Data East Declares Bankruptcy

Thanks to GameSpot for reporting the news that Japanese developer/publisher Data East has officially been declared bankrupt. According to the article, "Data East has been in financial trouble since 1999, when the company requested a settlement in the district court in order to reorganize its finances because of a 3.3 billion yen ($28 million) debt." The company was renowned for a massive backcatalog of '80s and '90s arcade and home games, including BurgerTime, Karate Champ, Karnov, and the brilliantly named Bad Dudes Vs. Dragon Ninja, as well as the addictive Magical Drop puzzle game series for Neo Geo and other consoles.

Comments

Re:Games?

[Scarblac]

Does this mean that Data East titles such as Heavy Barrel and Bad Dudes are now abandonware?

Sure, as long as you remember that that doesn't actually mean anything. So-called "abandonware" games aren't legal to download, they're just considered unlikely to cause legal trouble in the eyes of some people running a site.

The rights to these games will be bought by someone, and they get to decide what you can do - downloading them for free off some third party site isn't likely to be first on their list.