Acclaim CEO Howard Marks Speaks Out

If you’ve had that nagging feeling that Acclaim was going online in a big way, we can’t blame you. Not with their new lineup: the martial-arts themed 9Dragons, the robot battles of BOTS, and the newly-announced 2Moons. And it’s a deliberate redirection, with CEO Howard Marks at the helm. OGaming sat down with Marks to talk about his vision for Acclaim reborn, his strategies to carve out the company’s place in the online market, and the future of the gaming industry.

It was that future of the gaming industry that got Marks back into the game. Old hands in the industry will recognize Marks as the CEO of Activision through much of the 1990’s, and who helped turn that brand’s fortunes around. He retired in 1998 to pursue other (non-gaming) interests, until he read in a newspaper article that the bankrupt Acclaim was looking for a buyer. After sealing the deal Marks set about to reinvent Acclaim into an online publishing company, and ultimately a development company.

I firmly believe that we are seeing the tip of the iceberg and that online games will rule this industry within 5 years. People want community and they want to play with others. The concept of single player games will be relegated in history as a minor event.

When asked why he didn’t start a company of his own instead, Marks had this to say: “I believe that brands are critical to success in the games field. Players remember the games they have enjoyed and associate the brand with that experience.” He also said the same thing when he and his partners bought Activision back in 1991, and he thinks the mantra didn’t fail him there. He is, however, not going to be resurrecting or spinning off any familiar Acclaim titles. “We have expressively chosen to not be in the sequel business. We think players want creative and original products offered as online games.”

One key strategy in Marks’ playbook is using advertising to support free play services. The idea is to tie in advertisements appropriate to game environment. This is a strategy slowly being adopted across the industry, not only in gaming, but wherever free services are offered – for example, YouTube or SpiralFrog. Marks also emphasized publishing MMO games that reach out to the casual gamer, the mainstream market (and, by implication, not restricting themselves to a single niche or genre, such as RPGs).

For now, Acclaim is content to publish MMO titles from other developers. Marks has plans to take Acclaim back into the game development business in the future by setting up in-house development MMO studios. “Our games share a common trait: They are built by passionate developers who love playing games. They are committed to quality and to providing the best experience a game player can have online.”

If you’ve had that nagging feeling that Acclaim was going online in a big way, we can’t blame you. Not with their new lineup: the martial-arts themed 9Dragons, the robot battles of BOTS, and the newly-announced 2Moons. And it’s a deliberate redirection, with CEO Howard Marks at the helm. OGaming sat down with Marks to talk about his vision for Acclaim reborn, his strategies to carve out the company’s place in the online market, and the future of the gaming industry.

It was that future of the gaming industry that got Marks back into the game. Old hands in the industry will recognize Marks as the CEO of Activision through much of the 1990’s, and who helped turn that brand’s fortunes around. He retired in 1998 to pursue other (non-gaming) interests, until he read in a newspaper article that the bankrupt Acclaim was looking for a buyer. After sealing the deal Marks set about to reinvent Acclaim into an online publishing company, and ultimately a development company.

I firmly believe that we are seeing the tip of the iceberg and that online games will rule this industry within 5 years. People want community and they want to play with others. The concept of single player games will be relegated in history as a minor event.

When asked why he didn’t start a company of his own instead, Marks had this to say: “I believe that brands are critical to success in the games field. Players remember the games they have enjoyed and associate the brand with that experience.” He also said the same thing when he and his partners bought Activision back in 1991, and he thinks the mantra didn’t fail him there. He is, however, not going to be resurrecting or spinning off any familiar Acclaim titles. “We have expressively chosen to not be in the sequel business. We think players want creative and original products offered as online games.”

One key strategy in Marks’ playbook is using advertising to support free play services. The idea is to tie in advertisements appropriate to game environment. This is a strategy slowly being adopted across the industry, not only in gaming, but wherever free services are offered – for example, YouTube or SpiralFrog. Marks also emphasized publishing MMO games that reach out to the casual gamer, the mainstream market (and, by implication, not restricting themselves to a single niche or genre, such as RPGs).

For now, Acclaim is content to publish MMO titles from other developers. Marks has plans to take Acclaim back into the game development business in the future by setting up in-house development MMO studios. “Our games share a common trait: They are built by passionate developers who love playing games. They are committed to quality and to providing the best experience a game player can have online.”