Midway Games
More info
- Released
- 1958–2009
- Type
- Arcade manufacturer, publisher
The Chicago-area manufacturer that brought Space Invaders and Pac-Man to America, then frightened the US Senate with Mortal Kombat.
Midway Manufacturing started in 1958 making pinball and coin-op amusements outside Chicago, and was bought by Bally in 1969. Its big break was licensing: Space Invaders from Taito and Pac-Man from Namco. Ms. Pac-Man (1981) began life as an unlicensed enhancement kit from General Computer Corporation, which Midway chose to buy rather than sue.
Under Williams, Midway became the home of NBA Jam and Mortal Kombat (1992), whose digitised gore helped prompt the 1993 Senate hearings that led to the ESRB rating system. Midway Games was spun off in 1998, went bankrupt in 2009, and Warner Bros. picked up the remains — Mortal Kombat included.