Recent times have seen mainstream media report almost every day on the "global financial crisis", which inevitably has effects on the gaming industry in an indirect way. Last month, Shari Redstone, Chairwoman of Midway Games resigned from her position in what was speculated to be the sale of the Redstone family's significant stake in the company.

Today, it has been reported by the Wall Street Journal that Sumner Redstone of National Amusements Inc. has sold the the majority stake in the company for the bargain basement price of US$100,000, along with an estimated debt of US$70 million. The 87% stake in Midway was snapped up by a private investor, Mark Thomas.

National Amusements Inc. believed that the deal was financially beneficial, in light of major debts. The company currently has US$1.6 billion in debt, and the sale of a major stake in Midway, said to be worth US$30 million for the lowly sum of US$100,000 is a major tax loss for the company - a loss that is speculated to be in-excess of US$800 million.

While this deal occurred on Friday last week, which in the United States is known as "Black Friday", in part due to post Thanksgiving sales, the motivations of Thomas to take on Midway's massive debt of $US70 million is not known. On the other hand, the purchase of a historically significant video game company for such a small sum is positive in some respects.

Midway came to fame in 1992 when the iconic Mortal Kombat was first released to arcades. The game then made its way to multiple platforms, and the franchise persists to this day with the latest, Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe suffering from a poor reception amongst fans of the series.