THQ is no more
Like I said in yesterdays article about the THQ auction, nothing stays secret on the internet for long. Not 24 hours after the first rumours came out, this rule has again been confirmed. Major gaming news website Kotaku managed to get their hands on a letter THQ sent to it’s employees yesterday, containing several details on the auction and it’s results. On top of that DDinvesting, a twitter acount and blog run by an investor familiar with the THQ case has posted the prices that were paid for some of the licenses and studios. Here’s a short list of what came out of that letter and DDinvesting:
- Firstly there is confirmation of Ubisoft buying South Park: The Stick of Truth for 3.2 million dollars and in addition to that they have apparently also bought the rights to THQ Montreal Studio. We don’t have any news yet on what the situation is conserning the lawsuit South Park Studios filed against THQ, claiming rights to the game, but Ubisoft did put out a press release in response to the leaked letter confirming both purchases and saying that the South Park game is still scheduled to be released this year.
- Koch media has indeed bought Saints Row developer Voliotion and apparently, on top of that also bought both the Saints Row license, which was to be expected honestly, and the Metro license. Koch is said to have paid 22.3 million dollars for Volition and 5.8 million for the Metro franchise. Koch is the second out of the companies named to have responded to the purchases, stating that their publishing branch Deep Silver would head up further development of both Saints Row and Metro.
- Sega will indeed be taking over Company of Heroes and Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War series developer Relic entertainment, adding a second big RTS studio to their brand after aquiring Creative Assembly , developer of the Total War games, in 2005. Sega apperently payed 26 million dollars for the studio.
- Crytek has bought the rights to the Homefront franchise for 500000 dollars.
- Take-Two interactive has bought the rights to Turtle Rock Studios’ new game Evolve for 11 million dollars. Turtle Rock is probably best know for the first Left 4 Dead game.
That leaves a few studios and franchises unaccounted for, the most important ones being the WWE- license which THQ has held for years, and Vigil games, the studio behind the Darksiders franchise. News site IGN did put out an article last night claming that Take-Two interactive has put in a bid for the WWE-license after all, but this has yet to be confirmed. THQ further stated in the letter that it would put their full effort into finding buyers for the remaining properties, but that this work is going to be done by a small core group of employees. The rest of THQ’s main staff is apperently being let go.
With that comes an end to another great of the gaming industry, letting us add another name to the much too long list of gaming studios that have had to closed down in the last year. How do you guys feel about all of this bankruptcy and the large number of closures of studios in general last couple months. Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
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