We're seeing it more and more with current economy: companies are being bought out, merging together, or just plain shutting their doors for good. Unfortunately, the gaming industry -- despite what some execs say -- is not immune to the same financial troubles that plague many other industries. Hell, video games have been around long enough that you've probably played a few games by companies that no longer exist. Here are five such gaming labels that produced some fantastic games before ultimately dying sad and unworthy deaths.

5. Ultra Games (Metal Gear, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Skate or Die)

Does that logo look familiar? Then you probably owned an NES at some point. Many of the third-party games that defined the system were created under the Ultra Games label, including Skate or Die!, Metal Gear, and the first two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. Not too shabby for a company that was basically formed as a legal loophole. You see, during the NES days, Nintendo had a strict policy that third-party developers could only release five games per year in the US for their system. That didn't sit too well with Konami, who produced more than twice that in Japan. So they formed Ultra Games to get around the policy, which basically acted as a publisher to funnel Konami titles to the States.

What the Hell Happened?

The Super Nintendo was released along with a looser policy on how many games could be exported to the US for it. Over time, the Ultra Games label didn't really have much of a purpose anymore and was absorbed back into Konami.

4. Westwood Studios (Dune 2, Command and Conquer)
 

Westwood Studios single-handedly started the real-time strategy genre with Dune II, and then made it popular with the Command and Conquer series. For most of the 90's this made them king of the PC gaming industry as a small studio that ruled a sizable chunk of the market. Unfortunately, that success also largely contributed to their downfall in a way.

What the Hell Happened?

Business is what happened. Westwood caught the eye of Electronic Arts, one of the biggest video game publishers even back then, and was acquired in 1998 to the tune of $122.5 million. Shortly thereafter though, many senior employees left the company as they began to see EA not giving them much independence in their projects. Westwood trucked on for a few years, but eventually caved after the development of Command and Conquer: Renegade, a first-person shooter centered in the same universe as the strategy games. The game failed to meet the commercial goals EA had set for it. The studio was dissolved and the remaining staff were absorbed into EA. This is sadly becoming a more and more common story in the video game industry these days.

3. Acclaim (NBA Jam, Turok, Double Dragon II)

Acclaim was one of the biggest console publishers in the early 90's. Almost all of their success came from licensing games that are now considered classics, including NBA Jam, Mortal Kombat, and Double Dragon II. In 1994, they even bought up the then-successful Valiant Comics to use their characters in games. Most of these bombed, but one game series to come out of this deal was Turok, who enjoyed quite a bit of success on the Nintendo 64.

What the Hell Happened?

The studio made so many bad marketing decisions in its final years, it's hard to really pin one down. Where to begin? They offered cash to the first five people who would name their newborn baby, "Turok," in order to promote the upcoming Turok: Evolution. They tried to buy advertising space on actual tombstones to promote their Shadowman games. They also had lawsuits filed against them from celebrities such as the Olsen twins and Dave Mirra. By the time they released BMX: XXX, which was basically an extreme sports game with gratuitous nudity, the company had developed a trashy reputation. They finally filed for bankruptcy in 2004 and were eventually absorbed into Fox interactive.

2. Sierra (Half-Life, Counter-Strike, King's Quest, Tribes)
 

Odds are, if you've played a computer game in the past 20 years, it probably had the Sierra label on it. The company was formed in 1979 by the husband-and-wife team of Ken and Roberta Williams, who basically developed and sold games out of their own home. Their first game, Mystery House, was also the first game ever to feature pictures instead of just text. Even though they'd barely advertised it, the game turned out to be an instant hit, earning the two enough money to form their own office and hire more employees.

Over the the next few years, Sierra had it's ups and down. The company nearly went bankrupt until they released King's Quest in 1984, which also became a hit. From there, they soon entered into competition with LucasArts over the adventure gaming market, which led to the Police Quest, Space Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry series of games. The company continued to release ground-breaking titles and became one of the largest video game companies well into the late 90's.

What the Hell Happened?

Again, business. Starting in 1996, Sierra was essentially passed around from huge corporation to huge corporation, as it was bought out only to see its parent company sold as well. By 1999 Sierra was owned by Vivendi, which turned out to be a good turn for them, as they went on to publish Half-Life and its expansions, the Tribes series, and Counter-Strike (which is still played heavily to this day). Unfortunately, these were followed by a string of unsuccessful games and financial problems for Vivendi.

The final nail in Sierra's coffin was the merger of Vivendi and Activision, who reviewed all of Sierra's projects that were in development and dumped the majority of them. Many gamers were disappointed, since these included a new Ghostbusters game and a new title from Tim Schafer, who had created many cult favorites such as Day of the Tentacle and Psychonauts. Finally, Activision absorbed all that was left of Sierra into their own company. The last game published under the Sierra label was a game based on The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. To put this in perspective, that's like if Leonardo Da Vinci's last painting was a Family Circus cartoon.

1. Ion Storm (Deus Ex)

Gamers had high hopes for Ion Storm when it was first formed in '96, and that was in no small part due to one of the founders, John Romero, who had been a co-creator of the wildly successful Doom. The studio even picked up a publishing deal with Eidos for six games right after it was created. And that was the last good news the company ever saw.

What the Hell Happened?

Ion Storm had a number of missteps early on, but Daikatana is probably what eventually killed them. This was probably the only game keeping the studio alive, since it was announced as one of the most ambitious video game projects at the time. Preview ads hyped it up to ridiculous proportions; there were even ads famously proclaiming "John Romero's About to Make You his Bitch." And it actually might have been one of the most innovative games of the time...in 1997. Unfortunately, the game was delayed for over two years thanks to several design changes and a series of setbacks. When the game finally debuted, it was ugly even by late-90's standards and came with a whole host of glitches, particularly in the AI partners. It probably didn't help that by that point John Romero's image had been built up as that of a rock star (the douchey kind), which kind of alienated him from the game's main audience. And it really really didn't help that they spent tons of money lavishly redecorating their office before they'd produced a single successful title.

One good thing came out of Ion Storm before it collapsed, but it came from a completely separate office. While the Dallas offices were dealing with one long, drawn-out shitstorm, the Austin office kept their distance and created Deus Ex, which came out the same year as Daikatana and actually was a milestone in gaming. Years later though, when that founder of the Ausin office, Warren Spector, decided to leave, so did most of the senior staff. Ion Storm officially closed its doors less than a year later.

To this day though, Ion Storm is known more for its spectacular failure than any of the games it produced.