockholders and bondholders to lose their entire investments. We need to give this preview of the key facts in the Lead, as required by

WP:LEAD. -- Ssilvers (talk

) 20:59, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The end of the story is that the company de-registered in 2010. I did not think you disputed this sentence. Note that I also reorganized the first two paragraphs as I think you are suggesting. -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:36, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Please see the Manual of Style. Four paragraphs (as here) is par for the course. Tim riley (talk) 19:48, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Can you please give more explanation. Because I have no idea what you're talking about.Farine (talk) 19:58, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I really recommend you to read the Manual of Style. Anyone who has no idea about it really ought to think twice about attempting to edit Wikipedia. I put a link to it earlier on this page for anyone interested in Wikipedia's best practice. Tim riley (talk) 21:27, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Look buddy I've been on Wikipedia for 6 years and probably longer than than you. If I didn't know how to edit on Wikipedia, I would be gone a long time ago. So if it's for you to make these type of ill-conceived personal comments, I would suggest you to shut your trap because I don't want to hear about them.Farine (talk) 22:27, 7 April 2011

I can only repeat that I really recommend you to read the Manual of Style apropos of the point at issue. As I mentioned above, I put a link to it earlier on this page for anyone interested in Wikipedia's best practice. I overlook your contribution to my talk page, despite its tone. Tim riley (talk) 22:47, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, let's not argue; I think we are getting close to a solution that we can all live with. I have shortened the Lead quite a bit over the past few days, and I hope that this will be acceptable now. Thanks, everyone, for your patience. All the best! -- Ssilvers (talk) 23:07, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Midway games is pretty much inactive, so I feel that it should be considered defunct. Is it necessary for me to edit the article and add the successor (NetherRealm Studios) to Midway Chicago, or should I just leave the article the way it is? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.75.128.190 (talk) 18:03, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Midway was a very notable company - so it deserved (and still deserves) an article. However, NetherRealm has not (IMHO) reached the standard of notability to have an article of its' own - so if we have anything to say about it, it should probably remain a footnote to this article unless/until it does something sufficiently notable to warrant splitting it off into its' own article. SteveBaker (talk) 04:35, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

This article is correct as is, currently. I would leave it as is, unless you have a specific improvement to discuss. It is not yet fully dissolved, as a liquidation committee is still liquidating its remaining assets and pursuing lawsuits. -- Ssilvers (talk) 05:36, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

By the way, NetherRealm Studios is not the successor to Midway. It is a company that owns and operates some assets that were sold by Midway to Warner Brothers. Midway sold other assets to other companies. Since Midway still exists, it has no "successors". -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:26, 26 September 2011 (UTC)