Acclaim Reduces Staff, At What Cost?

Yesterday, Glen Cove, New York-based Acclaim Entertainment announced that they were cutting 15 percent of their workforce, eliminating 115 jobs. It seems that Turok: The Dinosaur Hunter, the N64 game that might have helped Acclaim's bottom line, didn't provide enough of a bump.

"Acclaim is positioning itself for future growth…We believe these measures will accomplish our goals while preserving the strength of our product release schedule and the integrity of our R&D environment," said Acclaim CEO Gregory Fischbach in a statement.

Many in the industry were led to believe that, with the success of Turok, the company could restructure without a loss of staff. But as yesterday's announcement demonstrated, one hit game won't solve everything. "Believe it or not, right now any layoff at a place like Acclaim is good news," said Jim Cooper, an analyst for DFC Intelligence. "It's belt-tightening, and that means someone is at the helm," he said.

The cuts could lead to not only a restructuring of Acclaim's operations, but also a different approach to how they produce games. "What this definitely means is a tipping of the scales away from publisher activity to developer activity," Cooper says. Acclaim has relationships with developers such as Probe, Sculptured Software, and Iguana. The latter company was responsible for Turok, and will most likely play a leading role in the future success of the company as a whole.

Acclaim's fate has been the source of much industry speculation for some time. The company hasn't had many blockbuster titles since they lost the Midway license - a pillar of their early success - a few years ago. In fact, they have yet to repeat the success of their simultaneous system launches of the first two Mortal Kombat games in 1994. With the exception of Turok, most of their releases over the past two years have met with a lukewarm reception from critics.

Acclaim has a few projects in the works for multiple console systems, including the Nintendo 64, such as NFL Quarterback Club '98, a racing game from Probe, and a title based on this summer's forthcoming Batman & Robin blockbuster. Acclaim is now producing fewer games than at any other time in the company's history.