Future of THQ is in question...

Hunh, interesting home for Vigil I didn't expect. I figured Take-Two would be all over Volition. I wonder if all the layoffs are just on the THQ corporate side or if some of the studios were bought just to get the IPs and then the suitors decided to cut the teams.

I don't see why Take-Two / 2K would want Volition. They already have GTA and Red Faction hasn't been a big seller as far as FPS games go.

shoptroll wrote:

I don't see why Take-Two / 2K would want Volition. They already have GTA and Red Faction hasn't been a big seller as far as FPS games go.

I could totally see them wanting the two ends of the open-world genre: Serious and insane. Looks like it's a mix of corporate and developer talent that has been laid off. This is going to be messy.

shoptroll wrote:

I don't see why Take-Two / 2K would want Volition. They already have GTA and Red Faction hasn't been a big seller as far as FPS games go.

I think some sharing between Rockstar and Volition would yield a better product.

I still say Take 2 is the next to fold. I think holders will be kicking themselves when they refused the EA offer a few years ago. Take 2 has been going down that earlier road of closure and consolidation the past 5 years too.

There seems to be talk of Vigil being shut down... Take Two interest was only the IP.

KingGorilla wrote:

I still say Take 2 is the next to fold. I think holders will be kicking themselves when they refused the EA offer a few years ago. Take 2 has been going down that earlier road of closure and consolidation the past 5 years too.

At least they've managed to turn a profit a few times unlike THQ. Though they still haven't figured out how to consistently make money with anything that isn't Grand Theft Auto. I remember hearing on a podcast a while back though that their MLB exclusivity deal cost them a bazillion dollars (thanks to one of their previous CEOs) and they were losing money on the games but had to keep making them until the contract was up. Once it is (which I think might be this year), it's apparently supposed to slow the bleeding a lot. We'll see I guess.

And that really hurt THQ as well, they shored up MMA, Wrestling, Cartoon exclusivity deals.

I really want to know who at EA, Take 2, THQ sold these long term exclusivity deals without any back doors. Not just in games, but they never end well. Ask anyone who went into exclusivity locks with airliners and fuel companies.

The only thing that makes me nervous about that email is what's missing. It does not specifically state that Sega is buying the Company of Heroes IP or that Koch bought the Saints Row IP. I guess time will tell.

Not a surprise but management apparently announced to employees that THQ Inc. is being dissolved and the component parts have been sold at least 5 different publishers.

EDIT: More details. Sega bought Relic and Company of Heroes, Koch Media (Deep Silver) bought Volition and Saint's Row (somehow) as well as Metro, Crytek (who was making Homefront 2) now owns the IP, Take-Two bought an unannounced game and Ubisoft will buy THQ Montreal and the rights to publish South Park. Looks so far like no one bought Vigil. Apparently they're not dead yet and THQ will continue to try to find a buyer but no one's interested thus far.

I hope your proud of yourself Brian Farell. This is the culmination of years of your bumbling "leadership".

kuddles wrote:

The only thing that makes me nervous about that email is what's missing. It does not specifically state that Sega is buying the Company of Heroes IP or that Koch bought the Saints Row IP. I guess time will tell.

As good studios as they are, I'd say they probably wouldn't hold much interest to a buyer without the established IPs that come with them. And since Company of Heroes 2 is very near the finish line, I don't think Sega would buy the studio without it. But yeah, it is a curious thing.

Yeah, report on GamesBeat I read says Vigil couldn't find a buyer. I know we all have our "Is it any good?" jokes here, but at the very least when I played both Darksiders 1 and Darksiders 2 I found games with a large pool of content, a variety of good game design choices and a lot more polish than a single Bethesda game has ever walked out of the door with (unless you count Dishonored, which they merely published).

That no one would want to buy the developer is just...that's horrible, horrifying, and makes me wonder what the priorities of the people buying really are. It is one thing to lose the Darksiders IP. I can stand possibly never getting a third (I am, after all, a fan of Republic Commando and Metal Arms, two games that deserved sequels). But to lose a studio of clearly talented and passionate people...

I really, really hope they can find a buyer.

Rumour out there is that Crytek was able to snag the Homefront IP for only $500k. It makes sense why they would do it. It at least has some brand recognition and is probably cheaper than trying to retrofit the game they've been working on for the past year into something else and promote it as such.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Ubisoft will buy THQ Montreal

Wait...is that where Patrice Desilets was? Wikipedia says yes.

Honestly, until today I had thought that Relic was independent, with a publishing license with THQ but was not an owned entity of THQ.

FYI the Relic wiki page currently has them as an owned subsidiary of Sega, so it must be true.

Sega seems as good a home as any for Relic. They did not seem to do any harm to Total War. Anything I have is Creative Assembly's penchant for annual releases.

ccesarano wrote:

That no one would want to buy the developer is just...that's horrible, horrifying, and makes me wonder what the priorities of the people buying really are. It is one thing to lose the Darksiders IP. I can stand possibly never getting a third (I am, after all, a fan of Republic Commando and Metal Arms, two games that deserved sequels). But to lose a studio of clearly talented and passionate people...

The sad thing about Vigil is that for all the talent that's clearly there, neither Darksiders game turned a profit and the only other thing they had was the Warhammer 40K MMO that never came out, got re-envisioned as another game and was never heard from again. It's not a great track record from a cold, business perspective.

Also, apparently that unannounced "Evolve" game was the Turtle Rock project. So Take-Two has the publishing rights for it now.

kuddles wrote:

Rumour out there is that Crytek was able to snag the Homefront IP for only $500k. It makes sense why they would do it. It at least has some brand recognition and is probably cheaper than trying to retrofit the game they've been working on for the past year into something else and promote it as such.

Crytek probably have a lot invested in Homefront already due to their development of HF2, so that 500k is the rights to go and try to be successful with it by themselves.

Something not mentioned is Relic/Vigil's Warhammer games, which I assume is tied up to Games workshop.

Scratched wrote:
kuddles wrote:

Rumour out there is that Crytek was able to snag the Homefront IP for only $500k. It makes sense why they would do it. It at least has some brand recognition and is probably cheaper than trying to retrofit the game they've been working on for the past year into something else and promote it as such.

Crytek probably have a lot invested in Homefront already due to their development of HF2, so that 500k is the rights to go and try to be successful with it by themselves.

Something not mentioned is Relic/Vigil's Warhammer games, which I assume is tied up to Games workshop.

Correct about the Warhammer games. Games Workshop holds the rights to those.

I've heard that THQ actually owed Crytek a decent chunk of money. So Crytek offered to buy Homefront IP for a cheap amount in exchange for not suing THQ for the money owed.

Scratched wrote:

Something not mentioned is Relic/Vigil's Warhammer games, which I assume is tied up to Games workshop.

Considering the fact that Sega already has the non-40k Warhammer license and Relic and Games Workshop are pretty cozy together at this point, it probably won't be difficult for Sega to get them back.

According to Destructoid, Homefront 2 went to Crytek for $500,000.

Damn.

Apparently Relic went to Sega for $22.6M and get this, Bethesda had a backup bid in of $22.3M. Bethesda owning an RTS house, now that would be interesting.

Man, that sucks about Vigil. I hope someone picks them up.

Looks like a bunch of Vigil people are tweeting about how they're out of work. I guess they're leaving it up for sale in the hopes that someone will buy it and recall the employees. Not a good sign at all.

Surprised that Relic sold for more than Volition and Saints Row. I think Sega will be a good home for them. Bethesda though, that would have been interesting.

Barab wrote:

Surprised that Relic sold for more than Volition and Saints Row. I think Sega will be a good home for them. Bethesda though, that would have been interesting.

Maybe Bethesda should re-bid for Volition. DAEDRIC DILDOBAT.

To be brutally honest, as long as I've been aware of them Vigil never struck me as a lucrative developer that publishers would envy THQ owning them. I'm sure there is good talent there, but I don't think the sum is greater than the parts, but if they're recruited those 'parts' (or people to put it in less harsh terms) will hopefully go on to do good stuff again.

Giant Bomb has a list of the prices paid:

$500k Homefront (Crytek)
$26M for Relic (Sega)
$2.5M for THQ Montreal (Ubisoft)
$3.2M for South Park (Ubisoft)
$11M for Evolve (Take-Two)
$22.3M for Volition (Koch Media)
$5.8M for Metro (Koch Media)

Kind of shocked how little South Park and THQ Montreal went for. And man, this is really a fire sale as this will only pay their $50M outstanding line of credit plus about another $15M. A looooot of THQ debtholders are getting shafted.

ccesarano wrote:

According to Destructoid, Homefront 2 went to Crytek for $500,000.

For that much money the fans could've kickstarted that purchase.

I'm not crazy about Voltion and Saints Row going to Koch/Deep Silver, but at least it wasn't EA or Activision. Hopefully Volition will receive the proper funding to finish SR4 the way they want.

Sigh... the news about Vigil really blows! I might be in minority, but I thought the 'Darksiders' series was pretty good, heck the first game was awesome.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Kind of shocked how little South Park went for.

Isn't that just for publishing rights? From what I understand South Park Studios still owns the IP.

Yeah, it isn't for the IP but I know a lot of people were speculating that Stick of Truth could be a massive seller. Some said it could have kept THQ limping a bit longer if they could have survived to ship. I thought even the publishing rights would have had more of a bidding war, especially since the game's all but done and there won't be much more cash having to be put into it to get it out the door.