20 Years After Its Demise, Publisher ‘Acclaim’ Is Being Resurrected

Back in the day, Acclaim Entertainment was a pretty formidable force in the games industry. It has dozens upon dozens of games under its belt, including the first two Burnout titles, the Turok series, NBA Jam, and of course, Mary-Kate and Ashley: Sweet 16 – License to Drive. Ahh, good times.

Unfortunately, the company went bankrupt in September 2004, but now, just over 20 years later, Acclaim is making a comeback.

Re-entering the market in 2025, however, has seemingly required Acclaim to approach its business from a different direction, and will instead primarily provide funding, marketing, and PR support to independent studios looking to break into the industry.

In addition, Acclaim will look to “resurrect and revitalize its beloved portfolio of classic IP”, and will utilise the expertise of an advisory board comprised of Russell Binder at Striker Entertainment, Mark Caplan at Ridge Partners and Jeff Jarrett (yes, the WWE legend) at Global Force Entertainment to aid its goals.

Acclaim’s new CEO Alex Josef has said the following:

“It’s an absolute honor and pleasure to be leading the charge in bringing Acclaim back to the forefront of the games industry. We’re fortunate that we have an extremely talented team and that we’ve already signed some incredible indie titles, which we’ll be revealing soon.”

Originally founded in 1987, Acclaim’s name was conceived as a way to ensure it would appear before the likes of Activision and Accolade when viewed alphabetically; this same strategy was followed by Activision employees after branching away from Atari.

As it neared its demise in 2004, the company made some controversial decisions when marketing its games. This included an offer to reimburse UK drivers with a speeding ticket ahead of Burnout 2’s launch, and a bizarre competition in which it urged new parents to name their baby ‘Turok’ to promote the release of Turok: Evolution.