Future of THQ is in question...

TheGameguru wrote:

Freemium and F2P with micro-transactions are probably a good model even for AAA games. We just need someone like Blizzard to fully adopt it and succeed to see that model really take off in the West.

I was about to say it would take someone like Blizzard, but they're already doing something non-conventional for Starcraft2, although in the south American markets rather than 'western' markets.

It's a bit annoying to see a studio stick with the 'safe' options and then go down with the ship when, admittedly with hindsight, it might have been a good time to experiment. I wonder if any other publishers will learn something from THQ and change their practices.

No offense, but f-ck CoH, and Saints Row, and Space Marine, and everything else. These people own Homeworld!

Spoiler:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Keep in mind, though, that the rebuttal sounds exactly the way you would word things if you were intending to find a buyer by mentioning how well their IP is doing on the sales charts. When it comes to actual revenue, they have been doing poorly for quite a while. Their stock value in 2007 was around $36. It currently is sitting at about $0.66.

gregrampage wrote:

It was on sale for $30 plus the season pass pretty quickly (on Amazon, if I remember right), but that doesn't change your point much.

I'm actually curious about sales like that and how much of a percentage of total sales they make up. People that follow CAG and the deals threads on here might think it's common sense and common practice to wait for the inevitable Steam/Amazon/Brick and Mortar sale but that could be a pretty small minority of game buyers.

I bought the PC version off of THQ UK's site for $20 including DLC.

Yonder wrote:

These people own Homeworld!

And haven't done anything with it. For that matter, no one has come out with anything close to it since, and it's not as though THQ own the rights to space based RTS. Just like with games that actually do come out, I don't pay for potential, I value what they achieve.

And yet they had to downgrade their outlook for the Christmas quarter by no less than 25 percent...

THQ's 'good' year also includes Red Faction: Armageddon and MX vs. ATV Alive, which tanked so hard that they've officially abandoned both franchises and closed the studio in charge of the MX series. Homefront had high initial sales, but fell off the radar and hit the bargain bin super-quickly. uDraw 360/PS3 underperformed, too - see link. I'd also guess that WH40K: Space Marine did not do as well as they originally hoped. Didn't flop, but also clearly didn't do well enough for them to commit to a sequel.

kaptainbarbosa wrote:

Their stock value in 2007 was around $36. It currently is sitting at about $0.66.

So you're saying now is the time to buy?

I find it interesting that the family friendly games didn't provide much in the way of revenue for them, considering that's one of Ubisoft's big money makers and one of the ways I imagine they fund their more ambitious projects (in addition to special effects film work they've been doing on contract).

THQ's "hardcore" offerings tend to vary from decent to awesome. I mean, Homefront and Red Faction: Armageddon were disappointing in terms of gameplay, but they weren't actually bad games (in terms of single player campaign for the former and demo for the latter).

In terms of game prices, I feel like it would benefit certain games to release at $30 instead of the full $60. X-Men: Destiny is one of these games. If the lower price point manages to snag double the sales than you'd get at $60, then you at least get double the number of potential DLC buyers or some other forms of micro-transactions (so you don't go full freemium, but take some steps toward that direction). But sometimes it's hard to tell which games will sell well at $30 and which you can get away charging $60 for. THQ expected Homefront's multiplayer to be the selling point, hence the disappointing campaign that felt more like a $30 budget title.

ccesarano wrote:

In terms of game prices, I feel like it would benefit certain games to release at $30 instead of the full $60. X-Men: Destiny is one of these games. If the lower price point manages to snag double the sales than you'd get at $60, then you at least get double the number of potential DLC buyers or some other forms of micro-transactions (so you don't go full freemium, but take some steps toward that direction). But sometimes it's hard to tell which games will sell well at $30 and which you can get away charging $60 for. THQ expected Homefront's multiplayer to be the selling point, hence the disappointing campaign that felt more like a $30 budget title.

That's pretty much the case with all "AAA" games, there's very little middleground between big boxes at big prices, and XBLA/PSN and 'value' (or another label you want to use) games.

Something I think is worth thinking about is if THQ aren't going to the wall now, why won't they be going to the wall in the future or being bought out? I don't really see anything upcoming from them that's going to change their course.

Spunior wrote:

And yet they had to downgrade their outlook for the Christmas quarter by no less than 25 percent...

THQ's 'good' year also includes Red Faction: Armageddon and MX vs. ATV Alive, which tanked so hard that they've officially abandoned both franchises and closed the studio in charge of the MX series. Homefront had high initial sales, but fell off the radar and hit the bargain bin super-quickly. uDraw 360/PS3 underperformed, too - see link. I'd also guess that WH40K: Space Marine did not do as well as they originally hoped. Didn't flop, but also clearly didn't do well enough for them to commit to a sequel.

Wasn't really trying to defend them, just posting something I saw as a counterargument. And to be fair, Red Faction Armageddon deserved to flop. Even if it was a good game in it's own right, it disposed of what made Guerrilla fun (and the only reason I bought it). THQ, or whoever made that call should be flogged.

Either way.. Darksiders 2 better sell like gangbusters..

Blind_Evil wrote:
hbi2k wrote:

...the first two Saints Row games, which is to say middle-of-the-road GTA knockoffs with some potty humor...

Hey, hey. Did you play SR2? I didn't see a very big leap in quality or mechanics between 2 and 3, just a difference in scale.

Sorry, I should have specified that I was more referring to the fact that in terms of my buying recision re: SR3, that was my (and I would tend to assume a lot of people's) impression of the first two games based on little first-hand knowledge. If you've actually played the games and your experience differs, I'll defer to your wisdom as far as their actual quality. Didn't mean to hate.

TheGameguru wrote:

Either way.. Darksiders 2 better sell like gangbusters..

Well, that depends. Was the first one any--

IMAGE(http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/203562_214715878570614_4579168_n.jpg)

Looks like one of my bold predictions may be coming true sooner than I thought. That really sucks, I'd hoped I was wrong about that. The AAA industry needs more competition, not more consolidation. But between Danny Bilson's constant series of missteps and Brian Farrell's insane attempt to bring the uDraw to HD consoles (the huge stock they pre-bought and the writedowns from that is largely what put them in this sudden dire position), I'm not wholly surprised either. Those two guys really botched 2011 badly and if THQ can turn things around, they should both be booted. I hope someone can step up and give them some cash to right the ship.

The plot thickens. I wrote another blurb about it too.

I don't know how true that letter's contents are given how badly written it is but I've read things elsewhere that paint a similar picture of the leadership there. Looks like this is a historical problem and likely won't right itself if certain people aren't booted. Amazed the shareholders haven't called for Farrell's head yet.

kaptainbarbosa wrote:

Keep in mind, though, that the rebuttal sounds exactly the way you would word things if you were intending to find a buyer by mentioning how well their IP is doing on the sales charts. When it comes to actual revenue, they have been doing poorly for quite a while. Their stock value in 2007 was around $36. It currently is sitting at about $0.66.

Clearly the market has decided they arent going to survive. Once a stock has hit the ropes that hard and that low there generally isnt any going back.

mcdonis wrote:
kaptainbarbosa wrote:

Keep in mind, though, that the rebuttal sounds exactly the way you would word things if you were intending to find a buyer by mentioning how well their IP is doing on the sales charts. When it comes to actual revenue, they have been doing poorly for quite a while. Their stock value in 2007 was around $36. It currently is sitting at about $0.66.

Clearly the market has decided they arent going to survive. Once a stock has hit the ropes that hard and that low there generally isnt any going back.

Yep short of a buyout there is no way they are getting any capital... so unless they have a game that has enough cash left to reach market.. and then that game with next to no marketing sells a ton of copies.. its lights out.

mcdonis wrote:

Clearly the market has decided they arent going to survive. Once a stock has hit the ropes that hard and that low there generally isnt any going back.

So who'd be a buyer, and how many of the development houses THQ publishes do they own? I could see Activision and/or EA being highly interested in Saint's Row to leverage against 2K R*, but I don't know much about the rest of their franchises.

At this rate, I honestly don't see them making it to 2013 unless a miracle happens. The only silver lining I can think of is that it means there might be a flood of talent on the indie circuit if they go bust as is usually the case.

shoptroll wrote:

So who'd be a buyer, and how many of the development houses THQ publishes do they own?

They own Vigil (Darksiders), Volition (Red Faction, Saint's Row), Relic (Dawn of War, Space Marine, Company of Heroes), and two studios in Montreal and San Diego whose output I'm not sure of. One of their most valuable assets might actually be Play THQ which publishes all the Disney/Pixar and Nickelodean games.

Anyone else want to try and put the money together to buy Relic or Volition?

Certis, how good is your credit?

ClockworkHouse wrote:

They own Vigil (Darksiders), Volition (Red Faction, Saint's Row), Relic (Dawn of War, Space Marine, Company of Heroes), and two studios in Montreal and San Diego whose output I'm not sure of.

How much would the Warhammer license be worth to EA? If they pick up Relic they can pretty much launch a two-pronged attack on Blizzard between their new interest in the C&C franchise and the full Warhammer license. Or does that stuff not usually trade hands in a buyout?

No idea who'd want Vigil :p

One of their most valuable assets might actually be Play THQ which publishes all the Disney/Pixar and Nickelodean games.

Aren't some of the rumors saying they had to return the licenses, at least on the Disney IP? Although presumably that could be Disney wanting to take things in-house.

shoptroll wrote:
mcdonis wrote:

Clearly the market has decided they arent going to survive. Once a stock has hit the ropes that hard and that low there generally isnt any going back.

So who'd be a buyer

My guess is there wont be one. I dont see anyone throwing them a lifeline in this market, more than likely after they die someone can pick up the IP's on the cheep.

The next shoe to drop will be news that talent is moving on and leaving THQ on mass.

mcdonis wrote:

more than likely after they die someone can pick up the IP's on the cheep.

Or more likely still the IP will partly belong to some creditor and remain in limbo and be essentially untouchable for eternity.

shoptroll wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

They own Vigil (Darksiders), Volition (Red Faction, Saint's Row), Relic (Dawn of War, Space Marine, Company of Heroes), and two studios in Montreal and San Diego whose output I'm not sure of.

How much would the Warhammer license be worth to EA? If they pick up Relic they can pretty much launch a two-pronged attack on Blizzard between their new interest in the C&C franchise and the full Warhammer license. Or does that stuff not usually trade hands in a buyout?

The problem is that EA doesn't absorb small dev studios well. They tend to take them, throw them into a corner, the drop them as soon as their quality(predictably) drops.

Ubisoft or Activision would be a better fit, overall. Both of those companies tend to let the studios play to their strengths.

Bbbbb... Borderlands 2 will be ok.. right?

Irongut wrote:

Bbbbb... Borderlands 2 will be ok.. right?

Borderlands is a Gearbox IP licenced to 2K/TakeTwo to be published.

cube wrote:

The problem is that EA doesn't absorb small dev studios well. They tend to take them, throw them into a corner, the drop them as soon as their quality(predictably) drops.

Guh. Don't remind me about the PopCap purchase

Ubisoft or Activision would be a better fit, overall. Both of those companies tend to let the studios play to their strengths.

I can see Activision for some. Relic is really redundant for them due to Blizzard.

The main reason I see EA making a grab is that they seem to be in this mindset of putting their fingers in too many pies currently. Volition would allow them to compete with R* in the open-world space and Relic would give them a bigger investment in the Warhammer license and push that more aggressively against Blizzard's IP.

Irongut wrote:

Bbbbb... Borderlands 2 will be ok.. right?

Unless something's changed, that's probably 2K.

shoptroll wrote:
One of their most valuable assets might actually be Play THQ which publishes all the Disney/Pixar and Nickelodean games.

Aren't some of the rumors saying they had to return the licenses, at least on the Disney IP? Although presumably that could be Disney wanting to take things in-house.

The announcement this morning was that THQ is completely getting out of the licensed IP/kids business to focus on core games. So there's no longer any value in them for the licensed field. Though from what I've been reading, there hadn't been any value in the licensed titles for a while which is why almost everyone else got out of that business a while ago. One of what I'm learning was many of Brian Farrell's stumbles there in recent years was overpaying to secure licenses that most other publishers were dumping anyway. They burned a lot of cash on that and have now returned a lot of those licenses back, having made little to none of the money back. The more I read into this, the more I'm realising that THQ needed a new CEO a long time ago.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

The more I read into this, the more I'm realising that THQ needed a new CEO a long time ago.

I hear Jerry Yang and Leo Apotheker are looking for a new jobs

As a recent Bombcast talked about, it's really kind of depressing to see once again an experiment of trying to take a bunch of risks, making new IP, allowing more creative freedom with your developers and avoiding lazy cash-ins only to have that entire thing fail miserably. In the case of EA and Majesco, reverting back to cynical corporate practices and churning out annual sequels seemed to also put them on the right financial path again.

Of course, there's a lot of information now that shows it's not so simple and it had more to do with really poor management. It's just the overall story that sounds like a downer, especially since that's probably the lesson current publishers will take from it.

Unfortunate if Patrice Désilets's mystery project doesn't see the light of day.
I'm going to guess Volition will be okay and we'll see another Saint's Row regardless.

Who looks at uDraw and thinks "this is the thing we are going to bet heavily on" that's madness.