Acclaim Trustees To Sell Name, LicensesAcclaim Trustees To Sell Name, Licenses

Trustees for former video games publisher Acclaim Entertainment, which declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy last September, have reached a pending agreement to sell the right to the company’s name, according to reports from New York Newsday. Investment company Central Investment Holdings has agreed to buy the rights to the name for $100,000, although it is not clear what the company’s intentions are in using it. It is believed the former Activision executive Howard Marks, now CEO of financial services software company eMind, is involved in the deal. A separate deal with Crave Entertainment for $120,000 could also see that publisher obtaining the rights to Acclaim franchises Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX and the game ATV Quad Power Racing 2. Unless a higher offer is made for each of these assets, bidding will be closed within a few weeks. When the company filed bankruptcy in September 2004, Acclaim owed around $18 million to its primary creditor, GMAC Commercial Finance. The company’s Glen Cove, New York headquarters was sold for $8.75 million, the rights to the game Juiced were purchased by THQ for $10.5 million, the company’s comic book characters sold for $720,000, and the rights for four other unfinished games for $250,000. In addition, UK entity Fund4Games recently acquired the game-related assets of Acclaim Europe, including two titles which were in production at Acclaim's Manchester Studio. However, the state of the company's licensed titles at the time of its bankruptcy, including comic-based games The Red Star and 100 Bullets, is unknown, and it's currently presumed that these titles will not be resurrected.