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Getting Hard Boiled: Midway Chicago's Mike Bilder on Stranglehold
 
 
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Features
  Getting Hard Boiled: Midway Chicago's Mike Bilder on Stranglehold
by Brandon Sheffield
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October 31, 2007 Article Start Previous Page 5 of 5
 

It makes a lot of sense. You guys haven't done any Live Arcade stuff yet, have you? Out of Chicago. Is that anything you're looking into there?

MB: Midway has done a number of Live Arcade titles, but out of Chicago? I guess that's not entirely true. The Mortal Kombat Live Arcade SKU was partially produced out of Chicago. But as far as original content? It's certainly an interesting thing to us, and it's something that we've talked about. It's a matter of putting the right resources on it and finding the right economic model. So if those opportunities exist, we have the right people at the right time, and it costs the right amount of money, we'll certainly do it. But just as a gamer, I'm an enormous fan of Live Arcade, and there's a number of people in Chicago that are as well.

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When I think of Midway, that's one of the first things that comes to mind. Like, "They should be making Live Arcade games".

MB: Yeah, the whole gamerscore thing, and that replacement of the high score table in the old arcade games, it's great. And we're always looking at opportunities.

I mean a lot of older Midway games were really about score and machismo, and not a lot of other companies are tapped into that; they have respect, instead of points. I think points are still good. Gimme some points!

MB: To me it's a great forum to put a lot of old IP on, so you take some old arcade games, which we've done, we've put a lot of our old arcade games up on Live Arcade, but one of the things that really interested me recently was the whole Pac-Man Championship Edition.


Pac-Man, reinvented

Yeah, that was quite well done, wasn't it?

MB: Yeah, very well-executed, very true to the original game, but a new mechanic on it, a new take on it. It's something that a number of people within Midway are very intrigued by: how do we take some of our existing arcade IP and expand on it, and not just necessarily do a port, but turn it into something new as well. So, hoping that in the next year or so we'll find some opportunities to do that.

I hope so, too. I will definitely anticipate that. Is there anything else you'd like to mention about the Chicago studio right now?

MB: I guess since this has largely been about Stranglehold, just that it was an incredible effort by a large number of people in Chicago to realize this game and to see it through, and you always have to work hard for good things, right? And these guys have definitely put in the hours and put in the effort, and we're definitely excited by the end result. So I guess that would be some final comments on Chicago: we've got a great set of guys, we've got a great team, we've got a number of employees that live and breathe and would give their all for this kind of thing, and hopefully the success of Stranglehold will be a fruit of their labor.

 
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