Directional Pad

Majesco Games Down (but apparently not) Out (for now)

IMPORTANT UPDATE - 24 JUL 2005 @ 11:35ET - The CGN guys screwed up, and confused Majesco with Hip Interactive. Majesco, despite their severely reduced earnings estimations, their massive $20 Million Operating Loss (which is only expected to rise), and the four pending class action lawsuits coming from their irate stockholders, is actually not filing for bankruptcy protection. This retraction does not change the fact that Majesco has been unbelievably mismanaged, and has allegedly repeatedly lied to their stockholders about their financial situation, which is why we practically expected to see an article along these lines crop up at any time.

And on that note, this story very well could come back at any time but for real. Explaining that "whoops, we don't have any money anymore, time to liquidate our assets and get new jobs" is generally a good way weasel out of being sued by all your stockholders.

Newest Source: CGN, who we will never again accept as our only source.

The original and mostly-incorrect article follows. . .

Last week we reported that despite optimistic earnings projections, the CEO of Majesco Games quit and their stocks dropped a good deal. Earlier this week the company's Stock-holders launched a class action lawsuit alleging that the company lied about it's projected earnings and failed to inform the stock-holders about the various delays holding back their GBA games (This could be an error though; It looks to me like it's their DS games that are delayed.)

This afternoon Majesco Games filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11. While this doesn't necessarily mean that Majesco is gone forever, it does mean that Majesco as we know it has had it. If they return it will mean they've been bought out and will be "Majesco" in name only.
There is no word yet on what will happen to their products that are already in the pipe. Specifically fans are worried about the European release of the outstanding, but often overlooked ,"Psychonauts", and the upcoming DS title "Nanostray".

The loss of Majesco has been met with sorrow from fans and creators of indy games (and by extension the more hopeful homebrewers), because Majesco was one of the few remaining publishers that was willing to take chances on titles that were truly different than the mainstream. Most publishers are reluctant to put money on something that isn't already a successful franchise, let alone a game that dares to be different.

Let's all hope Majesco's money problems don't further discourage other publishers from taking a chance on unique titles produced by small developers.

Sources: PR Newswire via Yahoo Finance and CGN

Update: Looks like the bankruptcy claim is being questioned since all current reports filter back to that one CGN article which has been conveniently lost in an untimely server move. If true, I expect some independent corroborating articles will surface by Monday. For the time being, we'll be marking this as Rumor Mill.

Oh, and apparently Nanostray shipped last Tuesday, it's just that in recent Majesco style, nowhere seems to actually have it yet.

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