THQ Officially Dissolving as Bankruptcy Auction Yields Multiple Buyers [UPDATEDx2]

Big the Cat confirmed for the next COH game. You heard it here first.

@DG991 said:

$500K for homefront? What a depressingly low price, no wonder crytek snagged it.

I was surprised as well, until I saw the price.

Oh god.. I'm so disappointed by this. Purchased by a company whose publishing arm's greatest achievement was a 3 minute trailer. Saints Row: TT was too over the top and a little too ridiculous at times but that franchise had real potential to return to the charm and impact that Saints Row 2 had while still surprising fans. I can't help but feel like Deep Silver will botch this and then run it into the ground.

As far as Metro goes I was holding out hope that either Bethesda or Warner Bros. would pick them up but now I'm filled a terrible sense of dread that Metro's mystery and suspense will be ended by some terrible explanation.

The only purchase that I feel comfortable with is SEGA taking control of Relic. They're doing a pretty good job with Creative Assembly and the Total War series so I think Relic is a really good fit for them.

Volition is the one that I'm really worried about. Koch Media firstly is not a really big publisher and judging from Dead Island isn't a particularly good one with the massive debacles that happened during that release. Saint's Row The Third is probably the end of the line for that series. I don't have confidence here. But then again I'm wrong more often than not so who the fuck am I, right?

@CornBREDX said:

Hmm... interesting news on Vigil (can read past comments for it but it pertains to this speculation) I don't want them devs to be out of a job, though. I mean, cool if Darksiders gets bought but here's hoping Vigil comes out of this alive. Yikes. I was thinking Nintendo would be a good fit as well, but they are not known for Mature games really (does metroid really count? Maybe.) and are oft not in the market for buying up other developers. Nintendo is extremely doubtful but would make sense.

That translation is pretty stupendously wonky in all honesty. Having read the original for myself, Inaba is mostly being pretty playful and is just surprised nobody else has snatched up Darksiders already more than anything. He's not speaking concretely and the underlying sentiment is more like, "Sure would be nice to pick it up on the cheap" more than, "Hey, I want to totally dig into this." Hideki Kamiya actually apparently sent a tweet out telling him to keep his mouth shut facetiously, so I wouldn't put much merit into that. Interesting hypothetical for sure, but that's at most what it is for the time being.

Yes!!! Fuck you EA!

@sephirm87: Exactly.

I wonder if Double Fine got their games back.

Gonna be super bummed if no one rescues the Vigil staff.

@PatchMaster said:

Gonna be super bummed if no one rescues the Vigil staff.

Guess what, no one bid and so they are closed.

"Crytek bought the rights for the Homefront franchise for some reason"

Sloppy writing. Maybe it's because they're developing Homefront 2, just maybe. Getting mighty tired of that snark regarding everything you don't appriciate, Alex.

Well, as happy as I am that these companies found new homes, it really saddens me to know that another big game publisher is officially dead. All I have to say is that I hope these orphaned companies will get the support they need from their new parent companies.

So just by the numbers we've seen... perhaps the creditors SHOULD have gone with the $60 million buyout plan.

@kalibr said:

How can no one pick up Vigil? They made good games that just didnt sell well.

didnt sell well.

I really hope somehow Vigil manages to come out of this okay, Darksiders was brilliant and I really enjoyed darksiders 2 as well.

@Korwin:

No, the creditors are still better off under this. The real value of the Clearlake plan was apparently actually $50m, but even if you take it at $60m, they're still better off.

The way the Clearlake plan works is this:

Clearlake establishes NewTHQ, which Clearlake owns entirely. NewTHQ buys everything of worth from OldTHQ for $50m/60m. OldTHQ now sits around as an entity stripped of any worth aside from the $50m/60m they got from NewTHQ, and uses that money to pay out creditors and investors. No one who was owed a dime of OldTHQ gets any stake in NewTHQ at all.

The auction brought in $71.3m, and THQ estimates they have $29m in remaining assets, so right around $100m for creditors and investors to split. The Clearlake deal would have been the $50m/60m and not a dime more.

The thing people need to remember about Vigil is that Darksiders was only part of the studio and may have been really its side project.

A huge part of it was that Warhammer 40k MMO that went under and then was being made into some kind of multpilayer RPG.

What that studio was overall may not have been worth buying for these companies.

I thought 4A owned the Metro franchise? Or is this simply the publishing rights that Kotch own?

@thefncrow said:

@Korwin:

No, the creditors are still better off under this. The real value of the Clearlake plan was apparently actually $50m, but even if you take it at $60m, they're still better off.

The way the Clearlake plan works is this:

Clearlake establishes NewTHQ, which Clearlake owns entirely. NewTHQ buys everything of worth from OldTHQ for $50m/60m. OldTHQ now sits around as an entity stripped of any worth aside from the $50m/60m they got from NewTHQ, and uses that money to pay out creditors and investors. No one who was owed a dime of OldTHQ gets any stake in NewTHQ at all.

The auction brought in $71.3m, and THQ estimates they have $29m in remaining assets, so right around $100m for creditors and investors to split. The Clearlake deal would have been the $50m/60m and not a dime more.

The plan was $60 PLUS $10 for creditors.

im shocked that Vince McMahon didnt snatch up the WWE games.

@metalsnakezero said:

@PatchMaster said:

Gonna be super bummed if no one rescues the Vigil staff.

Guess what, no one bid and so they are closed.

Hence why I said "rescue". Hopefully someone will hire most of the employees. And while it's a long-shot, hopefully somebody can still buy Darksiders for cheap (see the Platinum rumor).

@Jokers_Wild said:

@kalibr said:

How can no one pick up Vigil? They made good games that just didnt sell well.

didnt sell well.

Was trying to say that good games that sell like shit should be on the publisher not the developer.

Anything about the Double Fine games with de-listment looming?

As long as I get Saints Row 4 I'll be happy.

@SkullcrusherMountain said:

@thefncrow said:

@Korwin:

No, the creditors are still better off under this. The real value of the Clearlake plan was apparently actually $50m, but even if you take it at $60m, they're still better off.

The way the Clearlake plan works is this:

Clearlake establishes NewTHQ, which Clearlake owns entirely. NewTHQ buys everything of worth from OldTHQ for $50m/60m. OldTHQ now sits around as an entity stripped of any worth aside from the $50m/60m they got from NewTHQ, and uses that money to pay out creditors and investors. No one who was owed a dime of OldTHQ gets any stake in NewTHQ at all.

The auction brought in $71.3m, and THQ estimates they have $29m in remaining assets, so right around $100m for creditors and investors to split. The Clearlake deal would have been the $50m/60m and not a dime more.

The plan was $60 PLUS $10 for creditors.

That's incorrect. The $10m was included in the $60m figure, and the $10m wasn't cash, it was a promissory note to pay them $10m in 7 years. The creditors basically regarded the promissory note as worthless, and so Clearlake dropped it from their offer and it became $50m.

Man, I always knew it was coming, but somehow it's still kinda hard to believe now that it has officially happened. THQ has always just kinda been there since I started gaming, back when I was addicted to the WWE games on PS1. They will be missed.

@ebo said:

@a5ehren said:

@tourgen said:

Well at least deep silver takes some chances. The news could have been much worse. Actually this could turn out kind of cool for everyone.

Only if Deep Silver commits to making Volition their flagship developer (and funds them accordingly) and keeps them intact. Most of their history is making cheap shovelware from European dev houses.

And how is that any different (Deep Silver I mean) then what THQ used to be a decade ago, aye?

Maybe, just maybe, Koch wants to get Deep Silver on the same boat as the big boys (big publishers, EA, Activision, Ubisoft) or at least try.

all good points. I was just going for a little optimism. At least Deep Silver doesn't seem to hollow out good companies then stuff them full of DLC codes and failed Origin logins.

I'm suddenly very interested in Deep Silver.

@PatchMaster said:

@metalsnakezero said:

@PatchMaster said:

Gonna be super bummed if no one rescues the Vigil staff.

Guess what, no one bid and so they are closed.

Hence why I said "rescue". Hopefully someone will hire most of the employees. And while it's a long-shot, hopefully somebody can still buy Darksiders for cheap (see the Platinum rumor).

People are making the Platinum tweet about Inaba wanting to buy up the IP rights a bigger deal than it probably is. (See my previous post in the thread about the specific translation issues I had about it. In summary, though, the guy was just being playful.) However, people at Platinum are making moves to possibly hire members of Vigil and that much is serious. It's not without precedent, either; Platinum does have a pretty prominent contingent of Western developers on their team, even if all of their superstars are Japanese ex-Capcom employees.

Evolve made quite a purchase for an unknown game. Take two must've been impressed.

@RenegadeDoppelganger: It's a no brainer for CA: just make Total War with Orks; and DON'T make Mark of Chaos. Good gravy that game sucked.

"Crytek has purchased the rights to the Homefront franchise for some reason."

What about crytek were developing the homefront2 game and wanr to stop their work going to waste?

I forgot to give my condolences. THQ was really a great publisher, some of my favorite games were published by THQ and I'm sad to see them go.

What a shame, but at least in videogames the franchises are enough to keep the studios going.

@hagridore said:

Anything about the Double Fine games with de-listment looming?

Wondering this too, this seems to be as close as we have (and it's 10 days old, so who knows? Maybe Double-Fine got it and are just waiting to make an announcement, though that could just be wishful thinking).

It's good if this lowers expectations for the next Saint's Row.

When did things start to go really badly for THQ? I've only been aware of it for a few months and it just seems unbelievable for a publisher to sell so many franchises like this.

It'll be interesting to see how this will effect these titles.

This is sad news, though it warms my heart to see Relic sold for so much.

shit South Park is now Ubisoft. This'll prob. mean us PC gamer have to deal with BS delay and the shitty whatever DRM store Ubisoft are including in all their new games.

So does that mean that could have picked up Vigil for like a dollar? :P

@thefncrow: Why u kno so well about selling publishers!

@WinterSnowblind said:

@Seedofpower said:

Thank god. No EA, I was getting worried.

Apparently EA got the WWE licence.

And nothing of value was lost.

Very interesting so far. Damn.

I thought I heard the Bombsquad mention that the fellas developing Metro own the franchise?

Sega seems like a good fit for Relic. They are still smashing out those Total War games over at the Creative Assembly.

Not sure how I feel about Saints Row moving about. And I have no idea why anyone would pay money for Homefront.

I hope Darksiders gets picked up.

Anyone know what happens to the IP's for the studios that were picked up and not part of the deal, like Red Faction, FreeSpace and Homefront?

@Nux: Agreed. Really wanna see Vigil make another game