THQ staffer comments on shutdown rumors

THQ employee involved with Darksiders, Devil's Third, and more gives fairly in-depth response to shutdown rumors.

[Soldierone]

2014 is far away, and THQ could be in talks to sell. If those talks fail then they would be notified that its shutting down. Talks could go throughout this year, but I guarantee THQ can't withstand another over shadowed year. They have awesome games, they just need to learn how to sell them.

THQ has shut down many studios abruptly everywhere.

[Voxelman]

As far as I know the only game known that was coming 2014 or later was Homefront 2. inSane, Devil's Third and Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium Online are all 2013 so even if the rumour was true of 2014 games being cancelled Homefront 2 is the only one we know about, unless Saints Row 4 or Dawn of War III were 2014 but I doubt they would cancel sure fire money makers if they were in financial trouble, risky games like inSane sadly would likely be the first on the list.

Anyway I hope THQ find a new financial backer because they have a lot of promising games in the pipeline and some great franchises.

[morganfell]

Relic Entertainment is in trouble. Nothing has been said about it publicly but there has been some shutdown talk or at the very least some massive restructuring. I hate this because I play Warhammer in some form (Dawn of War II, Space Marine, etc) at least once a week and thought Space Marine has been completely underrated.

Add to that Mark Strong had the best V/O work of 2011 and I would like a sequel.

[sikbeta]

THQ want to play with the big ones, they want a THQ published equivalent to COD from Activision, an equivalent to GTA from T2, equivalent to some of EA sport games, they're not in good shape for that and they can't fight against those heavy hitters, let alone win, they're going down, I can see EA buying them for cheap...

[malol]

THQ sucks because they support cheap knockoffs
like saint rows the GTA knockoff
and that other COD wannabe
along side heaps of stupid WWE games

screw them

[just_looken]

don't worry ea/ms/ubisoft or activision will buy the rights and milk the said brand name. You can see the headline activision buys homefront rights homefront modren combat out 2014. ea would love the wwe/ufc rights. I would love to see rockstar buy saintsrow from them that would be a interesting mix.

[KMCROC54]

Then it will become boring as shit like GTA.

[arjman]

Please dear god let someone else buy the WWE rights, that cow has been milked to death.

[terrorofdeath]

Major keen for a new developer team to work on WWE!

[ATi_Elite]

THQ made $136 million 2011 which was down from 2010 profit.

THQ has some strong titles under it's roof. They need to just manage their money better and kill off some of the lame projects they got going on.

on the PC side Warhammer 40K, Metro, Supreme Commander, STALKER, Company of Heroes, Darksiders have all sold very well and will continue to sell well as long as the quality stays the same or improves.

[SKUD]

MS should pick them up on the cheap. Makes games for kinect only. That should help them pick things back up. Totally different outcome then Rare.

[Voxelman]

Except THQ cut most of their casual game studios, and a first party buying them would likely conflict with some of their licensed games that would need to be on all platforms.

And the original rumour said that they were looking for an Asian investment firm not another publisher.

[Urrakia34]

Pretty sure his comment was meant as a joke. -__-

[ginsunuva]

It was a joke referring to all the other studios MS bought and forced into kinect crap development

[zeal0us]

Bubble for being funny, made my day :)

[ZippyZapper]

"It was a joke referring to all the other studios MS bought and forced into kinect crap development"

So he is trolling then.

[Reborn]

If anyone helps them/buys them, it shouldn't be a console manufacturer. Leave them multiplat. They have some good titles under them.

[Soldierone]

I just hope it doesn't go to a milking company. There are so many of them now....Maybe a partnership of some kind, become a second party of Sony for example (its literally just an example) but not get bought out. If anything their assets will be sold and THQ will be like what Sega was for the longest time.

I just don't want to see yearly additions to all their games. I want to see what they were trying to achieve actually get achieved.

[KMCROC54]

So why use SONY you could have said Sega ,EA ,Ubisoft

[BitbyDeath]

"So why use SONY"

Cause Sony are well known for encouraging developers to get/be creative.

I don't think Sony would buy them though, they seem more like Ubisoft material to me.

[Soldierone]

Because how many major companies like that have good second parties like Sony?

My whole point was I want THQ to stay THQ, just with a partner. Like Insomniac is with Sony.

[TheMutator]

damn i love Red Faction :( and nobody buys armageddon

[Der_Kommandant]

I did, it was one of the most underrated games of 2011

[aliengmr]

Nah, it got what it deserved. On its own it was a decent enough shooter, but following RFG, it was a disappointment. It took everything unique about RFG, and instead of polishing the rough spots, scrapped them entirely. Open-world to caves... literally. Geo-mod was rendered useless because of over powered weapons. Ridiculous amount of cutscenes. They wouldn't even allow you turn on the flash-light when you wanted to. The list of horrible ideas just goes on and on.

They tried to make RFA into a Dead Space clone and it just didn't work. While this may just be my opinion, there was a reason nobody bought the game and it wasn't because they didn't know about it.

The truly sad part is that RFA did so bad the franchise got the axe.

[ShabbaRanks]

I didn't... They should of left it the way it was. A bad ass FPS with awesome destructibles. RedFaction 1 was the best

[boogeyman999]

I want to hear an official comment from Ubisoft

[HappyTrigger]

Don't know if this is relevant to the topic, but I just looked at THQ's record with their studios, and my my my, they sure have closed down a lot of studios.

[KMCROC54]

Paging Mister Phil Spencer , someone has a ton of IP & is looking to become a first party studio. So get ballmer & MS checkbook ready & write a check.

[Shackdaddy836]

nvm :\

[Darkfiber]

I realize they have disavowed the rumours so far, at least in reference to their core games, but rumours aren't started from nothing. There is clearly something going on with the publisher in order for this news to arise. Hopefully it's just the cancellation of some kids games (who really cares?) and not anything major. THQ is probably my favourite publisher. They beat the hell out of EA and Activision, that's for damn sure.

[ZeroWil]

They need to kill of the WWE games. DLC, in my opinion, have destroyed the franchise. Why should I have to buy The Rock/Randy Savage/Mick Foley, etc. when they always used to be included in the past games (which were better anyway). Truly disappointing.

[TheCopyNinja]

Not to mention you can find really good created ones on the community creations. But still I feel you.

[dcbronco]

THQ sold a good amount of games over the last couple of years. Their problem is trying to make a quick buck with dumb movie tie-ins and pushing a new version of games that sell marginally each year. They need to downsize and concentrate on what actually works for them. Support SR3 and wait a couple of years for the next wrestling game. And make a Red Faction that has destruction but is not just about how much can be destroyed.

[contra157]

THQ makes garbage

[CrimsonEngage]

Well this sucks. I was hoping they would shut down so I can have a company who knows how to make a proper wrestling game. *cough* AKI *cough*

[bozebo]

THQ have been a bit fail lately in all honesty. But I'd rather see Activision and EA die.

[TheCopyNinja]

THQ shutting down? If so I need to make party arrangements.