Rights to Acclaim Games up for auction due to bankruptcy

[MarvinisaLunatic]

Auction

 

I'll assume that if you win the auction, you have the rights to do what you want with the games (re-release them or whatever), however I dont know how that would work for games like their WWF games and such...

[AndrewTS]

Red Star isn't on the list--hm, wonder if somebody bought the rights already.

[devo]

My God. For every halfway-decent game on that list, there's twenty complete pieces of crap.

 

No wonder they went bankrupt.

[Anya]

I want the rights to MK and MK II!

 

I don't think you could actually do anything with the older games though.

[AndrewTS]

My God. For every halfway-decent game on that list, there's twenty complete pieces of crap.

 

No wonder they went bankrupt.

 

But it took, like, 20 years for them to.

[BUTT]

You know, it's funny, they say that they're selling Acclaim's interest "if any" in the following games. So you could pay 5000 bucks for jack shit. Like, they're selling Double Dragon 2 and 3 for $5000, but I guarantee you couldn't do anything with those rights.

[Ced]

$5,000 for just one of the Olsen Twins game. What the hell?

[The Niggardly King]

All right, Legends Of Wrestling!

[spman]

What's worth the most is the original Acclaim Titles like Extreme G and Iggys Wreckin Balls, because those could still be repackaged and sold to idiots. Stuff like WWF and The Simpsons is worthless though, since you'd only own the rights to the specific NES, SNES, N6, etc. games in question, not for the specific license. So yeah, you own the rights to WWF Warzone for N64, and you can produce copies of WWF Warzone for N64 until you're blue in the face, but you couldn't sell copies of it on any other system besides N64.

 

I wonder if they're open to any offers? I would seriously like to inquire about bidding ont he rights to Total Recall for NES just for the sake of saying I own the total rights to one of the worst pieces of garbage of all time. I wouldn't pay anymore then a couple hundred for it though, and since all the bids so far are in the thousands, I'd probobly be SOL.

[jwpeer]

The real question is finding out what these rights entail. Like for bubble Bobble, Bust-a-Move, Double Dragon, Smash T.V., Wizards and Warriors those are all Acclaim properties, so does that include the ability to make future games with those properties.

 

 

Those are all decent licenes right there, so they could be worth it

[jwpeer]

What's worth the most is the original Acclaim Titles like Extreme G and Iggys Wreckin Balls, because those could still be repackaged and sold to idiots. Stuff like WWF and The Simpsons is worthless though, since you'd only own the rights to the specific NES, SNES, N6, etc. games in question, not for the specific license. So yeah, you own the rights to WWF Warzone for N64, and you can produce copies of WWF Warzone for N64 until you're blue in the face, but you couldn't sell copies of it on any other system besides N64.

 

 

You might be able to repackage the game for a different distribution depending on the terms of the license (PC/Emulation/XboxliveArcade). You could also potentially update the game as long as it remains the same gameplay. You'd really have to read the license...but those properties actually fully owned by other companies aren't the valuable ones. It's the ones acclaim developed themselves that could hold value.

[AndrewTS]

Like for bubble Bobble, Bust-a-Move, Double Dragon, Smash T.V., Wizards and Warriors those are all Acclaim properties, so does that include the ability to make future games with those properties.

 

Bubble Bobble/Bust a Move on the systems Acclaim published them for, sure. However, only Taito can make new games for that series.

 

Double Dragon--the property is owned by Million, who use Atlus as a publisher these days.

 

Smash TV is a Midway property. As you likely know, the Midway Arcade Treasures featured the arcade version of it, Paper Boy, the MKs, etc. The license/franchise never belonged to Acclaim.

 

So must of those rights are absolutely of no use to anybody, I believe.

[jwpeer]

Bubble Bobble/Bust a Move on the systems Acclaim published them for, sure. However, only Taito can make new games for that series.

 

Double Dragon--the property is owned by Million, who use Atlus as a publisher these days.

 

Smash TV is a Midway property. As you likely know, the Midway Arcade Treasures featured the arcade version of it, Paper Boy, the MKs, etc. The license/franchise never belonged to Acclaim.

 

So must of those rights are absolutely of no use to anybody, I believe.

 

 

Useless indeed, thanks for the info

[The Man in Blak]

Somebody has bid $5000 for the rights to Wetrix. Hilarious.

 

This may be a silly question, but does source code & development documentation fall under "rights and title" for these games? If so, even some of the lesser titles may have some worth for a technical school to pick up, use as examples of code from the industry.