Midway Studios San Diego (known as THQ San Diego from 2009 to 2012) was a game developer based in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. It was the successor to the

Leland Corporation The Leland Corporation was a manufacturer of several arcade video games in the 1980s and early 1990s. The company was formed when Tradewest purchased the ailing Cinematronics in 1987. Notable among these were Quarterback (1987) and John Elway's ...

and Cinematronics.

History

In 1994,

Midway Games Midway Games Inc., known previously as Midway Manufacturing and Bally Midway, and commonly known as simply Midway, was an American video game developer and publisher. Midway's franchises included ''Mortal Kombat'', ''Rampage (series), Rampage'' ...

parent WMS Industries bought the Texas-based game publisher

Tradewest Tradewest was an American video game company based in Corsicana, Texas that produced numerous games in the 1980s and early 1990s. The company was the publisher of the '' Battletoads'' and '' Double Dragon'' series in North America and the PAL regi ...

and its San Diego-based subsidiary studio

to expand into home console publishing. Tradewest became known briefly as Williams Entertainment before being renamed Midway Home Entertainment in 1996; the San Diego studio was renamed Midway Studios San Diego. The two offices were combined in 2001. In addition to original games, Midway San Diego developed home-console versions of arcade games produced by sibling studios Midway Studios Chicago (the original Midway Manufacturing Company), and Midway Games West, the former

Atari Games Atari Games Corporation, known as Midway Games West Inc. after 1999, was an American producer of Arcade game, arcade Video game, games. It was formed in 1985 when the coin-operated Arcade game, arcade game division of Atari, Inc. was transfered ...

, the arcade division of the original Atari Inc., which Midway acquired in 1996 and was closed in 2004. On July 10, 2009, Midway confirmed all their remaining assets would be sold off to

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (WBIE; also known as Warner Bros. Games or WB Games) is an American video game publisher based in Burbank, California, and part of the newly-formed Global Streaming and Interactive Entertainment unit of ...

. Midway Studios San Diego however was not included and would be closed down. On August 9, THQ announced they had acquired the studio from Midway for $200,000. The sale of the studio included all assets, except for the TNA franchise which went to

SouthPeak Games SouthPeak Interactive Corporation, doing business as SouthPeak Games, was an American video game publisher based in Midlothian, Virginia. Founded on March 1, 1996, as a subsidiary of SAS Institute in Cary, North Carolina, it was sold and moved t ...

. (THQ San Diego would keep the source code for the original 2008 game.) The first game the developer released under the new name was the game ''

WWE All Stars ''WWE All Stars'' is a professional wrestling video game published by THQ and developed by THQ San Diego for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 systems and Subdued Software for the PlayStation Portable, Wii, Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation 2 systems. ...

''. THQ would later make them the main developer for future

UFC The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is an American mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion company based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned and operated by Zuffa, a wholly owned subsidiary of Endeavor Group Holdings. It is the largest MMA ...

licensed games, but it on June 4, 2012, THQ announced that not only that the UFC license would be sold to

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the d ...

, but they would also close THQ San Diego. Each of its assets were sold individually, such as the WWE license going to

Take-Two Interactive Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in New York City and founded by Ryan Brant in September 1993. The company owns two major publishing labels, Rockstar Games and 2K, which operate internal g ...

and the

Darksiders ''Darksiders'' is a hack and slash action-adventure video game franchise created by Vigil Games, now developed by Gunfire Games, which consists of some of the original members of Vigil. The series is set on a post-apocalyptic Earth, where mank ...

license going to

Nordic Games GmbH THQ Nordic GmbH (formerly Nordic Games GmbH) is an Austrian video game publisher based in Vienna. Formed in 2011, it is a publishing subsidiary of Embracer Group. Originally named Nordic Games, as was the parent company, both companies were re ...

. Nordic would later buy the THQ name and become

THQ Nordic THQ Nordic GmbH (formerly Nordic Games GmbH) is an Austrian video game publisher based in Vienna. Formed in 2011, it is a publishing subsidiary of Embracer Group. Originally named Nordic Games, as was the parent company, both companies were re ...

, but the San Diego studio remained closed.

Games

References

{{THQ THQ Midway Games Video game companies established in 1997 Video game companies disestablished in 2012 Companies based in San Diego Defunct video game companies of the United States Video game development companies Defunct companies based in California 1997 establishments in California 2012 disestablishments in California