Wow, you guys all sound so clueless...

um sears and kmart are the same company now.... sear holdings.... its no longer sear roebuck .....343,992

And your post makes you sound like quite the informed individual...

=/

Sorry, but I just find it hard to believe so many people can't understand how their assets/debts were so great or how they owed the companies they did. A company of that size has several million dollars in software licenses alone. They have 800-ish employees, (almost) everyone of them has to be in need of their own PCs as well given the nature of the business (they almost certainly outsource janitorial work and such, too). Many of those people, perhaps most of them, need top of the line machines to produce the games they do, and that means constantly buying new computers. Perhaps even as often as buying new rigs every time a team starts a new project for some studios.

How much do you think their buildings cost? Their furniture? Atari? I dunno, but it's a lot. They bought everything they have on credit to begin with, though, and non-payment early on means compounded interest not to mention having to take on additional loans.

Their employees also probably demand some $80 million annually in salary or so, and god knows what else in benefits. Maybe even more than that. Advertising is expensive, too. They can't do all of this work without paying for electricity either, since they have to operate ~800 PCs, servers, lighting, heating/colling for perhaps a dozen buildings ten times the size of your house and what have you. Then there are property taxes if they own their buildings rather than lease, other utilities, accomidations, so on and so forth.

It adds up really, really fast, doesn't it?  Millions here, millions there, never once in 8 years making any money to pay for it.

Also, common practice in the retail world is that shelf space is essentially rented to the producer of the product. Midway owes all of those retailers money because they couldn't sell enough to keep up with those costs. Of course, that should be clear from the fact that they lost money 8 years in row.  All of this has been piling up and compounding, and the sale of the company let loose the floodgates.

crap wrong thread

167 mil is nothing out of the ordinary for a company like midway. Sega for example is 10 times worth that.

They owe Gamespot?

hmm...

Well they own Toys R Us a crapload of money too... i think it would have to do with the distribution and marketing of their products.

Perhaps they allowed retailers to return unsold games in an effort to get the retailers to put more of them in the stores to buy... or paid for advertising/shelf space.

Well there is advertising afterall.

Cause you know... websites have adds... which they sell.

Guess so.