Majesco Entertainment Merges With PolarityTE — Publisher Of ‘Psychonauts’ And ‘Cooking Mama’ Exits Video Game Industry Upon Merger With Medical Firm

New reports now show that Majesco Entertainment is in the midst of merging with medical firm PolarityTE. Not only that, but once the merger is finalized, the publisher of beloved video games such as Psychonauts and Cooking Mama will no longer be involved with the video game industry whatsoever.

According to a written article by Polygon, it reports that Majesco Entertainment is finished as a video game publisher after it merged with PolarityTE, a company developing tissue regeneration technology. What is unique about the merger is that Majesco Entertainment is technically the company absorbing in PolarityTE as a “wholly-owned subsidiary,” but they want to continue forward with the PolarityTE name. They also want to continue forward as a medical firm working on new processes and technology in tissue regeneration technology, not publishing video games.

For those who do not know anything about PolarityTE, they are a medical firm fonded by Dr. Denver Lough, a surgeon who specializes in regenerative medicine and reconstructive surgery. According to a written article by Game Industry Biz, Dr. Lough will take on the role of CEO at the post-merger company in which he will replace the CEO of Majesco Entertainment, Barry Honig. Dr. Edward Swanson will serve as chief operating officer (COO). Both Lough and Swanson served as resident doctors at the Johns Hopkins Hospital Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

One of the cool things about PolarityTE is that the company owns an eponymous tissue engineering platform developed by Dr. Denver Lough himself. It uses a patient’s own cells to produce new tissue. At this moment, the company is preparing the technology for clinical trials. If they are successful, PolarityTE believes that it will “provide medical professionals with a truly new paradigm in wound healing and reconstructive surgery.” Dr. Lough further detailed their plans in a news release with the following statement.

“We did not leave our resident careers at Johns Hopkins Hospital to merely change biotech — we left to change the future of medicine. We sincerely wish to thank Barry Honig, the Majesco Board of Directors and Dr. Phillip Frost for their confidence in PolarityTE and we promise to not disappoint.”

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Now that Majesco Entertainment has made it clear they want nothing to do with the video game industry anymore, many are wondering what happens to the games they published? Well two things can happen. The first is that we will never see another game in those series made ever again. This will only be true if by chance Majesco owns the rights to the games the publish. However, publishers who own the rights to developed games are mostly first party. That means companies that make consoles often own the rights to games if said games are exclusively published through them. For example, the Halo Series is exclusively owned by Microsoft, Ratchet & Clank Series is exclusively owned by Sony, Mario is exclusively owned by Nintendo. You will most likely never see these characters on games developed for competitive systems.

The second thing that will most likely happen is that the developers of said games will find a new publisher. Cooking Mama Ltd. are the developers of the Cooking Mama Series which includes five games on the Nintendo DS series, two ports to the Nintendo Wii, and four spin-offs from the main series. Even though Majesco Entertainment is no longer their publisher, it should be noted the company only published Cooking Mama games for North America. Most of the sales for the game were made in Japan so in some ways, it is not that big of a loss for them.

However, the more popular game many would be concerned about is Psychonauts especially now there is news of a Psychonauts 2(now known as Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin) being developed. Thankfully for fans of this series, Majesco Entertainment has nothing to do with the publishing of this title since 2010. Double Fine Productions, the game’s developer, took over publishing duties from the publisher. By serving as both developer and publisher, they give themselves the time and flexibility to create a game that fans will thoroughly enjoy.

Ultimately, Majesco Entertainment left the video game industry with no loose ends that would anger their fans. The video game industry evolved too fast for them to the point they couldn’t keep up and they had to find a new venture, one that would be profitable for them. At least they were able to leave behind both a legacy for the games they published as well as an opportunity for said games to continue onward.

[Featured Image by Double Fine Productions]