Welcome to Beyond Co-Op, the weekly piece where we look at interesting news around the industry that main not directly pertain to cooperative gaming culture. This week's news is a big one with a major playing in the gaming industry folding and selling off its major studios to other publishers in the industry. Let's take a look at how THQ Officially dissolved itself and where some of its hottest properties have ended up.
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Sega
- Purchased Relic for $26.6 million. Relic is an RTS powerhouse with both the Warhammer and Company of Heroes license under their belt. Combine that with SEGA RTS chops (Total War series) and this could be very good for both companies.
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Koch Media (Deep Silver)
- Purchased Volition (developer of the Saints Row and Red Faction games) for $22.3 million. This makes the Dead Island publisher a serious player in the market, especially when combined with...
- The Metro franchise license, which they purchased for $5.9 million. This franchise is huge on the PC and has just started to gain a following on console as well. It's a good fit as both publisher and developer are strong European companies.
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Crytek
- The engine builder and Crysis developer has purchased the Homefront license for $544,218.
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Take 2
- Purchase Evolved for about $10.9 million. Evolve as you remember is the next co-op game coming from the Left 4 Dead 2 developers - obviously with that price tag, Take 2 most believe in what they saw.
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Ubisoft
- Purchase THQ Montreal who have been working on a game called 1666 for $2.5 million Interestingly, one of Ubisoft's highest profile developers, Patrice Desilets left Ubisoft to form this THQ studio.
- South Park: The Stick of Truth for $3.26 million - which to me, seems extremely cheap.
So there you have it. Left in the cold is Vigil Entertainment (Darksiders) who could not find a buyer. The studio was shut down as of yesterday though its assets are still up for sale as THQ continues to liquidate. Also for sale are several old licenses - like that of classic Relic developed space RTS, Homeworld. Right now there's a fund raiser by a small studio to buy that license.
It's truly a sad day to see such a promising publisher simply disappear, and relatively quickly. The industry is extremely competitive these days and without a ton of capital, it seems almost impossible to stay afloat. It should be evident by the numbers thrown around for these purchases just how much is involved.
Let's pour one out along with THQ PR man, Neal Pabon.