I’m 40 years old now, and I’ve been a gamer for as long as I can remember. Given that Acclaim was founded back in 1987, it’s fair to say they’re a brand I grew up with. They released many iconic games when I was growing up. They’ve worked with developers on publishing iconic franchises like Mortal Kombat, Burnout, Turok, Crazy Taxi, Smash TV, and Ecco the Dolphin.
Acclaim Reborn
But after two decades of nothingness, a team of industry veterans are joining forces again to bring back this iconic brand. With its incredible history of gaming in the 80’s and 90’s, it would be a fun name to see return to our screens. However, it’s easy to take the fame of the iconic brand name to push a new product, it’s not so easy to live up to such an impressive gaming legacy; hopefully, whatever they do, it will uphold a similar standard.
Acclaim looks set to do what publishers do, and provide resources, funding, marketing and support for independent studios. Acclaim has assembled an advisory board, with Russell Binder at Striker Entertainment, Mark Caplan at Ridge Partners and Jeff Jarrett at Global Force Entertainment.
“For more than three decades, I’ve had the privilege to have been a part of both the wrestling and gaming universes, and I’m thrilled to now be a partner in the revival of Acclaim, an iconic publisher known for releasing some of the most legendary games of the ’80s and ’90s,” said Jarrett. “From my early involvement with the publisher’s hit 16-bit WWF titles to my experience helping shape the TNA Wrestling series, which spawned the first video game wrestler to become a full-time roster member in the Squared Circle, I’ve seen firsthand the type of impact great games can have on players and fans. Resurrecting Acclaim is an opportunity to impart the same degree of passion and love to a new generation, and I’m excited to be involved.”
“It’s an absolute honor and pleasure to be leading the charge in bringing Acclaim back to the forefront of the games industry,” said Alex Josef, CEO, “We’re fortunate that we have an extremely talented team and that we’ve already signed some incredible indie titles, which we’ll be revealing soon.”
It’s great to see the iconic name return, with a strong team behind them, and hopefully soon some big projects to push too. There are a lot of big name publishers in the market today, but hopefully Accalim bring something new to the market other than just PR nonsense and pushing devs to include monetisation.
