Well that’s it for THQ, as the games developer was officially dissolved yesterday with its biggest assets being sold off to some of its competitors and the rest of the company then shut down.
The announcement was made in an open letter sent from THQ CEO Brian Farrell and President Jason Rubin to THQ employees, which stated that after the company went into administration back in December it was offered a complete purchase of all its assets or a competing bid to sell off separate assets to other companies.
Inevitably THQ took the latter option and decided to split up some of its biggest franchises and games and sell them on as individual content, thus liquidating the company and shutting THQ for good.
For gamers this does mean that instead of losing games that we were all waiting for, the games will be taken in by some big name studios and will be continued with. So games like Homefront, Saints Row and the Warhammer series of games will all find new homes and live on.
As a result, the following sales were made:
- Sega will buy Relic, known for Company of Heroes and Warhammer 40K
- Crytek will buy the Homefront franchise
- Ubisoft will buy THQ Montreal and South Park assets
- Take 2 will buy the “Evolve” assets
- Koch Media will buy Volition (of Saint’s Row fame) and Metro: Last Light assets
Additionally, one of our favourite franchises, the WWE series, has also been rumoured to be picked up by Take Two, which is a child company of the bigger 2K games, so the WWE franchise will be in good hands. This year’s WWE 13 is still doing the rounds with continuous DLC and updates coming, and with the game normally requiring a yearly update 2K will have to get a move on.
There are still a few areas of the business to be shifted as THQ’s publishing business and developers section called Vigil is yet to find a buyer and will thus stay with THQ during the bankruptcy proceedings, with the company looking to sell it off if they can.
Additionally, employees at THQ have currently been laid off, but there is a possibility that people who have been working on some of the sold properties could be re-hired by the buyers to continue on with franchises.
We are glad that some of the big titles will live on with other developers but it remains to be seen how these will be handled by their new owners.