THQ Files for Bankruptcy

[DeviousOne]

Meh I'm still good with wwe13 idk if ill get 14 unless its drastically better than wwe13

[claud3]

so it's very official and all is up and ready to be bought

THQ Properties Up For Auction, Where Will Their Future Homes Be?By Mike Patuleia on January 8, 2013 at 4:49 am


It’s official, THQ is no more, well, it will be soon. On January 22nd, an auction will be held to sell off the intellectual properties, studios, and other assets of the publisher to the highest bidders on an individual title basis.This is the latest bit of bad news for the struggling publisher, who was recently de-listed from the Nasdaq, as THQ President Jason Rubin had wrote to fans in late December that a bid from Clearlake Capital Group would have committed additional ample capital to let them finish the games currently in

production, continue making games going forward. The plan would be for Clearlake to buy THQ as a whole for approximately 60 million dollars with a sale closing on January 9, 2013.As mentioned on our Primecast this week, a judge ruled that a quick sale to Clearlake would not be permitted, citing that the fast turnaround had pushed out other interested parties, as THQ did not even put out to the public that it was for sale.We know thanks to the bankruptcy documents filed at the end of 2012 that the following titles were in the pipeline:

Turtle Rock Studios: Working Title “Evolve”
THQ Montreal: Working Title “1666″
Relic Entertainment: Working Title “Atlas”
Vigil Games: Working Title “Crawler”
Volition Studios: Saints Row 4
Relic Entertainment: Company of Heroes 2
Crytek UK: Homefront 2
Yukes: WWE ’14
4A Games: Metro: Last Light

Obsidian: Southpark: The Stick of TruthTHQ also has the Darksiders and Warhammer 40,000 franchises.It has been reported that Electronic Arts, UbiSoft, Warner Brothers, and at least 2 other companies have been visiting these studios and assessing the titles for purchase, so it is once again time to fire up the Speculatron 9000 and see what the potential future of these games and their respective studios is.THQ STUDIOSVolition Studios: Obviously the big win here is Volition Studios & the Saints Row franchise. My hope for this studio would be going to Electronic Arts, as EA while they are one of the “big bad” corporations, they allow their

studios the freedom to design as long as they stay within budget and meet their deadlines, so this could give Saints Row a huge influx in budget while at the same time continuing them to let their freak flag fly higher than it already does. Volition is also home to the Red Faction series, that EA could benefit from.THQ Montreal: I believe that we will see UbiSoft make a bid for the studio that was allegedly poaching their employees in 2011, not for that reason, but just logistically it makes sense for them to buy THQ Montreal and absorb it and the upcoming title “1666″ into their own Montreal studio.Vigil Games: Home of The Darksiders franchise, I see this one going to Activision, they love themselves some sequels, and with Vigil working on a new IP with the working title of “Crawler”,

Activision has the cash to move forward with the risk of a new IP if it means Darksiders III comes out of Vigil next.Relic Entertainment: Company of Heroes and the Warhammer 40,000 franchises are sequel generating machines for the PC, so it’s sort of a no-brainer here that Microsoft takes in this studio and makes it one of their own.

OTHER TITLESSouth Park: The Stick of Truth: The future of this title puzzles me. It’s near completion, so obviously it will find a home somewhere, I’m just not entirely sure what publisher makes the most sense. Maybe Square Enix, since both Tomb Raider and this game are due out around the same time, so it would make sense for them to buy this and maybe push out the release by a month and increase profit of both games.Metro: Last Light: Another possible grab by Square Enix as they could benefit from having a solid FPS franchise in their system. This one could also go to Warner Brothers who, after acquiring the Mortal Kombat franchise,

are clearly no stranger to M-rated titles.WWE ’14: Quite honestly, I’d love to see EA pick this up and put it under their EA Sports franchises. Yes it’s not truly a sport, but with their acquisition of the UFC license from THQ last year, it makes sense for them to become the publisher for Yukes’ yearly iteration of wrestling games as well, and they sure do love adding the next year to a title.


Obviously, only time will tell in the near future where these studios and titles end up, let us know in the comments where you think they will end up and what your thoughts are on the latest publisher to go belly up in the industry. I for one don’t see this as a good thing and wish everyone at THQ best of luck in their future endeavors

http://defaultprime.com/2013/01/08/t...ture-homes-be/


So Ms has thrown their hat into the ring for some IPs

EA Looking To Buy Ips From THQ




THQ troubles have been repeatedly reported during this week as the company went Bankrupt. The destiny of many of the company’s properties are still unknown: just yesterday it was reported by many news outlets that the company wanted to sell all its Ips together to a single buyer but interested parties like Warner Bros Entertainment are only looking to buy single Ips. In the end THQ has decided to hold a sale for all its Ips, selling each one of them separately.

Today some reports state that Electronic Arts is quite interested in some of THQ properties: EA representatives have completed site visits to asset the situation and are currently listed as potential buyers of some titles. The THQ properties for sale are quite a lot in number and have some good following on the market: the wrestling brand WWE, the open world series Saints Row, Company of Heroes and some more established franchises.

Some companies are apparently interested in another property of the company, the upcoming RPG South Park: The Stick Of Truth, still in development and another entry of the Saints Row series, still in production as well.

THQ filed for bankruptcy a couple of weeks ago and despite the troubles, they announced that titles in production would continue getting developed and eventually released but, judging from the most recent happenings, that will only happen thanks to other parties, interested in some of the most successful franchises owned by the company.

Related Posts
THQ Has Bankruptcy Delayed

THQ Files Bankruptcy and Selling Off Assets

5.5 Million People Played Saints Row: The Third

Saints Row: The Third – The Full Package Coming Nov. 6

THQ Manages to Stay on NASDAQ

http://www.explosion.com/16381/ea-lo...-ips-from-thq/

[Typical guy]

Now it's being reported that double fine is looking into the bankruptcy. Maybe they'll pick up some of the IP's no one wants anymore and turn them around.

[podsaurus]

@claud Darksiders goes to Activision? That is a death sentence for that series.

[nextgen3]

I liked WWE games but THQ failed to deliver on & off in recent years iv bought every title since PS1 & PS2 but no so many for PS3 only got 08 & 12 on that so if THQ lose the title then would Yukes work with EA?? in a way i dont want the title going to EA tbh with you!

because of the fact WWE & THQ got some issues now i thought Vince was the guy who choose the developer/publisher to makes its WWE Games! so how would THQ sell it off, how would this work exacly?

[Typical guy]

I liked WWE games but THQ failed to deliver on & off in recent years iv bought every title since PS1 & PS2 but no so many for PS3 only got 08 & 12 on that so if THQ lose the title then would Yukes work with EA?? in a way i dont want the title going to EA tbh with you!

because of the fact WWE & THQ got some issues now i thought Vince was the guy who choose the developer/publisher to makes its WWE Games! so how would THQ sell it off, how would this work exacly?

Don't know what happens. You'll have to watch and wait. For example, UFC's license was bought by EA but they didn't take the developers (they all for laid off) or the code. They're starting over with their own code. That could very well happen with WWE. Also, THQ owes Yukes money so they could be in trouble now too.

[claud3]

@claud Darksiders goes to Activision? That is a death sentence for that series.

we can all agree their, any company gets that series might or could screw this series up

[claud3]

junkies and the original creators of the wwe titles like No mercy, wrestlemania 2000 and WCW revenge

Would be still making the titles to this day, if all didn't go so tits up for them

[Typical guy]

we can all agree their, any company gets that series might or could screw this series up

Considering that DS2 didn't sell well, even a DS3 that's not what you'd hope for is better than no DS3 which is a distinct possibility. Nintendo should buy Darksiders. They need more mature games and that can be their M rated Zelda. They could put some of the Zelda staff on it and it would be incredible. Pointless to consider I suppose since Nintendo doesn't seem interested in expanding their IP's.

[claud3]

man that makes sense, since Nintendo has the art style ability and brain cells to bring that series back to life under a new direction

[Typical guy]

For those that have a strong cup of coffee and feel like buying the "Destroy All Humans" IP or other dead IP for $1.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/119845249/...ing-Procedures

[sanfordmay]

THQ mismanaged their content portfolio turning out knockoff junk like Homefront spending massive marketing budgets to hype them while holding so-called cult favorites like the Darksiders franchise to harsh sales standards -- games that would have done far better than cult status if they'd gotten fully behind them. This didn't matter while THQ had money rolling in from tie-in licenses but they lost that for exceptionally poor quality even for tie-ins. Many of the studios published by THQ did not deserve their publisher failing. But THQ management, yeah, they deserved to fail. They remind me a bit of Take Two if Take Two didn't have Rockstar.

[Croyles]

Alright, here goes:

First I need to point out the obvious, what happened last year. In their conference call for the end of the 2nd quarter of 2012 (their first quarter starts in April so we're currently at the tail end of the 3rd quarter of 2013 for THQ) which took place in late 2011 immediately before the holiday's last year, Brian Farrell (then CEO and president) told investors that uDraw on PS3 and Xbox 360 was going to be a massive success and propel the company to profitability (it had previously been a success on Wii and he believed it would be a success on the other consoles as well).

Now we've all heard by now/know what happened with the uDraw tablet but what most of you don't know is WHEN everyone found out. When was that? Well, it was early this year. So the little guys (small investors that invest a few thousand dollars) didn't find out until the quarterly conference call but oh don't worry, the Wall Street titans got all kinds of insider information at the tail end of December before the month was even over. They're a bunch of damn criminals. November 11, 2011 the share price was $2.39 (this is $23.90 after the reverse split) and on Jan 16th it was worth .65 (65 cent a share = $6.50 after the reverse split). Click the link below for a graph of this activity.
http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=...UIisKMO50AHjQw

Then the 2012 3rd quarter conference call which covered the earning (or lack there of) for the Oct - Dec 2011 time frame took place on Feb 2nd 2012. This is when the little investors find out about what the big boys already knew from their illegal insider trading activity at the end of December and into January. Click the link below and you can see the spike in price on the 2nd as people hope for good news then on the 3rd (the earnings call was after the market closed on the 2nd) you can see the price fell.
http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=...UPCTCea50QGHcg

Now this new fall in price isn't as large but it's still a lot when you tink of the fact that it represents a decline in price of 31%. So while it only fell a few dimes a share, anyone that bought in on hopes of good earnings on the 2nd would have immediately lost 31% of their investment on the 3rd (so if you bought $1,000 in shares on the 2nd, your investment is worth only about $690 on the 3rd).

At the start of January, well before earnings were announced in Feb (a full month ahead), Kevin Dent (an industry analyst) tweeted several things.
1. They cancelled their 2014 game lineup.
2. They were for sale.
3. THQ returned the Disney IP's to Disney and they would get out of the kid's market.
4. They were going to drop the Warhammer MMO
http://www.lazygamer.net/general-new...ent-thinks-so/
Of these above he was correct on 2 and 3. On number 1 he was wrong and on number 4 he was somewhat right (they cancelled the MMO but converted it to a single player game). Now here's the interesting bit, people flamed the crap out of him for trying to help people. He's since tweeted that he was sent a box of human feces (literally) by irate fanboys. you need only look at the comments below the article to see how mad people were. This was posted on other sites and you can see some real vitriol towards him and as I see it, all he was trying to do was help investors, particularly since all the Wall Street firms had already committed securities fraud in December anyway. Don't worry though, the SEC only cares about big cases that make huge news, they're not going to investigate a video game stock like this.

In April they announce that Darksiders 2 will be delayed from June to August to give them time to fix bugs.

Lets skip ahead to the 4th quarter. During the 2012 4th quarter conference call in May, Brian Ferrell announced that THQ has turned the corner and that things are going great. Here's a link to the "easy" version but it still may not make a lot of sense to people that haven't read this stuff before.
http://investor.thq.com/phoenix.zhtm...cle&id=1696208

Okay so now we hit the end of May, THQ hires Jason Rubin to be President. Brian Ferrell used to be "CEO and President" now he's just "CEO" and Rubin is "President".
http://www.gametrailers.com/side-mis...-new-president

Somewhere in here (I don't remember the exact date) they announce that there will be a vote on a revere stock split to prevent the company from being delisted from Nasdaq.

Then June 11-13 E3 happens, right? During E3 they talk everything up as expected but they don't mention any new partnerships (more on this later). They announce Company of Heroes 2 and other games including Saint's Row 3: Enter the Dominatrix (a stand alone expansion).

On June 20th Enter the Dominatrix is cancelled to be incorporated into Saint's Row 4 to make it bigger and better.

On June 29th the reverse stock split is successful and on July 5th the reverse stock split happens. Keep in mind this isn't a "real" increase in the value of the company. For example, if you owned 1,000 shares of THQ at .57 a share, you now own 100 shares at $5.70 a share. In other words, they increased the value of the shares by a factor of 10 by decreasing the number of shares by a factor of 10. They had to get the share price over $1 to avoid a Nasdaq deslisting.
http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=...UNDHF8a40gHcag

During the 2013 2nd quarter conference call, they announced that they had earned 25 million dollars during the summer quarter with catalog sales only (no new releases).

Now in August Darksiders 2 is released to really poor sales. Supposedly worse than expected. It topped the chart that month but it was a pathetic #1 release. Sleeping Dogs was below DS2 on the chart and it lost SE a lot of money.

Darksider's 2 failure was announced during the 2013 Q3 conference call in November (last month). During that call, they also announced that they were going to delay all the games coming out in the Jan-March timeframe (2013 Q4) and that they were contracting with "Centerview" to figure out how to solve their problems. Jason Rubin also indicates that the three games coming out in the Jan-March quarter aren't ready and ALL need to be delayed. This means that they'll now run out of money before the games are released. A week later they announced that they had defaulted on their loan with Well's Fargo.

Now at this point I should point out the following. THQ had a loan with Wells Fargo that they owe roughly 20 Million dollars on. This is a secured debt, the loan is secured by "substantially" all of THQ's assets. Next they have 100 million dollars in corporate bonds. This is all the debt that we know about in November.

Contracting with "centerview" sounds like, "okay we're trying to figure out how to solve our problems" but something that is probably "material" and should have been disclosed on an SEC filing is Jason Rubin's "personal friend" Skip Paul who just so happens to run Centerview. They didn't file anything with the SEC to disclose this important information to investors.
http://www.startup-review.com/blog/f...-20-wisdom.php
Exit analysis

Flektor co-founders, Jason Rubin and Andy Gavin had previously co-founded Naughty Dog, a studio responsible for games such as Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter that yielded ~$1B in retail sales. Despite such impressive credentials that could have afforded them relatively easy access to seed capital, the founding team (Jason, Jason, and Andy) opted to primarily self-fund the company, although they did take some investment from a personal friend, Skip Paul.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...,7561290.story


Centerview senior advisor Skip Paul has close ties to Rubin, who joined THQ in May. Paul worked with Rubin when he was an executive at Universal Studios and more recently invested in Rubin's digital media start-up Flektor, which was acquired by Myspace.


December rolls around and not much happens unil this week, a few days before Christmas, they declare bankruptcy.

Now it gets really interesting. In the bankruptcy documents they have to disclose a great deal more information than they did during their quarterly reports/conference calls.
In the bankruptcy filing this week, it's reported that Centerview has been working with THQ since June 11th, that's the first day of E3 and only DAYS after Jason Rubin came on board. That means almost immediately after being hired as president, Jason hired his old friend Skip Paul. It's also finally disclosed that in addition to the debt, THQ owes the WWE nearly $50 million dollars in unpaid licensing fees and Yukes (the contractor developer that THQ hires to make the WWE games) about 15 million dollars. This was never previously disclosed in the earnings reports. In the bankruptcy filing, THQ discusses that they've got a "stalking horse" bidder for $60 million dollars. That means that if no one comes up with a higher bid in the next 30 days that this guy buys the company for $60 million. Of the $60 million, $20 million goes to pay off the Wells Fargo loan (again that's secured debt so if they aren't repaid they can take the company as collateral). Then 10 million goes to the bond holders. The remaining 30 million isn't being distributed. The WWE gets $0, Yukes gets $0, and shareholders that own the stock get $0. Shareholders are last in line. That means that the company would have to sell for 250 million dollars to pay off all the liabilities. Once all the liabilities are covered, shareholders get paid. So if the company sold for 257 million dollars, all the people owed money get paid 100% and then share holders get $1 per share (roughly 7 million shares are outstanding after the reverse split).

Shareholders are going to be wiped out. There's no way the company sells for more than 250 million.

So here's the facts, Jason comes on board, cancels Enter the Dominatrix and delays the 3 games at the start of next year. This combined results in a "cash crunch" meaning that THQ won't have enough money to continue operations until the new games come out (no so coincidently they would run out of money RIGHT BEFORE the first game comes out in March...hah). This is a self created catastrophe. They could have released one game (maybe company of heroes 2 which probably wouldn't have sold well anyway) with bugs they could patch later to fund the compnay and allow them to release the other two in good shape. Instead they declare bankruptcy. So in delaying the games, they have almost no assets of value so the company is devalued and by the time the company comes out of bankruptcy, they'll have 3 brand new games ready for release under the new THQ that cost them next to nothing develop as all that cost was sunk into the debt from the old bankrupt THQ. They are completely wiping out shareholders so the new owners (who is this company by the way- no one has heard of it). Here's a blog post by Kevin Dent about this: http://doubledouble.posterous.com/co...ming-the-new-c

The new company will be a privately held corporation. They'll probably go public and sell new stock for it as soon as Saint's Row 4 is released. I'd be willing to bet that Jason Rubin gets a massive amount of stock in the new company and comes out smelling like roses.

A year of puposely delayed games to ruin the company:
11/06/2011: UFC Undisputed 3 Shifts Its Release Date to February (KOTAKU)
http://kotaku.com/5856828/ufc-undisp...te-to-february
In a UFC broadcast last week, THQ in slipped word of a publishing delay for UFC Undisputed 3. The game now will release on Feb. 14, after originally being planned for January.

02/03/2012: THQ delays Metro: Last Light, seeks help with Warhammer 40K MMO (GAMES RADAR)
http://www.gamesradar.com/thq-troubl...warhammer-mmo/
Now, THQ has announced that 4A Games' Metro: Last Light won't be seeing the light of day until 2013, and Virgil Games' Warhammer MMO may not see the light at all unless it can find a financial partner. Publisher still confident about upcoming year, despite poor fiscal report

03/29/2012: THQ: Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millenium is no longer an MMO (EURO GAMER)
THQ has "refocussed" troubled MMO Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millenium. It's now an "immersive single player and online multiplayer experience", the publisher has announced.

04/18/2012: Darksiders II delayed from June to August (VG247)
http://www.vg247.com/2012/04/18/dark...yed-to-august/
THQ’s announced Darksiders II will now release in August, delaying it from its previous June slot.

05/16/2012: THQ delays South Park: The Game, ditches Devil's Third (EURO GAMER)
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...s-devils-third
THQ has delayed South Park: The Game to the fourth quarter of its 2013 financial year.
That is, it will now launch at some point from the beginning of January to the end of March 2013. It had been due out this year.

06/20/2012: THQ cancels Saints Row: The Third 'Enter the Dominatrix' standalone expansion (JOYSTIQ)
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/06/20/saints-row-enter-the-dominatrix-canceled/
THQ announced this morning its Saints Row: The Third standalone expansion, Enter the Dominatrix, has been canceled for September and will be incorporated in "The Next Great Sequel in the Saints Row Franchise" (working title) next year.

07/04/2012: THQ gives Devil’s Third rights back to Itagaki (VG247)
http://www.vg247.com/2012/07/04/thq-...ck-to-itagaki/
THQ has returned all rights of Devil’s Third to creator Tomonobu Itagaki and his studio Valhalla.

08/06/2012: THQ Cancels Insane Trilogy
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/a...e-trilogy.aspx
THQ said today it has canceled pre-production on Insane, the trilogy project from Volition Studios and movie director Guillermo Del Toro. The publisher said it has returned the rights of the game to Del Toro.

11/05/2012: THQ delays South Park, Metro and Company of Heroes 2 (PC GAMER)
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/11/05/th...y-of-heroes-2/
In its second quarter financials report, THQ has delayed three of its biggest 2013 titles, with one pushed back as far as 2014.
The Obsidian-developed South Park: The Stick of Truth has been delayed a whole year, with its initial March 2013 release scrapped, and an early 2014 release scheduled.
Meanwhile, Company of Heroes 2 and Metro: Last Light have been rescheduled from a January 2013 release to a March street date.

12/20/2012: What The Hell Is Going On With Warhammer: 40,000: Dark Millenium? (KOTAKU)
http://kotaku.com/5970219/what-the-h...dark-millenium
THQ PR: Development of the DMO ceased, and beyond that we haven't provided any updates on the status of the game or made any announcements of Vigil's next project(s). We don't have anything more to share at this point.



In summary, these guys are a bunch of criminals that are completely wiping out shareholders, destroying the bondholders that loaned THQ 100 million dollars (repaying them 10 million) and purposely bankrupting the company by delaying EVERY GAME so that the new owners who are a shady private equity fund will be able to rake in the cash.

A side note, last week, a week before bankruptcy is announced, THQ bonds were trading at 9 cents per dollar and no one could figure out why. Now we know, it's because bondholders are getting 10 million for 100 million in bonds. That's yet another example of illegal insider trading. THey knew the EXACT AMOUNT that the bonds would be worth a week before the fucking bankruptcy announcement happened. This company has had so many obvious cases of securities fraud in the last year that it's just absolutely pathetic.

Wow. I'll be honest straight away and say that I only understood about 50% of what you wrote, but what I did understand I found very interesting, and is another reminder why I should relearn some business and stock market basics, because I seem to have forgotten most of it.
It was a hard for me to understand exactly which parts of their actions were illegal, loop-hole legal or immoral but even the few things that I understood have opened my eyes a little more to the shenanigans of major video game publishers.
I am guessing that this sort of thing is rampant in major companies and conglomerates though, not that it makes it any easier to swallow.

[claud3]

it's reported that all the parts of THQ is up and read y for many to buy up and it's a tight group of companies going hand over fist to get these parts

BELOW IS 1-9 PAGES ON WHO IS GOING TO BUY UP THQ

Going once. Going twice. Sold!THQ officially announced its bankruptcy and is going to be auctioning off its properties in late January. This means that the futures of its game series, like Darksiders, Company of Heroes, and Saints Row, are all up in the air. Some may never see the light of day again, but this is also the chance for these licenses to get a fresh start with a new publisher.

We don’t want to see any of THQ’s franchises abandoned and left out in the cold to die, so we’ve thought of some good homes where each series could grow and prosper. Hopefully these franchises get bought up and don’t simply disappear in the wake of all the business dealings. Either way, here are the publishers we hope will fork over the dough for our favorite THQ properties. Let the bidding begin.

http://www.gamesradar.com/if-thq-fal...d-pick-pieces/

[claud3]

Here is a mad mack look at how THQ's greatest games would look like in the hands of E.A

MAD MACK: HOW THQ’S GREATEST GAMES MIGHT LOOK IN THE HANDS OF EA

Next week, THQ’s most high-profile IPs will be auctioned off to the highest bidder – and EA are said to be one of the companies looking to pounce. Disgruntled gamer Dave ‘Mack’ McConkey imagines how the likes of Metro and Saints Row might ‘evolve’ if EA gets hold of them.



So despite talk of securing a last-minute buyer, it looks like THQ are going to go the way of the dinosaurs and enter administration, auction off their remaining assets and then call it a day. The ‘humble bundle’ efforts to raise capital have, unfortunately, failed.

Now, THQ have in their possession some really top quality games and IPs. I am no accountant, but it strikes me that if you are a company that has franchises as popular as Saints Row, Darksiders, Metro and Warhammer, then for you to go under you must mean you’ve been carrying on some seriously bad business and management practices. That said, who am I to judge? I was the assistant manager of my college bar for all of three weeks before getting the sack for drinking too much of the profits. So, you know, I am probably not the best person to be dishing out business advice.

Incidentally, now is a great time to invest in Eastern Poland

Regardless of the reason, THQ are going. But their franchises, fortunately, are not. They will be holding a ‘title by title’ auction on January 22^nd to sell off their assets, and hopefully enable the games they currently have in development to be finished. Among the potential buyers are Ubisoft, Warner Entertainment, and my old nemesis: EA.

In my opinion, EA buying ANYTHING is always bad news. As I have said many, many times before in this column, I think of EA as absolute thundercunts who have been guilty of some of the greatest offenses towards gamers since ET. Personally, I anticipate that they will walk away with some of THQ’s best franchises and absolutely fuck them to within an inch of their lives.

Based on recent EA form, I have had a look at THQ’s big franchises and pondered what the future might hold for them in EA’s not-so-capable hands…

Metro Series
Metro: 2033 was one of the most underrated games ever released. It had amazing game mechanics, oppressive environments and a compelling storyline. All us fans were (rightly) eagerly awaiting the release of Metro: Last Light; not least because it has been written in conjunction with the book-series author Dimitry Glukhovsky (note that this is not the game adaptation of Metro: 2034, the sequel to the 2033 novel, but is still the sequel to the 2033 game – you follow?).
Last Light is pretty much there in terms of development, but what can we expect from the series under EA’s tutelage? In a word: ‘budget’.

"We can't invest precious resources if we want to maintain our 'make it rain' shareholder parties"

Budget everything. Budget gameplay, budget design, budget effects, budget sounds, budget acting, budget writing and budget mechanics. You will see this game lose all of its unique charm and character and go from being an action/survival horror, to a generic budget shooter that appears on the shelves one week and is gone the next.

Warhammer: Dawn of War
THQ have done a great job of capturing the feel of the small-scale tactical engagements you see in your average Warhammer: 40K game – the troop engagements and multiple strategic options for dealing with a given scenario (including my favourite ‘build as many of the biggest thing possible and hit attack/move all the way across the map’ – I am not good at strategy), and no doubt EA will see this as some sort of insult:

‘So you are telling me a game about space marines and orcs and shit, set in the future, isn’t a first-person shooter?’
‘Yep.’
‘Get. The. Fuck. Out.’
A few phone calls later and ‘Dawn of War III’ is the latest IP that EA have FPS-ised.

Do you see? Do you?

Saints Row
I must confess that I have not yet gotten round to playing Saints Row 3 – despite having purchased it in the Humble Bundle – so I cannot say this with absolute confidence. But it seems to me that the Saints Row franchise is what GTA would be if GTA had spent a lot of its formative years huffing paint and hanging around with Hunter S. Thompson. It has lots of the usual ultraviolence you would expect of a GTA-style sandbox game, but also lots of cock-shaped swords, giant cat heads, jet packs, lasers and a whole heap of other insanity.

Including the fabled ‘Hooker Cannon’

However, ‘insanity’ in games does not go over well with focus groups, so I would suggest that Saints Row 4 according to EA will be a third-person shooter, possibly with an online co-op aspect (local co-op does not feature in the EA lexicon,

as that means that gamers only need to buy one copy to play it). Basically, think ‘Army of Two’ but in a city. And with some tokenistic attempts at slapstick or cock-themed humour. But not too much. Oh no. Perish the thought that you release a game for 18+ or Adults Only, and then can’t sell it in Walmart – you fucking sell-out pigs.
Company of Heroes

Medal of Honour. They might keep some element of squad level play, and call it a ‘tactical squad-based shooter’, but I will bet my left nut that if EA buy the CoH rights, the franchise will be yet another WWII shooter-fest before next Christmas.

And you know, it has been some time since we had a WWII shooter. What, with COD, MoH and the BF franchises moving away from the WWII setting, why, there is a whole generation of gamers out there who have no idea what it was like to drop into Normandy, or storm the beaches of Normandy, or launch commando raids in Normandy, or even know what to do if you ever find yourself lost in Normandy! EA have the perfect opportunity on their hands right now to bring WWII to life in a way that no one has ever seen before – in 3D!

Apparently, 3D technology actually reduces intelligence

It is really great to live in the future.
South Park
So, you like the glorious juxtaposition of adult and juvenile humour that South Park offers? You like how it is uncompromising in ridiculing, well, everything? How it has not bowed to corporate pressure to tone the humour down or leave some topics alone as sacred? Or how they seem to really get to the meat of some really topical and controversial issues?

Like this guy, who is a whole host of issues all by his self.

Yeah, well you can forget that. Because that shit does not fly in the EA corporate HQ. What you can expect is for the game to get cancelled when the creators tell EA to go fuck themselves after being told to censor the game or tone it down in search of that all-important age rating.

Of course, this is all a fairly pessimistic look at what might happen to the THQ franchises. For all we know, Ubisoft will be the main winners, in which case Metro will be remade into a stealth-based thriller; Warhammer will be made into a realistic battle sim; Saints Row will be recrafted into a parkour-driven gangster game; Company of Heroes will be a tactical squad shooter, with vehicles and shit; and South Park will be an open-world FPS. And that would be…well, that might not be so bad actually!

This, but with Titans. And Space Marines

http://www.fmvmagazine.com/?p=14657

[Typical guy]

FYI: South Park is actually funded by Viacom. They chose Obsidian as the developer and they're funding the game's development. Viacom also chose THQ as the publisher. I'm not sure exactly what part of South Park THQ can sell but MAYBE they can sell the publishing rights though I'm not completely sure on that.

[claud3]

this is all just news and can change over the next course of 3 months, from there

the placement of series will be divided between others

[AmigaEngine]

Hopefully Darksiders franchise and the new Metro game survives. Imo Metro looks far better than Aliens

[Typical guy]

Hopefully Darksiders franchise and the new Metro game survives. Imo Metro looks far better than Aliens

I liked Metro2033 quite a lot.

[claud3]

Metro 2033 and Last night are really important games and that series needs to survive, because it would be a freaking shame. If this series disappears now

because it could and has turned out to be very special

[KyleOnTheRun]

We still don't know which franchises are going up for sale in the auction on January 22nd. But, I was scheduled to attend and cover a Metro: Last Light event for PSU in San Francisco a couple days ago. The event was cancelled, with very little advance notice.

There's a good chance that one of two things are about to happen: the Metro franchise will be sold at auction, and/or Last Light is cancelled/indefinitely postponed.

[claud3]

here is something funny, what if Rockstar got the WWE contract

[AmigaEngine]

We still don't know which franchises are going up for sale in the auction on January 22nd. But, I was scheduled to attend and cover a Metro: Last Light event for PSU in San Francisco a couple days ago. The event was cancelled, with very little advance notice.

There's a good chance that one of two things are about to happen: the Metro franchise will be sold at auction, and/or Last Light is cancelled/indefinitely postponed.

I teared up when i read that part lol. maybe Guerilla should step up and buy that franchise. Would be a excellent alternative to the KZ franchise.

[claud3]

The metro series was an excellent game and yet it is getting screwed. Because there is no other company that can improve what is not broken

The series will be ruined now, if bought up buy another

[Sylar]

I'm hoping the Darksiders series will survive, it should do as it's been quite successful