Remember Acclaim Entertainment? There was a time when Acclaim was one of the biggest video game publishers in the world due to its work on the Mortal Kombat video games and its longstanding relationships with sports companies such as the NBA, NFL and the WWF, which saw Acclaim acting as the leading publisher for licensed video games based on these IPs. 

But Acclaim was much more than a video game publisher. Its continued success throughout the ‘90s led to a series of independent studio acquisitions and the creation of major video game IPs such as Turok and Extreme G, with retail sales for the first Turok game surpassing $60 million as it found success in Japan. However, Acclaim eventually ran into financial trouble as sales started to slow down in the early ‘00s, leading to a series of asset sell-offs.  The most notable of these was Throwback Entertainment acquiring more than 50 of Acclaim’s games, such as Extreme-G and Re-Volt in 2006, which have since been re-released on PC and other platforms. 

With that in mind, the announcement that Acclaim was being revived with the backing of major industry leaders sitting on its board (and professional wrestler Jeff Jarrett for good measure) came as a surprise, to say the very least. 

But what does the future look like for this new era of Acclaim, especially with the publisher no longer holding control of the biggest video game IPs that most people would associate with the company? 

According to a recent interview with GamesBeat, this is an all-new team with a focus on supporting indie developers and new IP at its core. “The new Acclaim is going to support indie developers and new original IP. It will provide all of the resources needed to bring their games to the widest possible audiences,” CEO Alex Josef told GamesBeat, with Acclaim providing resources to support the funding, marketing, and PR efforts of new indie IP. 

That said, Acclaim recognises the value of the legacy IP attached to its name from years ago, with GamesBeat stating “One of the key goals for the relaunched Acclaim is to resurrect and revitalize its beloved portfolio of classic IP enjoyed for years by millions of players.” 

Could this mean the reacquisition of some video game IP from companies such as Throwback Entertainment? We were curious to find out, so we sent some questions to Acclaim’s CEO Alex Josef, who provided more information on what to expect from the company moving forward. 

“First and foremost, Acclaim will be supporting indie developers and helping them bring their original IP to market,” Josef explained. “There is a huge void, right now especially, of publishing support for indies, and we want to do our part to fill that role.” 

When questioned about the process of revitalising its portfolio of classic IP, Josef responded with the following: 

“There will be an additional focus on identifying classic Acclaim IP that we can revitalize and introduce to a new audience of gamers. We have access to a significant amount of those titles, but it’s more about what we feel will be representative of the original game and also elevate the overall acclaim brand. There is a lot of opportunity, but it’s about being patient and selective.

“Our immediate objective will be to look at classic Acclaim IP and see how we may be able to match it with a title currently in development. Partnering with a talented developer who already had a great game in the works that could be elevated through attaching a cool, classic license is a much better option than taking a license and trying to start from scratch. 

Of course, with the majority of its IP now in the hands of other companies, that leaves the question of which classic IP Acclaim still owns. While Josef didn’t reveal details of the IP still in its portfolio, he did say the following: 

“We've secured a couple of options for licenses but aren't revealing specifics until we announce a potential game.”

And when asked about the process of reacquiring its IP from current holders, Josef said:

“It’s definitely a possibility if the opportunity presents itself. We have great relationships with the majority of Acclaim IP stakeholders.

Acclaim’s revival comes at a time when a growing number of video game IP holders are seeking licensing opportunities outside of the gaming space in wider entertainment sectors such as film and TV. Could we one day see a film or TV series based on Acclaim IP? For now, Acclaim’s focus is on video games first and foremost, but it comes down to “finding the right partner”, according to Acclaim’s spokesperson. 

“There are certainly titles that are a good fit for transmedia opportunities and we’re not limiting our options,” the spokesperson said. “It all comes down to finding the right partner and the right timing. As for Acclaim itself, the focus is on games first.” 

We’ll be keeping a close eye on Acclaim as it moves forward. Make sure you subscribe to the Licensing in Games newsletter for future updates!

How much Star Wars is too much Star Wars? We pondered this question back in Issue 24 of Licensing in Games after Zynga released Star Wars: Hunters, a new hero-based shooter for Nintendo Switch and mobile devices. Using data available from Sensor Tower, we explored whether this game would be different enough to find success in a market that’s growing increasingly saturated with not just live service titles, but Star Wars games too, with Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes already dominating the mobile market. 

Less than nine months later and we have our answer. On March 14th, Zynga announced the game is shutting down, with one final content update planned for April. After October 1st, 2025, servers for Star Wars: Hunters will be switched off and the game will no longer be playable, whether you own it on mobile or Nintendo Switch. The planned PC launch has also been cancelled. 

This announcement comes at a time when a growing number of developers and publishers are having to backstep on live-service plans or abandon them entirely. The biggest casualty of 2024 was Sony PlayStation’s Concord, which shut down less than two weeks after its launch and follows the cancellation of several unannounced live-service games from the company. 

One of the reasons live-service games are facing so many challenges right now is the battle to pull players away from the titles they’re already heavily invested in. Matthew Ball’s The State of Video Gaming 2025 Report found only 15% of total playtime on the PC marketplace Steam for 2024 was for games released that year. In 2023, only 6.5% of total playtime on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox games went to titles released in the same year. 

In short, convincing people to drop what they’re playing and check out your game is more difficult than it’s ever been. But it’s even more difficult for live-service games due to their free-to-play nature requiring a constant influx of in-game purchases. How do you convince players who have weeks of playtime in a game like Fortnite or Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes and have spent hundreds of dollars in its ecosystem to move over to a new game and start from scratch? 

Star Wars: Hunters didn’t get off to a bad start. While sales figures for the Nintendo Switch version of the game haven’t been made available, it climbed to a top position on the download charts for mobile at launch. Similarly, Sensor Tower data shows it made over $1 million on mobile in its launch month. While this might seem impressive, it’s a drop in the ocean compared to Galaxy of Heroes’ revenue, which made $6.6 million in the same month and continued to significantly outperform the game month on month. 

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While there’s a significant difference between the revenue made for Galaxy of Heroes and Star Wars Hunters, there’s less of a gap between the game’s daily active users. While Galaxy of Heroes is by far the most popular Star Wars game on mobile, Hunters was still averaging around two million daily active users every month. 

This suggests that while Star Wars Hunters was popular, its monetization model wasn’t enticing or aggressive enough to make the game sustainable. Hero-based shooters such as Star Wars Hunters often monetize through the sale of character skins and new character abilities, and you would assume that the Star Wars Galaxy has enough recognizable Jedi and Sith in its lineup to get players spending. 

However, the game faced criticism for its B-list line-up of Star Wars characters with not a Skywalker or Vader in sight at launch. This character line-up was justified by the devs as the game was canon, and was used as an opportunity to introduce new characters (and presumably reduce licensing complications), but even die-hard Star Wars fans might struggle to find the appeal in its 13-character roster.

With AAA Star Wars games such as Star Wars: Outlaws struggling to meet sales expectations and with 100 video game releases based on the IP, it might be time for Disney to be more selective with its licensing strategy.