Midway gains rights to Unreal franchise
by Kit

Monday, August 2 2004

Three titles will be published by Midway under deal with Epic.

Midway Games 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."

--- Kit