UPDATE: THQ have released this press statement regarding the following rumours.
It appears that under mounting financial problems, THQ is going on a mass game cancelling spree and selling off of assets.
Twitter user @TheKevinDent, who works in the industry, sparked the rumours by stating that ‘The Game Workshops MMO has been cancelled’, said MMO being Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium Online, being developed by Vigil Games.
The MMO was announced in 2007 and due for release in 2013 and it seems the overpopulated MMO market may have contributed highly to the decision to cancel the title.
Kevin then went on to say that all games slated for 2014 have also been cancelled, with no exceptions and that THQ are offering themselves to various Asian firms to increase their financial value. Finally he stated that THQ has returned an IP to Disney, but after they paid the advance and with no refund.
This essentially means, if true, that THQ only exists for the purposes of trying to sell off the company with no long term future plans. It also means that future titles could be hanging in the balance on if they will be released or not, including titles such as Darksiders 2 and Homefront 2. It also may effect Guillermo Del Toro’s debut into games as inSANE is still slated for a 2013 release.
A lot of the reason THQ is in this position is due to bad sales and very bad tactics. Saints Row The Third had the potential to be a large seller, but was squashed into an oversaturated fourth quarter and was outdone by several other games. They also pumped a lot of money into projects that sold near nothing as what they hoped, such as Homefront and the uDraw peripheral.
So far these are just rumours, but based on what we’ve seen from the company in recent months, it’s very possible that these are well founded. If so the future of the company and their IPs is hanging in the balance.
You have to ask what they are playing at backing stuff like Homefront and too many MX Vs ATV games to mention, plus those wrestling titles that hardly ever sell unless they are heavily discounted at the sales till.
The games that do quite well they saturate with mediocre sequels that kill it off like De Blob, Destroy All Humans, Red Faction and more recently Saints Row. It’s a shame because I really like THQ and do not want to see them go. Especially before Metro 2033: First Light comes out :(
Hardly ever sell until heavily discounted? The WWE franchise has been one of the few consistent bright spots for THQ, there’s a good reason they wanted to keep the license. They might not be massive sellers as was the case seven or eight years ago but they sell enough at the start to be more than profitable. THQ doesn’t exactly sink a lot of money into development and their selling around two million copies in the first three months with the newest iteration of the primary series, I’d say that’s fairly successful even if they’re terribly mediocre. Now stuff like WWE All Stars, you might have something though I’m sure even that sold enough to turn a profit.
As Micster said in the article, releasing Saints Row: The Third when they did, in November when they had MW3, BF3 AND Skyrim to compete with to name a few, definitely didn’t do them any favours.
It’s been fantastically received by gamers and critics and it is highly likely that it would have had a much more financially successful launch if they had pushed it into January.
It would be a shame if they do close their doors as there are a lot of very decent IP’s attached to them and a lot of the titles they’ve put out over the past year have been great.
I guess we’ll just wait and see!
It would be a shame to see THQ go but unfortunately as we see small development studios ending up in the ever growing p45 que it seems bigger studios are also joining this same que. It also goes to show that no industry can be fully recession proof. Maybe gaming needs to to go back to the roots where it began, with true gamers and for true gamers. Yes there is a market for generalised gaming but i really don’t think it is as big a market as some publishers and developers think.
Nintendo may have started something good with the Wii and motion controls, but maybe also something damaging to the gaming industry as well. Publishers and developers need to take more risks with projects and maybe console manufactures need to slow down with technology if it really is getting too expensive to develop games for. With the Wii U and the possible release of the next sony and microsoft consoles? one can only imagine the price hike in games for the consumer for those consoles if the technology will be as far forward as people think and as the companies will claim.