TheVoidDragon
Member
What about Homeworld? Who owns that? I'd really like to see a new Homeworld game but it seems unlikely, even if THQ was fine.
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THQ files Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, Clearlake enters w/ purchase agreement [OP Update 2]
- Thread starter Mr.Awesome
- Start date
What about Homeworld? Who owns that? I'd really like to see a new Homeworld game but it seems unlikely, even if THQ was fine.
zomgbbqftw
Banned
It depends on the view they take, if they think getting the franchise into more people's hands will raise the value of the asset then there is a good chance they will go ahead with big discounts.
What matters right now is getting THQ's assets into a saleable condition, Darksiders is not a saleable asset today, but give some fanfare and put it on sale. Announce that the franchise has shipped 4m units including digital sales and suddenly it becomes an attractive proposition for a medium sized publisher like Square or WB. Something they can buy on the cheap ($10-12m) with a fanbase to sell to.
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
Here's a more appropriate salute:
fu3lfr3nzy
Member
Part of me wants EA to get the license and have AKI(who worked on the EA Def Jam games) finally return to making WWE games again.
doniewhalberg
Member
Lol, GSC World/Bitcomposer want to argue with you
I wonder if this finally kills Homefront 2 by Crytek since that was kinda far off.
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
Lol, GSC World/Bitcomposer want to argue with you
I wonder if this finally kills Homefront 2 by Crytek since that was kinda far off.
Really? I could've sworn Bethesda owns it now. Thanks for that.
maabus1999
Member
I would guess most of these licenses that THQs held are no longer valid, but again I do not have the contracts in front of me to confirm that. Depends on if they are executory or not.
They released uDraw, a game bundled with a drawing tablet, on Wii. It was a surprise hit, made them a crapload of money.
They invested that money and more into releasing the game on PS3 and 360 expecting the same/better return. It bombed, they never quite recovered.
Mr. Enigma
Member
Fucking uDraw.
zomgbbqftw
Banned
Made uDraw on Wii, was successful. Decided to make it for PS3/360 and it bombed. The uDraw tablets are now sitting in the landfill with old ET carts.
Also, THQ decided to transition into AAA development without having a proper amount of time set aside to do it. That kind of transition should take years as a publisher needs to build a set of franchises and studios to cope with it, but THQ tried to do it overnight and spent a lot of money on it. Coupled with uDraw HD it pretty much killed them.
PS3 and 360 market is not the one for such stuff,how did they
misread it this badly?
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
Bad decisions and management led to the bust. Biggest financial bust is said to be uDraw.
BrokenEchelon
Banned
I can totally see EA going for WWE so they can lock down both MMA and WWE.
metalslimer
Member
THQ was going to die with or without uDraw. It just accelerated the end. They were never quite able to become Ubisoft and find their one or two big franchises to save them like Ubi did with Assassin's Creed. Of course THQ might have been able to vastly restructure, but I think that would have also just been a delay. From an outsider's perpective it seems like Sega is running on borrowed time as well.
I think they seem to be the most logical choice to pick that up, hopefully they get the Aki guys back on board since they did the def jam games but who knows
zomgbbqftw
Banned
doniewhalberg
Member
Haha, that definitely was a heavy heavy rumour earlier in the year, but last week there was a bit of a clash between the other two over the rights, which confirmed GSC World had not sold the rights to Bethesda (or apparently, anyone). They are looking to license out/potentially sell it though.
String of bad decisions. Poor decisions made regarding what studios they acquired, they made a lot of long term expensive licensing deals they barely used, they spent a ton of money developing Homefront to try and compete in the FPS market with bigger publishers (stock took a huge hit based on mediocre reviews of what was a high investment for THQ), they vastly over produced uDraw tablets for 360/PS3, etc. It all just added up, they've been limping along for a while.
The prospect of playing a WWE game not using the Smackdown engine from 10 years ago is so interesting.
metalslimer
Member
https://twitter.com/Jason_Rubin/status/281486371783323649
This should probably be added to the OP so people don't worry about the games in the next couple of months.
This should probably be added to the OP so people don't worry about the games in the next couple of months.
Sad to see you go THQ.
The WWE license would surely default back to WWE.
Let's letter/email/tweetbomb WWE to make sure whoever they sell it to gets Syn Sophia (AKI's new name) to develop it. Not sure how many of the original team is still there, but they did do the Yakuza Black Panther games (fairly) recently.
The WWE license would surely default back to WWE.
Let's letter/email/tweetbomb WWE to make sure whoever they sell it to gets Syn Sophia (AKI's new name) to develop it. Not sure how many of the original team is still there, but they did do the Yakuza Black Panther games (fairly) recently.
Mr. Enigma
Member
Yeah, SERIOUSLY. They are still using the same fucking engine they used on the PS1 games. Get the fuck with it, people.
Yeah, I dont know. It'll be interesting to see who takes over the license. I dont want EA dividing up their UFC team though and sending half the team to work on the WWE game if they get the license.
I want a great UFC game just as much as I want a great WWE game since i'm a fan of both.
BurnOutBrighter
Banned
I can actually say this without sarcasm now:
THQ had a good run.
THQ had a good run.
D
Deleted member 80556
Unconfirmed Member
I can only ask to whichever publisher buys the Darksiders IP, to please, purchase it with Vigil games.
It's horrible when the IP is separated from its original studio, not fair for the devs.
Or I hope, that the studio can make it out of this. Damn, just barely a week after THQ Humble Bundle.
It's horrible when the IP is separated from its original studio, not fair for the devs.
Or I hope, that the studio can make it out of this. Damn, just barely a week after THQ Humble Bundle.
Rubin just confirmed for us when the sell off will begin. :lol
infinityBCRT
Member
Its going to end up being really bad. I think with the long development that some of these licensed titles have had theres no way a new development team can come in and satisfy the core base for the first 2-3 years.
Also, I would argue that the PS1 games were better. Specificially Smackdown 2. That was an awesome arcade wrestling game. It had a lot of stuff that was missing in most of the later incarnations of games and was faster paced.
CaptainZombie
Member
Hopefully we get the 3rd piece of DLC for WWE 13 considering that we paid for it and that the DLC has probably been done now for a month or two.
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
Yeah. Their stocks pummeled in 2009, quite some time before uDraw came to existence.
http://kotaku.com/5146601/thq-loses-millions-will-fire-hundreds
BAHAHAHAH! I KNEW IT! I called that Clearlake would acquire the assets a couple of months ago!
For those of you who are wondering, Clearlake is a private equity/corporate restructuring firm that works with turning around troubled companies. THQ was "exploring options" with Clearlake for a potential sale of the company.
Now, here's why this isn't a surprise to me: a good buddy of one of Clearlake's managing partners is Jason Rubin.
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
Corleth the Fey
Member
Poor Nintendo.
Neuromancer
Member
Excellent
Blast Processing
Member
What other evidence is there that it is about that?
I was just looking at the wikipedia page for the year, and there's also a bit about Isaac Newton using a prism to split light for the first time, as well as a war on with the English vs the Dutch.