Future of THQ is in question...

mcdonis wrote:

Unless I totaly missed it I dont think he made a call on what their real situation is. (Are they cut off from credit, what are their cash reserves)

To me that is the real question

They have $36M in cash and about another $30Mish on a line of credit they can still use. But with keeping all their current studios afloat and paying milestones to 4A Games and Obsidian, the estimate is that they're burning $15M-$18M a month which if true, means they don't have the money to get to March unless they either sell more assets (and the only things of worth that can save them they need to hang onto), sell the company or find someone willing to dump a bag full of money onto the already soaked deck of the Titanic.

or find someone willing to dump a bag full of money onto the already soaked deck of the Titanic.

I hear the Rhode Island government is going to have a huge windfall once they win their suits against Schilling and Wells Fargo ;P

Man, can you imagine if THQ was in this condition when Schilling bought Big Huge Games? I know it would cost a lot more to buy THQ than just their market cap because of the debt they hold but can you imagine if 38 Studios just bought all of THQ? That mess would have possibly caused a black hole.

I think just thinking about it will make you spontaneously combus...

Evaluating THQ's Financial Position And Enterprise Value. Another highly technical but pretty neat read.

Also from Seeking Alpha however is word that THQ is technically already in default on their line of credit. This is something that could end up being resolved and it may not result in forcing them into bankruptcy but it's not at all a good thing regardless.

Hey, check out the new humble indie bundle. If it doesn't reek of desperation for coin, I don't know what does.

Yikes. That's ... kind of sad.

But hey, if you still don't have SR3, you'd be foolish to miss this opportunity to get it for a little more than $5, unless you hate fun.

The people criticizing the Humble group and THQ for this are just... ugh. What the hell.

There's great games that can be gotten cheap. Some of it (AN AMOUNT YOU F*CKING DECIDE) goes to charity. If you don't want any of your money to go to THQ or the Humble group for this (for whatever stupid reason) then push that slider all the way to the left and throw all your money at charity.

Only on the internet. Christ.

Thin_J wrote:

The people criticizing the Humble group and THQ for this are just... ugh. What the hell.

There's great games that can be gotten cheap. Some of it (AN AMOUNT YOU F*CKING DECIDE) goes to charity. If you don't want any of your money to go to THQ or the Humble group for this (for whatever stupid reason) then push that slider all the way to the left and throw all your money at charity.

Only on the internet. Christ.

I honestly have always put the who gets the money sliders 100% to the developers the few times I purchased one of these bundles. I don't really get the point of sending money to charities via this method. I'll be skipping this as the only game I want and don't have is Red Faction, and I have no money in the budget for video games.

The ones I don't have are Red Faction, Saints Row and the Company of Heroes expansions. Company of Heroes was fun until the last couple of levels I played and it started kicking my butt and I think I was only half-way through the game. I just don't get how to play that game, so I removed it from my list of games to play..

kuddles wrote:

Hey, check out the new humble indie bundle. If it doesn't reek of desperation for coin, I don't know what does.

I'll give them credit for trying all avenues available to them. They've currently got (back of envelope calculation) around $600k they didn't have before.

Scratched wrote:
kuddles wrote:

Hey, check out the new humble indie bundle. If it doesn't reek of desperation for coin, I don't know what does.

I'll give them credit for trying all avenues available to them. They've currently got (back of envelope calculation) around $600k they didn't have before.

And their stock's up almost 38% today. The lesson THQ and all major game companies should take from this is "give me your games dirt cheap, you'll totes profit."

Bonus_Eruptus wrote:
Scratched wrote:
kuddles wrote:

Hey, check out the new humble indie bundle. If it doesn't reek of desperation for coin, I don't know what does.

I'll give them credit for trying all avenues available to them. They've currently got (back of envelope calculation) around $600k they didn't have before.

And their stock's up almost 38% today. The lesson THQ and all major game companies should take from this is "give me your games dirt cheap, you'll totes profit."

It... uh.. it went up 25 cents. From 1.30 to 1.55. The picture becomes more interesting/sad when clicking the 6M button.

maverickz wrote:
Bonus_Eruptus wrote:
Scratched wrote:
kuddles wrote:

Hey, check out the new humble indie bundle. If it doesn't reek of desperation for coin, I don't know what does.

I'll give them credit for trying all avenues available to them. They've currently got (back of envelope calculation) around $600k they didn't have before.

And their stock's up almost 38% today. The lesson THQ and all major game companies should take from this is "give me your games dirt cheap, you'll totes profit."

It... uh.. it went up 25 cents. From 1.30 to 1.55. The picture becomes more interesting/sad when clicking the 6M button.

SHHHHH! It went up 40%. It's clear to me, and should be to all CEOs, that giving me games cheap will give them a similar 40% bump. Don't question it. Gief me gams.

maverickz wrote:
Bonus_Eruptus wrote:
Scratched wrote:
kuddles wrote:

Hey, check out the new humble indie bundle. If it doesn't reek of desperation for coin, I don't know what does.

I'll give them credit for trying all avenues available to them. They've currently got (back of envelope calculation) around $600k they didn't have before.

And their stock's up almost 38% today. The lesson THQ and all major game companies should take from this is "give me your games dirt cheap, you'll totes profit."

It... uh.. it went up 25 cents. From 1.30 to 1.55. The picture becomes more interesting/sad when clicking the 6M button.

Between 3 and 4 PM it went up 25 cents. Its up 41 cents or 38% for the day, it says so right at the top of the chart.

If you want to see something really scary, click the 5 year.

Bonus_Eruptus wrote:
maverickz wrote:
Bonus_Eruptus wrote:
Scratched wrote:
kuddles wrote:

Hey, check out the new humble indie bundle. If it doesn't reek of desperation for coin, I don't know what does.

I'll give them credit for trying all avenues available to them. They've currently got (back of envelope calculation) around $600k they didn't have before.

And their stock's up almost 38% today. The lesson THQ and all major game companies should take from this is "give me your games dirt cheap, you'll totes profit."

It... uh.. it went up 25 cents. From 1.30 to 1.55. The picture becomes more interesting/sad when clicking the 6M button.

SHHHHH! It went up 40%. It's clear to me, and should be to all CEOs, that giving me games cheap will give them a similar 40% bump. Don't question it. Gief me gams.

Yeah, THQ seems to be making a notable push for income right now. As pure speculation- I can imagine this both gives them more $ for which to borrow against and provides clear indications of the strength of their brands. If they are making a push to hold on longer this looks potentially like a really strong, smart push.

I also noticed this during Brown Thursday and Black Friday. I saw a major UDraw push, unlike what I had seen before. There were several doorbusters and advertised sales on UDraws- enough so that it seemed like a decision at some point to ensure that product was moved in a significant way.

So, if THQ goes bankrupt, is that going to make it hard to find their games at reasonable prices?

The Pile is already pretty big, so I've been putting it off, but maybe I should pick up copies of Metro 2033 and Darksiders 2 while they are relatively cheap.

Well you can get Metro 2033 for whatever you're willing to pay...

Metro is still one of the best FPS I ever played

It's right up there

I normally do 90% to developer, 10% to Humble, and 0% to charity on the bundles, but were I buying this one (which I probably won't, since I have most of it already), I'd do 100% THQ. Not out of some weird loyalty to THQ, but because Humble is not providing much value to me in this case, having given up on the no-DRM idea.

I realize that it wouldn't be reasonable for THQ to remove it for this kind of project, because they'd have to yank out Steam integration, and also rework their multiplayer code at least a little (since, at present, it requires a unique CD key to work, which is another form of DRM), and push it to the entire installed base. Not worth it to them.

But, at the same time, the major reason to buy Humble has always been the no-DRM thing, so since they're not offering that in this case, their major value to me is not there, and I don't think I would want to pay them anything.

Hmm, maybe I'd give them 50 cents to cover the Paypal fee, which I think they eat.

Malor wrote:

But, at the same time, the major reason to buy Humble has always been the no-DRM thing, so since they're not offering that in this case, their major value to me is not there, and I don't think I would want to pay them anything.

Judging by the numbers they've posted so far, I think the Pay What You Want aspect is probably the most enticing thing for people. I'm really curious to see if this will get the other publishers to try something similar down the road, most likely with DRM attached. This is the Long Tail at work, and it'd be interesting to see how a Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, Blizzard, or Electronic Arts PWYW bundle would perform under the Humble Bundle name.

Also, to be fair to the Humble Bundle people, it's not like GOG has had tremendous success with convincing publishers to release their more recent games without DRM through their service. To date we've only seen titles from Ubisoft, Remedy, Telltale, and a number of indie games. I think Malor's spot-on about removing the Steam integration is probably not something they wanted to go through on what's essentially a fire sale.

Regardless, I can sympathize with people being disappointed and sitting out on this bundle due to the DRM and/or platform exclusivity.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Evaluating THQ's Financial Position And Enterprise Value. Another highly technical but pretty neat read.

Also from Seeking Alpha however is word that THQ is technically already in default on their line of credit. This is something that could end up being resolved and it may not result in forcing them into bankruptcy but it's not at all a good thing regardless.

There's one thing that article missed: they hold the exclusive rights to several licensed IPs, including WWE. I'm not certain whether they are transferable, or salable, but they could be of interest to an acquirer.

Of course, those licenses are what got THQ in trouble in the first place, but hindsight=20/20.

I can't find the darned THQ Bundle thread so a quick Q- now that they've added more games to the bundle, if I've already purchased it do I get those games as well? Will my code simply add the other games to my Steam queue?

demonbox wrote:

Will my code simply add the other games to my Steam queue?

That's usually how it works.

demonbox wrote:

I can't find the darned THQ Bundle thread so a quick Q- now that they've added more games to the bundle, if I've already purchased it do I get those games as well? Will my code simply add the other games to my Steam queue?

You have to go back to the Bundle site and there will be new keys available for the games added on.

demonbox wrote:

I can't find the darned THQ Bundle thread so a quick Q- now that they've added more games to the bundle, if I've already purchased it do I get those games as well? Will my code simply add the other games to my Steam queue?

Just go to the link in the email that they sent you and the extra keys will be there.

Awesome, thanks. I've not tried Dawn of War or Titan Quest and I hear great things about both.

No takers then. Nevermind. Off to twitter I go.

Another one bites the dust.

Here's hoping they can either restructure in such a way that allows them to release their games in the pipe or that someone picks them up and shepherd's them to completion. Merry Effing Christmas to all the staff who are now probably going to lose their jobs thanks to Brian Farrell's inept leadership.

More details here

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Here's hoping they can either restructure in such a way that allows them to release their games in the pipe or that someone picks them up and shepherd's them to completion.

Agreed. I really want to see what Volition has planned for SR4.

I really hope all their studios are purchased. I really do.

God dammit. What a year.