History Creator / MidwayGames

With the decline of arcade gaming in the mid-80s, Bally Manufacturing sold Bally/Midway to Williams, which also had their own video game unit with big hits like ''VideoGame/{{Defender}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Joust}}'' under their wing, in 1988. For a decade, the Williams/Bally/Midway group, renamed WMS Industies after their stock ticket symbol, continued to manufacture pinball machines under the Williams and Bally labels and video games under the Midway brand.[[note]]Bally Manufacturing continued to own the slot machine business and casinos, along with a chain of health clubs which was bought in 1983 but spun off in 1991 (and closed for good in 2016). The even owned Ride/SixFlags for a time in the early 80s. The company spun off the casino equipment division in 1993, which was bought by another slot maker in 1996, which continued to use the Bally name as a brand until it took the name Bally Technologies in 2006. Meanwhile, the original company, now called Bally Entertainment as it was just a casino owner, not a manufacturer, merged with Hilton's casino division, also in 1996. Hilton spun off that division as Park Place Entertainment (named for the address of the first Bally's casino in Atlantic City), which in turn became Caesars Entertainment through a series of mergers and acquisitions. That company sold the Bally's name and the original AC casino, to Twin Rivers Casinos in 2020, which renamed itself Bally's Corporation, including renaming all their casinos to use the name. Then they licensed the name to Sinclair Media when that company bought the former Creator/{{Fox}} Sports regional networks from Disney and renamed them Bally Sports as a tie-in to the lucrative sports betting market...only for the acquisition to prove to be [[DidntThinkThisThrough too much of a burden for Sinclair amid the collapse of the RSN market]]; as of this writing several teams have fled the failing Bally Sports networks in several regions, including Arizona and Houston, with the MLB even drawing up contingency plans in case Bally's parent Diamond Sports (a joint venture between Sinclair and Byron Allen) collapsed completely[[/note]]

The success of ''Ms. Pac-Man'', which Bally/Midway had released while waiting for Namco to finish its official sequel ''Super Pac-Man'', led Namco to add ''Ms. Pac-Man'' to their line-up of official ''Pac-Man'' games. Bally/Midway would take advantage of that success by creating more of their own ''Pac-Man'' sequels without seeking Namco's approval or input, none of which enjoyed the success of ''Ms. Pac-Man''. This led to Namco ending their relationship with Bally/Midway and working with [[Creator/{{Atari}} Atari Games]] and later establishing their own brand presence in the North American market.

* ''VideoGame/SpyHunter'' (2001 reboot)