daniel did an interview with internetstreets.org (the link to the article is dead now, wish i had screen grabbed it). anyway, he essentially explained what happened, and why he left. he said that he was friends with john tobias, and john asked him if he and some other martial artists would work on mk1 (at that time). daniel said yes, as a favor to john, and when it was time to sign the contract ( a measly 1 page contract according to daniel) he says that he specifically asked ed boon if his work would ONLY be used for the arcade game, and nothing else. boon said, to paraphrase "sure, just the arcade". remember, this is mk1 back around 1989/90, so genesis might have just been released. now, in fairness to ed, he may have actually thought, well, this game is just a one-off game; what are the chances that it wll become a pop-culture phenomenon?" i don't think anyone really knows sometimes, but the possibility was still there, and i don't think daniel's contract accounted for that.
nonetheless, mk became that pop-culture phenomenon and lo and behold, mk1 got ported to home consoles. so daniel says he went to boon again, and was like, to paraphrase "dude, what's up with this?" "can we get paid our royalties?", again, ed was like, to paraphrase "oh, don't worry about it, we'll take care of you." <lies at that point, ed was just trying to get daniel on mk2, imo. then after nothing got "taken care of" the mk1&2 crew (probably, all but tony marquez and richard divizio sued midway for royalties and lost) . daniel says, he was able to find one lawyer to take up his cause, and midway came with around 60+ lawyers. YIKES! daniel did the bloodstorm ad, cage got killed until trilogy, and the rest is history.
daniel said, tobias didn't really stick up for him either, though he did say they are still friends today. ed says he and john still talk, but i wonder why tobias actually left midway. if you ask me, it was probably about money again, or rights to mk. tobias probably wanted, either more ownership to mk (which, he probably deserved, since he created the entire world. however, if his contract stipulated work for hire, he may have been screwed to hell) boon's situation might be different, since, if you've ever looked at the mk1 credits, it says that the software was created by ed boon, so i don't know if that gives him any stronger financial rights to a portion of the original games, via their code. in any event, tobias made tao feng; it failed, and the only time i heard from john tobias was an interview on trmk, and the old mkvsdc podcast in which tobias said (at that time) that he hadn't touched (drawn) a mortal kombat character in years. so what was that? 6 or seven years since he left in 2000?
obviously, i don't know what kind of money, tobias gets from mk royalties. maybe he gets a nice sum, maybe he gets nothing, but i know he doesn't own those characters.
and finally, daniel had some words of advice for any creative person or artist, to paraphrase "think twice before you sign anything." "don't trust people that you think you know." "know your rights ahead of time."
meanwhile, ed is still there selling mk in any condition possible, just as long as they move units. so, like i said. boon wins again.
oh my.
