http://www.thegamingvault.com/2012/01/monster-rumor-thq-cancels-2014-lineup-looking-for-a-buyer/

According to this THQ has cancelled all games through to 2014 and are trying to sell off assets to

NeoGaf had some tweets

https://twitter.com/#!/TheKevinDent/status/158454721651277824

https://twitter.com/#!/TheKevinDent/status/158455824543531010

https://twitter.com/#!/TheKevinDent/status/158460060090114049

Waiting on something concrete to come out but this sounds bad. Were did THQ go wrong? They put out a fair few decent games this year so im wondering why they seem to be bleeding money

That sounds pretty bad, but I'm going to wait for confirmation first.

I really like THQ. I hope they continue to make great games

Well... Homefront wasn't really good. At all.
 
Space Marine was a good game, but probably didn't sell that well.
 
Red Faction Armageddon sold poorly.
 
Don't think many people went and picked up Saints Row The Third.

"I don't think people quite understand.

This is it.

They canceled all projects targeted for 2014. They only exist right now for the purposes of trying to sell the company."

ouch.... bye darksiders 3 :( man, THQ isnt a small company either...wtf is going on :(

Woah. I thought THQ was doing well. Saints Row: The Third, Space Marine, the Dawn of War series... plus upcoming games like Metro 2033: Last Light, Dawn of War III and Darksiders II. I really hope this doesn't affect those titles :(

I doubt that. There games don't sell huge amounts, but they don't flop too often either. Lately they haven't done GREAT, but they have big franchises. One way or another, games like Darksiders 2 will likely come out.

They publish some pretty good games, so lets hope things work out for em.

@Delta_Ass:

VGChartz has SR3 at 3.48 million copies sold, Space Marine at 690k, but RFA at 480k was indeed probably short of what was expected.

Oh god, THQ owns both Volition and Relic. Two of my favorite studios. Fuck this shit is bad, man

I say we have to start panicking!!!

1. This is labeled MASSIVE RUMOR for a reason.
2. They still have a big lineup hitting this year. Seems like they would wait to see how that pans out first.
3. If they do go under, HOLY SHIT.

If true, I think they just tried to go too far too fast. They might have been able to carry one AAA game underperforming, but not two or three. Mediocre AAA games will kill a publisher fast unless you have a cash cow or two to fall back on.

You gotta figure Relic and Volition get pulled out of the fire in some form or another though.

First off, who the hell is this Kevin Dent guy? From what I can tell, he's a venture capitalist that helps mobile game startups. How would he know about THQ's financial stability?

This was in the same GAF thread I just shat my pants over.

http://i.imgur.com/Q3UJB.png

I rreaaaaallllyyyyy hope this isn't true. THQ is by far my favourite publisher. Looking at my game shelves they've done a crapload of fantastic games. God this would suck so hard.

yeah for some reason I'm not buying this

oh sweet mother. That's not good. And really sad.

Wall Street doesn't seem to have figured it out precisely yet, but their looks like Midway's did when it finally bit it. It's sub one dollar/share already

looking at their balance sheet, they look to have gotten in serious trouble in the third quarter, they've burned through a lot of assets in one quarter while their debt didn't decrease much. Enough so their rough company worth at liquidation went negative.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bs?s=THQI

and they've been losing mad money for years

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=THQI+Income+Statement&annual

But who will make new 50 Cent games?

Pachter said they would go for sale by the end of 2012. LOL! I hope Relic finds a good publisher and Vigil games also :)

Looking at there figures its just scary the amount of money they have been losing :(

I love the Relic games, i was actually looking forward to the Warhammer MMO

If this in any way impacts Relic and/or Darksiders II there will be no end to my woe.

This is bad. I've liked what they've done in recent years.

Really worried about the future of Volition.

Im sure Volition will be ok if they get picked up by someone. Or maybe strike out on there own

The writing's been on the wall for a while now. This company has been hemorrhaging money for years. Homefront and Armageddon are likely what helped put the nail in the coffin.

Seriously, people...listen to reason.

If THQ were doing a massive fire sale and throwing shit into the wind, then...

1. They wouldn't put news out on a goddamn Sunday.
2. They wouldn't have just pulled over one of the creative directors on Assassin's Creed just a week or two ago.
3. They wouldn't have opened THQ Montreal to make games.
4. They wouldn't have said "Saints Row 4" right after the release of Saints Row: The Third.
5. They would be delaying the shit out of all their games, not releasing them according to schedule.

Aside from their financials and people posting up VGChartz numbers like they fucking mean something, I don't see any reason why THQ would be throwing themselves away.

You know, Michael Hickey said this same type of shit back in 2009...

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/45149/THQ-Has-50-50-Chance-Of-Going-Bankrupt

I hope all these rumors and speculations turn out to be untrue.

@jakob187 said:

You know, Michael Hickey said this same type of shit back in 2009...

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/45149/THQ-Has-50-50-Chance-Of-Going-Bankrupt

A few weeks ago Pachter said THQ will bankrupt by the end of 2012. I was like, "what?!" Guess it's true this time. Relic were supposed to announce their new game in december but we've heard nothing so far...

@jakob187 said:

Seriously, people...listen to reason.

If THQ were doing a massive fire sale and throwing shit into the wind, then...

1. They wouldn't put news out on a goddamn Sunday.
2. They wouldn't have just pulled over one of the creative directors on Assassin's Creed just a week or two ago.
3. They wouldn't have opened THQ Montreal to make games.
4. They wouldn't have said "Saints Row 4" right after the release of Saints Row: The Third.
5. They would be delaying the shit out of all their games, not releasing them according to schedule.

Aside from their financials and people posting up VGChartz numbers like they fucking mean something, I don't see any reason why THQ would be throwing themselves away.

exactly, and it's entirely possible that they are cancelling 2014 games to rethink them and rethink their company, rather than cancelling them because they won't be around.

I hope this doesn't put Relic into a position to be bought out by one of those soul sucking places like EA, Ubisoft or Activison.

What will happen to all that talent at THQ montreal? Haven't they not even released a game yet?

As long as Saints Row isn't affected then I don't care.  Honestly I want to see someone else take a crack at the WWE License. 

Without that extra "O" in the "too" I read that original post as "THQ is selling off assets to NeoGaf".

@Animasta said:

yeah for some reason I'm not buying this

This.

@JoeyRavn said:

Woah. I thought THQ was doing well. Saints Row: The Third, Space Marine, the Dawn of War series... plus upcoming games like Metro 2033: Last Light, Dawn of War III and Darksiders II. I really hope this doesn't affect those titles :(

I doubt it. The titles that they actually develop would be sold off. The titles that they merely publish, they would sell the rights to. It would be ridiculous if they went under and something like Volition went with them, when it could very reasonably find a home (for a price) at any number of other places.

Basically, shake ups like this lead to the people with some experience and influence striking out on their own to form new ventures and do new things and bring others along with them. It's the forest brushfire that keeps the woods healthy.

@Butano said:

First off, who the hell is this Kevin Dent guy? From what I can tell, he's a venture capitalist that helps mobile game startups. How would he know about THQ's financial stability?

Arthur Dent's brother. Duh. I blame the Vogons.

Shit just got real.

THQ should go back to their old logo. If they do, I will buy all of their games that came out in 2011 and all that come out this year.

I hope not. They were behind GB's REAL game of the year.

@Animasta said:

@jakob187 said:

Seriously, people...listen to reason.

If THQ were doing a massive fire sale and throwing shit into the wind, then...

1. They wouldn't put news out on a goddamn Sunday.
2. They wouldn't have just pulled over one of the creative directors on Assassin's Creed just a week or two ago.
3. They wouldn't have opened THQ Montreal to make games.
4. They wouldn't have said "Saints Row 4" right after the release of Saints Row: The Third.
5. They would be delaying the shit out of all their games, not releasing them according to schedule.

Aside from their financials and people posting up VGChartz numbers like they fucking mean something, I don't see any reason why THQ would be throwing themselves away.

exactly, and it's entirely possible that they are cancelling 2014 games to rethink them and rethink their company, rather than cancelling them because they won't be around.

You wouldn't put the news out on Sunday. You'd put it out Friday evening. That's when you dumb news that you want to fade away before the media gets to it. By Monday, they've usually forgotten and other news about other things have surfaced and you can often escape much of the worst.

Anyway, whether THQ goes under or not doesn't mean much. Even if it's all true, they own enough properties that will find homes elsewhere.

But, yeah, some random guy from NeoGaf of all places posting on his twitter feed doesn't impress me.

@Branthog said:

You wouldn't put the news out on Sunday. You'd put it out Friday evening. That's when you dumb news that you want to fade away before the media gets to it. By Monday, they've usually forgotten and other news about other things have surfaced and you can often escape much of the worst.

True. On Wall Street they call that the friday night dump. It's when all the news, that companies want to keep quiet such as CEO pay raises or going concern warnings, gets filed with the SEC.

I guess i find the news s plausible since their finances look so bad. But perhaps this Dent guy is just embellishing this and maybe they are considering doing this and haven't really decided yet.

or perhaps he's dead wrong. Bloomberg and other investor news sites have nothing, so I'm going to say they can't confirm it yet. So y'all are probably right and this is a false alarm.

Kotaku just picked up the story, but it's just rehashing that Dent guy's tweets. No independent confirmation yet.

http://kotaku.com/5876253/thq-wipes-out-games-planned-for-2014-to-ready-itself-for-sale-says-insider

Just in case it turns out to be real, let's come up with headlines that we'll likely see. You know, the kind of headlines that editors put on articles when they think they're being super clever. I'll start.

THQQ

Wowsers, this is pretty crazy if true. Although I thought the Smackdown games were mega sellers.

Don't believe it at all, just putting out the WWE game every year is enough to keep the lights on.

If this is true, it's terrible news for all involved. Also, I feel terrible that I immediately thought of this when I heard the news. Damn you, Saints Row the Third.

...you don't cancel every game slated for 2014 because of 'troubles'

@EndlessObsidian said:

Wowsers, this is pretty crazy if true. Although I thought the Smackdown games were mega sellers.

Sales have been getting worse and worse each year (as have the games). If nothing else, maybe we could see a new developer tackle the series and bring something fresh to it.

That's a bummer if it's true, they have been putting out quality games for the last few years. Regardless of what happens to THQ itself, most of the franchises they publish would probably be picked up by someone else (Saints Row, Darksiders, Warhammer 40K).

This still seems unlikely to me, too sudden. They have released a bunch of very well received games recently (critically at least), and didn't they employ Assassin's Creed's creative director earlier this year?

@WinterSnowblind said:

@EndlessObsidian said:

Wowsers, this is pretty crazy if true. Although I thought the Smackdown games were mega sellers.

Sales have been getting worse and worse each year (as have the games). If nothing else, maybe we could see a new developer tackle the series and bring something fresh to it.

Not to mention, THQI is at 66 cents. It has been under a buck for two months. Too long under a buck and they'll be delisted from NASDAQ.

yeah its' 52 week range is impressively bad. At one point it was 6.52 per share. 85% drops in one year usually do not end well.

entirely possible they just go chapter 11 instead of outright closing though

Relic and Vigil and Volition I like a lot. Hope these entities pull through unscathed and don't go under with THQ, if worst comes to worse.