Buy a Piece of Acclaim 328
An anonymous reader writes "Kotaku points to the official auction site for Acclaim, the game publisher that was. The Auction includes the building and everything that was in it, including arcade games, boardroom tables, an odd collection of football helmets and 43,000 copies of video games." Our previous story of their bankruptcy.
Accalim? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Accalim? (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously, spelling errors in story summaries are so damn common that they're practically part of the Slasdot experience, together with dupes, occasional fakes, "news" stories that are days, weeks or even months old, and editorial comments appended to summaries that are entirely inappropriate for what claims to be a news site (but is closer to a news-related meta-blog).
Re:Accalim? (Score:2)
I saw a dupe post today. (Score:3, Funny)
I saw a dupe post today. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I saw a dupe post today. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I saw a dupe post today. (Score:2)
Re:I saw a dupe post today. (Score:2)
Re:Accalim? (Score:2)
All the comments made to the second story (apart from the usual trolls) pointed out the ridiculousness of the situation. Eventually, the whole dupe and all the attached comments were erased, as if it never exist
Re:Accalim? (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a theory that there's a Peter Principle for whole business sectors, not just for people in organizations. Whole business sectors "rise to their level of incompetence", and the only reason they continue to exist is that everyone else is in the same boat. It would certainly explain why Ford is still in business ... ditto Martha Stewart OmniwhateverthefuckMedia.
Anyway, it's just a theory ...
Re:Accalim? (Score:2)
2. I don't get paid for this gig. The Slashdot editors do.
Re:Accalim? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Accalim? (Score:2)
did the employees get their stuff back? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:did the employees get their stuff back? (Score:3, Interesting)
We also had a few hours warning before the Federal Martials showed up so most people took their private things before the guys with guns arrived.
Re:did the employees get their stuff back? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:did the employees get their stuff back? (Score:2)
On the bright side, they can buy it back!
God, I hated Acclaim.
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Wiki de Ciencia Ficcion y Fantasia [uchile.cl]
How much for the CEO? (Score:3, Funny)
Perfect! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Perfect! (Score:2)
2.) Sell it on eBay as a geek collectible
3.) Profit
hmm... (Score:2, Funny)
THIRST FOR BLOOD (Score:2)
Football helmets... (Score:2)
Re:Football helmets... (Score:2)
And you call yourself a nerd...
Get out of slashdot! You do not belong here!
Well.. I guess you can stay... but be more forgiving of nerdly excess.
Re:Football helmets... (Score:2)
these are hockey helmets (Score:2)
Z
How to get rich quick. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:How to get rich quick. (Score:2)
If those 40,000 some odd copies of games could be sold, then maybe Acclaim might not have been in the trouble it was in.
Re:How to get rich quick. (Score:2)
Are they selling source code? (Score:2, Interesting)
That's something you don't see everyday.. (Score:2)
Best and worst games? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Best and worst games? (Score:2)
Today auction!! (Score:2)
And then tomorrow it all hits ebay and becomes ecrap!!
What I really want is the console devkits (Score:2, Interesting)
Melissa
Re:What I really want is the console devkits (Score:2)
You are not smart enough to use a devkit ... (Score:2)
Ah Acclaim... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ah Acclaim... (Score:2)
Re:Ah Acclaim... (Score:2)
Furniture for who????? (Score:3, Interesting)
Man some of that furniture is pretty damn nice. I wonder if the rank and file employees ever got to use any of it. Unfortunately after seeing reports like this:
Top Heavy Business Plan [geek.com]
I get the impression all that furniture was for the benefit of the suits. A lot of people complain about how all the dotcoms bought herman miller aeron chairs and stuff but at least the employees got to use them. These marble and cherry wood conference tables and leather chairs were just a colossal waste of money beyond even the dotcomers. It's no wonder they went under. In fact, it almost hints that somebody wanted the company to go under...
Re:Furniture for who????? (Score:2)
When you're lying to employees, begging for funding and begging the banks/investors to give you more time putting your audience in a comfy chair can help! :D
I do agree though. Some of the best lean and mean companies I've ever seen have crappy furniture in the conference room.
Re:Furniture for who????? (Score:2)
Speaking as a (voluntarily) former employee of one of Acclaim's regional competitors (and I'll leave you to figure out who that might be), I admit to being a bit shocked by their extravagance in the face of such financial difficulties. The company I worked for had no such pretensions and yet strangely enough is actually quite profitable.
We did have Aeron chairs, we had 21" LCD displays
Re:Furniture for who????? (Score:2)
They probably only auction these things in huge lots. So you'd probably have to buy 50 chairs for $5,000 or whatever it bids at.
Re:Furniture for who????? (Score:2)
Just like wearing a suit or a nice watch or
It's not just the boardroom though.... (Score:2)
Security of Selling Server Equipment (Score:4, Interesting)
What's the chance that they wiped the hard drives on them?
Everything from corporate email to source code could be there.
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If only EA could go tits up as well (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If only EA could go tits up as well (Score:2)
If nothing else (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
To quote one of their published games, (Score:5, Funny)
About freaking time (Score:2)
They've only been making crappy movie-spinoff games for like 10 years now.
Re:About freaking time (Score:2)
while you are at the auction... (Score:4, Interesting)
Having worked there... fairly recently... (Score:5, Funny)
That is, right after we karma whore by linking to it on Slashdot.
Re:Having worked there... fairly recently... (Score:5, Funny)
It's not the desk's fault. Buy Greg's ass instead.
THEY LIED TO ME!! oh and 500 bux to bid?? arg (Score:3, Informative)
During the Spring semester at my local Uni I saw a talk given by a few guys from acclaim and they acted as if the rumors of their going under were exaggerated.
I guess not!
I don't know why they were wasting time and money sending someone to talk to us if they were goind under.
Acclaim Austin's Stuff for sale in 2 weeks (Score:2, Informative)
http://users4.ev1.net/~flsughrue/li
Auction taking place in austin texas. Come on guys, buy some stuff, so I can get all the money they owed me from my last paycheck, vacation time, and employee stock purchase money they took outta my paycheck and deposited for the last few months I worked there.
Not that I'm bitter.
Re:Acclaim Austin's Stuff for sale in 2 weeks (Score:2)
It's a pity they'll only sell the really interesting bits (PS2 and NGC dev kits) to licensed games developers...
Game publisher that was? (Score:3)
More like the game publisher that never was
Possible to by source code? (Score:2, Interesting)
Since they are indeed classics, they should not be as expensive as blender, I guess. What do you think?
Re:Possible to by source code? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Possible to by source code? (Score:3, Insightful)
Quality aside, even if you can buy the IP you might be severely limited in what you can do with it, at least in terms of releasing the games. They may not own th erights to characters, etc; so releasing the games would require obtaining those rights as well.
Re:Possible to by source code? (Score:3, Interesting)
IP Assets? (Score:5, Interesting)
I *love* Re-Volt, and would love to see the source and graphics freed up to a community of modders and hackers....
-Roy
What I Want... (Score:2)
As a former stockholder... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Done in by the people who would buy this stuff (Score:2)
Re:Done in by the people who would buy this stuff (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Done in by the people who would buy this stuff (Score:2)
Re:Done in by the people who would buy this stuff (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, wait, its because their products fucking rock, and Acclaim's sucked ass.
They failed of their own accord.
You don't understand id's business (Score:2)
You don't understand id's business, it is not simply selling retail games. A big piece, maybe the biggest, of their business is licensing game engines. The games that id publishes are really proof-of-concepts, demos, for the engines. Consider why the games have such high system requirements: the people who license the engine won't be shipping their game for
Re:Done in by the people who would buy this stuff (Score:4, Interesting)
Face it, it was gonna happen anyway.
Re:Done in by the people who would buy this stuff (Score:2)
Most of the 'original' games are by 3rd Party developers (Rare, Criterion etc.) rather than in-house as well (did Acclaim even have an in-house?).
Truely this company did great things. My copy of Rise of the Robtots (Mega Drive, PAL) had[1] a nice Acclaim logo on it's spine as well...
[1] I didn'
Re:Done in by the people who would buy this stuff (Score:2)
(But I was born about 5 years too late, for the NES, and I lived in Europe where it didn't set the world alight anyway).
Re:Done in by the people who would buy this stuff (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Done in by the people who would buy this stuff (Score:2, Insightful)
You DO know there is a third option, right? "Try" out the game, and if it's good, buy it to show support for a good game.
"try" out the game? (Score:2)
If you want to try out a game, get the demo.
If there is no demo, see if you can play it at a store.
If none of the above, check online reviews (not from gaming sites, but on forums) to see whether other people think it's worth it.
If not - don't get it.
If so, and you believe you agree, buy the game. If it turns out you still think it sucks - tough luck; you get the same problem with going to the movies / eati
Re:Done in by the people who would buy this stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't agree with piracy (though, for a variety of personal reasons, I hate protection schemes that require the disk to play, or activation over the internet), but that is part of the business of computer software, like it or not. If Acclaim truly failed because of piracy, then it's due to them underestimating the extent of the piracy, or not taking proper precautions. There is no perfect solution to piracy, so any reasonable business plan must include its effects.
As far as treating the 'creators with the respect they deserve' do you also believe that video game companies should treat the creators with the respect they deserve? And what, pray tell, respect do these various creators deserve, exactly?
-Adam
Re:Done in by the people who would buy this stuff (Score:2)
And that's where the fallacy in your subject line is. It wasn't done in by the people who would buy this stuff, it was done in by the people who pirated their software. I'm no fan of copy protection, although I don't mind having to have the CD in the drive when you play, but if too many people use stolen, cracked copies, there's no profit
Re:Done in by the people who would buy this stuff (Score:2)
Second, ACCLAIM WAS NOT BANKRUPTED BY PIRACY. Acclaim went bankrupt because they spent lots of money on licenses, made barely average to horrible games based on licenses, and finally spent millions trying to market those bad games. They also wasted money trying to diversify (instead of, you know, spending money making better games?), failing miserably for example with their purchase of the Valiant comic
Re:Done in by the people who would buy this stuff (Score:2)
Blame the customer (Score:3, Insightful)
I noticed you talked about respecting the game maker, and then about cracks. Why would anyone need a crack, if the game maker respected their customers?
I've been a proud supporter of Epic Games with their releases UT, Unreal2, and UT2004, mostly because I trust them. They will come out with a good game, but it will also be non-intrusive.
I really like a game company with the Nokia "small share of big market is be
Re:Blame the customer (Score:2)
Sorry but you're blaming the wrong people here. Most game developers never even think about copy protection. That is something added by the publishers for the gold master. Worse, its usually something licenced from a 3rd party (Macrovision and their clones). Most of the time its just a knee-jerk "we've got to have it" kind of thing that they've been sold on by those 3rd party companies.
Re:Done in by the people who would buy this stuff (Score:2)
I don't see piracy "doing in" the movie, music, or software industry (all of whose revenues are UP despite all their yowling about piracy and alienation of their customers in futile efforts to prevent it.) What I DO see is a WHOLE lot of garbage coming out of the IP industries, along with a few gems. If I want to download something in order to try it out before I drop ($15 on a CD, ~$25 on a DVD, or ~$50 on a game), I reserve the right to do so. If I like it, I'll buy it. If I don't, I saved myself being ri
Re:Done in by the people who would buy this stuff (Score:2)
I said that the line "should be drawn" more toward allowing personal use, not that it currently -is- there. I'm well aware of the current regulations, and I advocate changing them.
Re:Done in by the people who would buy this stuff (Score:3, Funny)
there's no reason they wouldn't have survived if it wasn't for those dirty pirates.
Zero Sum Game (Score:2)
Re:Flamebait????!?!? (Score:2)
Not even! This poster tells the absolute truth. IF you play, you pay. Simple. This applies to music, movies, everything. If you play without paying, you're stealing. If you don't want to pay what they're asking then don't. No one is forcing you to. But for Pete's sake, don't go and steal it.
Re:Piracy Punchdown. (Score:2)
Re:Done in by the people who would buy this stuff (Score:2)
Moll.
Re:Try before you buy... (Score:2)
The last really good demo I remember was probably Diablo I. I downloaded it, I played it, I played it again, I went out and bought the game the day the retail ver
Re:Also check out: - DO NOT CHECK OUT h4xx! (Score:3, Insightful)
AVOID.
Mod Parent Down - h4xx Eats Browsers (Score:2)
-theGreater Helper.
Re:Servers... (Score:2)
This was a joke kids.
Startopia was impressive (Score:2)
Re:Acclaim - antiques? (Score:2)
Yes it's nice to have a cherry wood boardroom table, but only if you have the profits to justify the expense or you need it for your business.
Re:Oooooh (Score:2)
Still, keep in mind that there is a transition to new formats underway, so demand for VHS and 3/4" formats will be very low, since they're pretty much obsolete. I can't tell if any of that is beta SP or Digi-beta from the crappy low res pics, but it looks like 3/4 and VHS stuff to this semi-trained eye. The undetailed list says they
Re:Oooooh (Score:2)
I know where you cane get an entire sony DME9000 digibetacam editing suite for less than 25% cost.
older non linear stuff like the DME series hold their value at around 1/4 of the price. linear stuff like AVID and the other drop even faster cince they are PC based. we just bought a PC based AVID for only $4500.00 it's 4 years old and can not be upgraded to 11.x series of software and is very useable at the 10.x level of software. the expensive part was the special hardware and a completely useless