Midway Buys Out Paradox Entertainment

Publisher Midway Games has announced the acquisition of yet another development studio, with California-based Paradox Entertainment becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the firm in a pure stock deal.

The firm, which is currently working on next year's iteration of Midway's Mortal Kombat franchise, has a history of console development stretching back to the Sega 32X platform - including work on the X-Men, Lion King and Wu-Tang Clan licenses.

However, they may be most familiar to gamers as the developers of the hugely controversial PlayStation beat 'em up Thrill Kill, which was never officially released but found its way onto the Internet regardless.

Midway has handed out 333,334 common shares for the privately held firm, with a further 291,906 shares being given to employees under restricted terms as retention incentives.

This makes the third studio which Midway has acquired so far this year; back in April the company bought Surreal Software, creators of The Suffering, while more recently Area 51 creators Inevitable Entertainment were purchased and turned into Midway Studios Austin, which is currently on a major recruitment drive.

"The Paradox teams' expertise in the fighting genre is an excellent fit with Midway's product strengths and will help us extend the Mortal Kombat franchise into the action-adventure genre," commented Midway CEO David Zucker, "and release a highly engaging title in the Mortal Kombat universe annually."