Wildfires prompt Midway to evacuate San Diego office
by Ludwig Kietzmann 
{ Oct 24th 2007 at 10:12PM }
In response to less sensitive gamers asking, "But what about mah gamez?!" Midway has provided assurances that its development schedules remain unaffected and that the company's Mortal Kombat, Strangleholds and so forth remain in the hands of employees dutifully tinkering at home.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Rubang B (NDF - Heart) @ Oct 24th 2007 10:28PM
Yikes. 1 million houses now? Wikipedia said 300,000 when I czeched yesterday. I hope all my friends are not on fire.
muppetmeth @ Oct 24th 2007 10:53PM
The fires seem to be going down now. It doesn't look like the apocalypse anymore.
rokerovakero @ Oct 24th 2007 10:53PM
As long as they take everything but Cruis'n for Wii, the company is safe.
Vegeta (aka Ska Oreo) @ Oct 24th 2007 10:57PM
Yeah I heard about the california fires. Man that must suck. What makes it even worse is that I didn't even know bout it untill My professor mentioned it.
I feel so ignorant.
Autopsy15 @ Oct 24th 2007 11:26PM
Wow, this might be one of the rare times that a natural disaster affects gaming. Well, as long as they are still working on UT3 at their temp-housing I'm fine with it.
I gots tah have mah gamez.
Myke @ Oct 24th 2007 11:32PM
GREAT, Now we're NEVER going to get to play Hydro Thunder 2...
Geist @ Oct 24th 2007 11:50PM
The fire beat the water. How deliciously ironic.
Nessuno @ Oct 24th 2007 11:39PM
The San Diego employees must be thrilled to know that their work doesn't affect Midway's schedule one way or another. Employee Moral -5
gonk @ Oct 24th 2007 11:44PM
haha nice catch
oh hey speaking of news, i heard that lots of targets are selling gh3 already
Richard @ Oct 25th 2007 12:54AM
Heh, that's what I was thinking. Yay for crunch time x5.
Hashbrown_Hunter @ Oct 24th 2007 11:59PM
I live in Tustin, CA and I'm right next to the Santiago Canyon fire. Besides my area, a LOT of people were evacuated from Lake Arrowhead and San Diego. It was pretty bad.
But it seems like most of the fires will be contained by Sunday.
Richard @ Oct 25th 2007 12:58AM
I'm in RSM and work in Irvine. My sister's in-laws' house in Modjeska Canyon just went up yesterday. Sadly their area didn't get officially evacuated until the same day that the fire hit there hard. But thankfully my sister and brother-in-law had took precautions ahead of time (the in-laws happen to be in Europe during all of this, btw.)
And oh yeah: Fuck arsonists.
gonk @ Oct 25th 2007 1:05AM
are these fires from arson? i hadn't heard that
Richard @ Oct 25th 2007 9:42PM
Not all of them, but the Santiago Canyon one (the one nearest me) has all but been confirmed as arson. They found multiple points of origin and already have at least one suspect in custody. Meanwhile I believe the Riverside County one is suspected to be arson as well.
ThornedVenom @ Oct 25th 2007 2:41AM
Evacuation without delaying game releases? If this affects the quality of those games, people are going to get veeeewy angwwyyyy.
ZOmbIE BUTchER @ Oct 25th 2007 4:31AM
Yes the fire sucked hard core here. I am in the North County of San Diego, where the biggest fire was. Witch Fire. The air quality here was dreadful. My work has been closed since Monday and we are just going back tomorrow. Allthough a lot of my friends and family are safe but I do know a lot fo people that were seriously affected. I hope non of you ever have to go through what we hav gone through here this week.
the_game_master @ Oct 25th 2007 8:31AM
Isn't Midway's main headquarters is in Chicago?
josh83 @ Oct 25th 2007 8:54AM
The raging fires in the San Diego area have caused some gaming damage too: Midway was asked to evacuate their local offices. This brings me to the question: what Midway game is worth running into a burning building to save?
http://www.pollsb.com/polls/poll/3252/midway-s-san-diego-offices-evacuated-what-midway-game-is-worth-running-into-a-burning-building-to-save
JBob @ Oct 25th 2007 9:23AM
"Mortal Kombats and Unreal Tournaments remain in the hands of employees dutifully tinkering at home."
Well, the Mortal Kombat team is located in Chicago at the main office, and Midway is only publishing Unreal Tournament -- Epic is developing it --, so your last comment doesn't make any sense. It makes even less sense that you tagged the post with MK and UT, when it really has nothing to do with them. I know this is "just a blog", but you guys could at least try to get your facts straight.
Ludwig Kietzmann @ Oct 25th 2007 9:34AM
I'll concede somewhat -- UT is only published by Midway. However, the rest of your complaint is just an overly literal interpretation of a sentence meant to provide context. If we wanted to be literal about it, we'd have listed all the unannounced games they're working on too. I also don't see why a story about the publisher of UT and MK shouldn't be tagged with UT and MK, its most widely known franchises.
As for "just a blog," the fact that I responded to and corrected the first error should hopefully illustrate that we are concerned with the facts. Thanks for pointing it out. :)
Brian @ Oct 25th 2007 11:23AM
Yeah, the scene down here is a little chaotic. I was evacuated from early Monday morning until yesterday afternoon, when the evacuation notice was finally lifted. You can't go anywhere in the county without the smell of smoke, and it feels like all I've watched on TV since Sunday is coverage of the fires.
I'm only 16, so I don't have a lot of important things that I desperately need, but when we evacuated, I made sure to bring my MacBook, and my Xbox 360 Hard Drive. Other than that, it was just like, three shirts, and a pair of shorts.
My brother used to work down near the Midway place; I used to pass it a lot. It's probably about 7 or 8 miles from my house.
Keep your prayers up for people still enduring this. It's really rough down here.