Midway Games announces that they have secured publishing rights for a pair of
upcoming Unreal Tournament games as well as the upcoming Xbox exclusive Unreal
Championship:
CHICAGO – JUNE 28, 2004 - Midway Games Inc. (NYSE: MWY), a
leading developer and publisher of interactive entertainment software, today
announced a multi-year, multi-product agreement with Epic Games to publish three
new videogames based on the popular Unreal® franchise. The agreement marks
Midway's entrance into the premium PC games sector with a property that has sold
more than seven million units worldwide and generated nearly $200 million in
revenue at retail since the introduction of Unreal Tournament in 1999.
Under terms of the agreement, Midway obtains worldwide publishing rights for the
three Unreal titles from Epic, including Unreal Championship® 2, an Xbox®
exclusive title scheduled to ship in 2005, and two future installments of Unreal
Tournament® on PC and upcoming next generation consoles. Financial terms of the
transaction were not disclosed. Only Korean PC rights were excluded from the
deal.
"This relationship with Epic further bolsters the strength of our portfolio of
top-rated games and allows us to leverage the marketing capabilities of our
organization to take the Unreal franchise to an even broader audience of
gamers," said David Zucker, president and chief executive officer of Midway. "It
immediately establishes Midway as a leader in the PC games sector. Additionally,
Unreal Championship 2, scheduled for introduction in February, should further
extend Midway's growing track record for distributing top quality games. We are
delighted that Epic chose Midway over other publishers and we look forward to
working closely with the Epic team to carefully manage this valuable franchise."
"Midway gets it. They hit right at the heart of gamers. Not only did they create
many classics including Defender, NFL Blitz and Mortal Kombat, but they're
making great new games such as Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy, The Suffering,
NBA Ballers, NARC and Area 51. They make awesome games and don't apologize for
it, so we think games like Unreal Tournament will fit in perfectly here," said
Mark Rein, vice president and co-founder, Epic Games. "In our opinion Midway is
doing the industry's best marketing and promotional campaigns and they will
contribute strongly to the ongoing success of the Unreal franchise."