Midway Games in the context of "Mortal Kombat (1995 film)"

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⭐ Core Definition: Midway Games

Midway Games Inc. (formerly Midway Manufacturing and Bally Midway, and commonly known simply as Midway) was an American video game company that existed from 1958 to 2010. Midway's franchises included Mortal Kombat, Rampage, Spy Hunter, NBA Jam, Cruis'n and NFL Blitz. Midway also acquired the rights to video games that were originally developed by WMS Industries and Atari Games, such as Defender, Joust, Robotron: 2084, Gauntlet and the Rush series.

The company was founded as Midway Manufacturing in 1958, as an amusement game manufacturer. The company was then purchased by Bally Manufacturing in 1969. In 1973, Midway moved into the interactive entertainment industry, developing and publishing arcade video games. The company scored its first mainstream hit with the U.S. distribution of Taito's Space Invaders in 1978, which it followed up by licensing Namco games such as Galaxian (1979), Pac-Man (1980), and Galaga (1981). Bally then consolidated its pinball division with Midway in 1982, which was renamed Bally Midway. In 1988, Bally Manufacturing sold its amusement games operations to WMS Industries, the former Williams Electronics, which used the plain Midway name for video games while using the Bally and Williams names for pinball.

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👉 Midway Games in the context of Mortal Kombat (1995 film)

Mortal Kombat is a 1995 American martial arts fantasy film based on the video game franchise by Ed Boon and John Tobias. It is the first installment in the Mortal Kombat film series. It was directed by Paul Anderson and stars Linden Ashby, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Robin Shou, Bridgette Wilson, Talisa Soto, and Christopher Lambert. The film follows a group of heroes who participate in the eponymous tournament to protect Earth from being conquered by malevolent forces. Its story primarily adapts the original 1992 game, while also using elements from the game Mortal Kombat II (1993).

Development of a Mortal Kombat film adaptation began shortly after the release of Mortal Kombat II when independent producer Lawrence Kasanoff acquired the rights from Midway Games. Newcomer director Anderson was hired based on the strength of his debut Shopping, with a screenplay written by Kevin Droney. Filming took place primarily in Thailand, with fight sequences supervised by Shou and Pat E. Johnson.

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Midway Games in the context of Mortal Kombat (1992 video game)

Mortal Kombat is a 1992 fighting game developed and published by Midway for arcades. It is the first main installment in the Mortal Kombat franchise, and was subsequently released by Acclaim Entertainment for nearly every home platform of the time. The game presents a martial arts tournament in which ten characters (including a choice of seven player characters) contend with the fate of Earth at stake. It introduced many key aspects of the Mortal Kombat series, including the unique five-button control scheme and gory finishing moves called Fatalities.

Mortal Kombat is considered by critics to be one of the greatest video games ever made. It spawned numerous sequels and spin-offs, beginning with Mortal Kombat II in 1993. Both games were the subject of a film adaptation in 1995. However, it also sparked much controversy for its depiction of extreme violence and gore using realistic digitized graphics and, along with the home releases of Night Trap and Lethal Enforcers, prompted the formation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), a U.S. government-backed organization that set descriptor ratings for video games.

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Midway Games in the context of List of Pac-Man video games

Pac-Man is a video game series and media franchise developed, published and owned by Bandai Namco Entertainment, a video game publisher that was previously known as Namco. Entries have been developed by a wide array of other video game companies, including Midway Games, Atari and Mass Media, Inc., and was created by Toru Iwatani. The first entry in the series was released in arcades in 1980 by Namco, and published by Midway Games in North America. Most Pac-Man games are maze chase games, but it has also delved into other genres, such as platformers, racing, and sports. Several games in the series were released for a multitude of home consoles and are included in many Bandai Namco video game compilations.

Pac-Man is one of the longest-running, best-selling, and highest-grossing video game franchises in history, and the game has seen regular releases for over 40 years, has sold nearly 48 million copies across all of the platforms, and has grossed over US$14 billion, most of which has been from the original arcade game. The character of Pac-Man is the official mascot of Bandai Namco, and is one of the most recognizable video game characters in history. The franchise has been seen as important and influential, and is often used as a representation for 1980s popular culture and video games as a whole.

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Midway Games in the context of Mortal Kombat

Mortal Kombat is an American media franchise centered on a series of fighting video games originally developed by Midway Games in 1992.

The original Mortal Kombat arcade game spawned a franchise consisting of action-adventure games, a comic book series, a card game, films, an animated TV series, and a live-action tour. Mortal Kombat has become the best-selling fighting game franchise worldwide with over 100 million copies and one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time.

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Midway Games in the context of Arch Rivals

Arch Rivals is a 1989 basketball video game developed and published by Bally Midway for arcades. Billed as "A Basket Brawl", the game features two-on-two full court basketball games in which players are encouraged to punch opposing players and steal the ball from them. Arch Rivals was the second basketball video game released by Midway, sixteen years after TV Basketball (1974). Home versions of the game were released for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Genesis/Mega Drive, and Game Gear.

Arch Rivals allows players to select from a variety of fictional teams (although arcade operators can change the team names to reflect real ones) and players. One playable character, "Tyrone" was also featured in the animated The Power Team segments of the television series Video Power. In turn, the game has been considered a forerunner to Midway's popular arcade basketball game, NBA Jam. Emulated versions of Arch Rivals are included in the compilations Midway Arcade Treasures 2, Midway Arcade Treasures Deluxe Edition, and Midway Arcade Origins.

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Midway Games in the context of Gun Fight

Gun Fight, known as Western Gun in Japan and Europe, is a 1975 multidirectional shooter arcade video game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, and released by Taito in Japan and Europe and by Midway in North America. Based around two Old West cowboys armed with revolvers and squaring off in a duel, it was the first video game to depict human-to-human combat. The Midway version was also the first video game to use a microprocessor instead of TTL. The game's concept was adapted from Sega's 1969 arcade electro-mechanical game Gun Fight.

The game was a global commercial success. In Japan, Western Gun was among the top ten highest-grossing arcade video games of 1976. In the United States, Gun Fight sold 8,600 arcade cabinets and was the third highest-grossing arcade game of 1975, second highest-grossing arcade game of 1976 and fifth highest arcade game of 1977.

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Midway Games in the context of Mortal Kombat II

Mortal Kombat II is a 1993 fighting game developed and published by Midway for arcades. It was later ported to multiple home systems, including MS-DOS, Amiga, Game Boy, Game Gear, Sega Genesis, 32X, Sega Saturn, Super NES, and PlayStation, by Probe Software (later renamed to Probe Entertainment for some ports of the game) and Sculptured Software, and published by Acclaim Entertainment.

Mortal Kombat II is the second main installment in the Mortal Kombat franchise, and a sequel to 1992's Mortal Kombat. It improves the gameplay and expands the mythos of its predecessor while introducing more varied finishing moves (including several Fatalities per character and new finishers, such as Babality and Friendship) and several new characters such as Kitana, Mileena, Kung Lao, the hidden character Noob Saibot, and the series' recurring villain, Shao Kahn. The game's plot continues from the first game, featuring the next Mortal Kombat tournament set in the otherdimensional realm of Outworld, with the Outworld and Earthrealm representatives fighting each other on their way to challenge Shao Kahn.

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Midway Games in the context of Atari, Inc. v. North American Philips Consumer Electronics Corp.

Atari, Inc. v. North American Philips Consumer Electronics Corp., 672 F.2d 607 (7th Cir. 1982), is one of the first legal cases applying copyright law to video games, barring sales of the game K.C. Munchkin! for its similarities to Pac-Man. Atari had licensed the commercially successful arcade game Pac-Man from Namco and Midway, to produce a version for their Atari 2600 console. Around the same time, Philips created Munchkin as a similar maze-chase game, leading Atari to sue them for copyright infringement.

Relevant copyright case law was limited at the time, disputing whether video game graphics even qualified as fixed audiovisual works, as seen in traditional games. Courts were consistently finding for plaintiffs, that games qualified for copyright protection, both as audiovisual works and for their underlying code. However, Atari Inc. v. Amusement World was a leading case where courts decided for the defendant, based on the idea-expression distinction that copyright cannot protect the idea for a game, only the game's unique expression.

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Midway Games in the context of Atari

Atari (/əˈtɑːri/) is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French holding company Atari SA (formerly Infogrames) and its focus is on "video games, consumer hardware, licensing and blockchain". The original Atari, Inc., founded in Sunnyvale, California, United States in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, was a pioneer in arcade games, home video game consoles, and home computers. The company's products, such as Pong and the Atari 2600, helped define the electronic entertainment industry from the 1970s to the mid-1980s.

In 1984, as a result of the video game crash of 1983, the assets of the home console and computer divisions of the original Atari Inc. were sold off to Jack Tramiel's Tramel Technology Ltd., which then renamed itself to Atari Corporation, while the remaining part of Atari, Inc. was renamed Atari Games Inc. In early 1985, Warner established a new corporation jointly with Namco subsequently named Atari Games Corporation, which took control of Atari's coin-operated games division. The rights to Atari, Inc.'s game properties were shared between the two companies: Atari Corporation receiving the trademarks and the home rights, while Atari Games receiving the rights to use the logo and brand name with appended text "Games" on arcade products. In 1996, Atari Corporation reverse-merged with disk-drive manufacturer JT Storage (JTS) and effectively perished. In 1998, Hasbro Interactive, part of the toy company Hasbro, acquired all Atari Corporation–related properties from JTS, as part of a subsidiary which it then renamed to Atari Interactive. Meanwhile, Atari Games was acquired by Midway Games in 1996, and effectively retired the Atari name on arcades by 2000 to avoid public confusion with Hasbro's Atari home releases.

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