So THQ is getting chopped up and sold in bits instead of being sold in one neat chunk (pretty shitty for the people working there but good for investors, and we all like support the investors, right guys ;) ). What franchises do you think will live on and what ones will bite it? Saints' Row is safe after the success of 3 but I wonder about DOW. They'll get out a new Metro and COH cause I'm pretty sure that they are both nearly done, but they are pretty niche, might be considered too risky to buy up the property. Thoughts?

Since DOW is a licensed game, I can't imagine THQ had a limitless license. Probably a license with a time period of a year? I think it is pretty safe, the universe is pretty well written down I think. I would say there would be at least 1 developer that wants to make games based on that universe.

I would think that Darksiders would survive.

How did the second one do ?

@Tfruit: Poorly. Not so sure it'll survive.

Darksiders could survive if they have provided more content with it.

The game is pretty good but it just lacks re pliability and "asks for more" factor

Considering I've already pre-ordered Company of Heroes 2, I'm really concerned how Relic's post-launch support will be.

Like all RTS games, it'll need a long process of patching and balance fixes to become truly great. Without a stable owner, nobody can be sure that will happen.

@Zebracal said:

Darksiders could survive if they have provided more content with it.

The game is pretty good but it just lacks re pliability and "asks for more" factor

My problem with Darksiders 2 was that it was just boring, the combat and loot were good but the story and the world was just boring.

In a perfect world, Warner would be the ones to me that would pick up Darksiders and Saints Row, somehow get Pendleton Ward to convince his bros at LA Game Space to ditch art house dream and just make a new development studio as a branch of Cartoon Network.

What the hell is DOW??? Can we please stop the stupid acronyms?

As for the question asked .... I only care for Metro: Last Light

@Aetheldod: Dawn of War I think

I just want metro last light and saints row 4... 1 is completed and 1 is a very strong IP, the rest of them can go away.

Sad for THQ, but life's tough if you spend millions on drawing games.

Volition and Relic are the only two I care about. Vigil seems like it was a decent studio, but for all the good things about Darksiders, they were barking up the wrong tree and I am on record saying so.

Most interested (concerned, actually) about what happens with the WWE license. I'm confident that Saint's Row and Metro will find good homes.

I believe that if the individual pieces dont go for as much as was offered for the whole company it will be sold whole and not split up so we might not even have to worry about this

Ah yes, those evil investors. Like pension funds. Totally evil, right?

I want to play The South Park Game that's being developed by Obsidian, and maybe even Saints Row 3 because I've heard it's really fun.

At the same time, I hope THQ gets a good company to take over their games.

Hopefully everyone or mostly everyone at the companies get to keep their jobs and stay intact once they're sold. I'm sure Saint's Row, Metro, Darksiders, and a few others will be fine just as long as who ever they get sold to knows what they're doing. I know this get's said every time but I can't see any good coming out of Activision or EA acquiring any of them.

@Arabes said:

(pretty shitty for the people working there but good for investors, and we all like support the investors, right guys ;) ).

I'm interested to know why you'd make a sarcastic remark towards investors in that context. You realize it's investors who gave most of those people jobs in the first place, right?

Hey guys, you're only supposed to get value for your money if you're buying a product, not if you're financing the production of said products!

edit: Oh wow, two people actually defended the investors. I'm... actually taken aback. It's almost like everyone's... all grown up. I'm ... I'm not crying! I'm not! I'm just... I'm just so proud!

@thabigred said:

In a perfect world, Warner would be the ones to me that would pick up Darksiders and Saints Row, somehow get Pendleton Ward to convince his bros at LA Game Space to ditch art house dream and just make a new development studio as a branch of Cartoon Network.

I can't disagree with that at all. That's probably the best case scenario.

Although (I can't believe I'm saying this) Square Enix might also be a good fit for some franchises. People seemed to like what they did with Deus Ex and Sleeping Dogs.

Sleeping Row: The Fourth = QL gold

Darksiders so they can advance the story. I really don't care about THQ's other properties.

@Jace: Because given a choice between a normal person keeping their job and a large investment organisation making more money then I would pick the normal person keeping their job. Splitting up THQ will benefit investors more (they tend to already have a lot of money) but it casts doubts over the futures of the people currently employed in THQ's studios.

@Turtlebird95 said:

Darksiders so they can advance the story. I really don't care about THQ's other properties.

I find this response as well as some of the others in this thread quite odd. How can people not care about the wide variety of quality THQ games and developers that may be lost over the next few months?

@Brodehouse: That's not being grown up, your statement is what a child thinks being grown up is. What you're being is callous. I'm going to assume that you're young and that you haven't been put in a position where losing your job could ruin everything for you. Well it's happened to me, I lost my job and then nearly lost my house. My partner and I had to emigrate to Thailand so that we could rent our house out and cover our mortgage that way. So we had to live 6,000 miles away from our families for 14 months. My Dad got cancer and I couldn't afford to come home to see him. Luckily he recovered and he's now in remission. Being over there was a great experience, I won't deny it but I would have liked to have had a choice in the matter. So I came back to Ireland when my renters moved out and I couldn't get anyone else in. I worked construction for a year as a day labourer for 60 euro's a day and my partner took a job she fucking hates so that we could keep our house and be near our families. I managed to get a job about 4 months back working in IT and software development and that's secure for another 6 months but then who knows. And I'm one of the lucky ones, there's lots of people who didn't catch the breaks I did and lost everything.

That's what happens when people loose their jobs, I know you think it's cool to be talking about the realities of the world and how investors need to get their money, I'm sure you feel like a real grown up but you have no comprehension of what the real world is like. If the investors loose some money then they loose some money, I'm sure the majority of them can absorb the occasional loss. If a normal person looses their job it can mean loosing everything - family, relationships, their home.

@Arabes: "I'm going to assume you're young and you haven't been put in a position where losing your job could ruin everything for you."

And that's the first rule of being a detective; you never make those assumptions.

Listen dude, the best of luck with ... I don't know, your entire life. But that doesn't change the reality of pissy little children going "WHO CARES ABOUT THE INVESTORS, THINK ABOUT DA GAMEZZZZZ".

As an aside, you're not going to buy a lot of credibility with me by complaining about how you only got to make 60 euros a day. Or that, horror of horrors, your partner had to work a job she didn't like. For someone who wants to lecture another adult about the 'real world', maybe I should share with you that that is the real world for a lot of people. That's what happens when you make assumptions about other people.

@Giantstalker said:

Considering I've already pre-ordered Company of Heroes 2, I'm really concerned how Relic's post-launch support will be.

Like all RTS games, it'll need a long process of patching and balance fixes to become truly great. Without a stable owner, nobody can be sure that will happen.

Seeing as how the later CoH expansion packs were completely fucked in terms of balance, I don't much confidence in post-release support. Especially since all the original CoH dev leads formed their studios, Blackbird Interactive and Smoking Gun Interactive. As always, mods will make the game great.

@Arabes said:

60 euro's a day

I live well and I sure as shit don't make 60 euros a day. So since you've decided that people with more money can handle losing some, I propose you absorb the loss and give me some money.

If you don't, you're a callous jerk.

@Brodehouse: Well if I was wrong about my assumption then I apologise, maybe your 50 and the recession screwed you too, you just didn't sound that way from your message. You sound more like you were about 20. I had just hoped that you were young and didn't think about people loosing their jobs as opposed to someone older who should know better. But luckily I'm not trying to be a detective, nor am I trying to buy credibility with you and I'm pretty sure I wasn't being a pissy little child as you put it, but hey maybe I'm wrong about that one.

And ya, that is life for a lot of people, that wasn't my point. My point was that I would always feel for the people loosing their jobs over the investors who were loosing their money because I know how that feels. It's a shame you felt the need to react the way you did, I wasn't trying to provoke you, just explain myself.

So what do you think about the future of THQ's franchises ? That's what the post about in first place before in went off on a tangent about investors.

@Cretaceous_Bob: Sure Bob, just send me on your bank details there and I'll transfer the money straight away :)

@Arabes: You would feel for the people losing their jobs because of the loss of money... but when investors lose money, who cares, right? It's the same thing. You drew these lines and they don't make sense, especially when we're talking about income. Investors and employees don't have competing interests, they have the same, and both are dependent on one thing; consumer demand. Demand is what drives all business. Your idea, and I'm paraphrasing, 'the investors getting a return means there's going to be no jobs!' is nonsense. It's that same broken line of logic that says that investors are "job creators". They're not. Demand creates jobs and investment return. You can't just choose one over the other, they're codependent. No production means no revenue for the investors, no capital means no paycheques for the employees. The only thing that doesn't depend on either is demand. Without demand, neither the investors nor the employees get shit.

Also, don't try 'shame on you' tactics when you brought an emotional argument in. And as for tangent, I don't think you quite understand what that word means. It is impossible to 'go off on a tangent' in direct response to something said originally. You said 'who cares about investors' and I said 'that's stupid' and you said 'I lost my money and that matters more than if someone else lost their money'. There is a straight line of logic here.

As for the future of THQ's franchises? There's what we know (Warner is looking in, completely unconfirmed reports of EA looking in) and there's pure speculation. EA could take Saints Row because with Visceral focused on Dead Space and Pandemic buried, they lack open world development. But I don't see EA as a vulture, EA has a tradition of overpaying for companies at their peak and then having the talent migrate (BioWare, Popcap, their stake in Take-Two at the height of Rockstar's rise). Warner has that history of pulling shit out of the trash heap, but Warner seems to be downsizing and consolidating, they haven't opened up new studios to prepare for next gen, and they are actively contracting Monolith. If they buy anything, it will be licenses. I'd wager the same with Bethesda, they are most likely to buy the licenses and contract them out, a la Obsidian with Fallout New Vegas. Square is still the best pick here. They have that Montreal studio that is still expanding, Eidos has been a huge success for them, and the talent and franchises are in the appropriate tier for them. The only other pick is I could see Ubisoft Montreal picking over the talent, opening up 'opportunities' rather than paying THQ's creditors for the right to their Montreal talent. I'm sure Ubi would love to have Patrice Desilets back.

@Arabes said:

@Jace: Because given a choice between a normal person keeping their job and a large investment organisation making more money then I would pick the normal person keeping their job. Splitting up THQ will benefit investors more (they tend to already have a lot of money) but it casts doubts over the futures of the people currently employed in THQ's studios.

That logic doesn't really stand up though. When investment firms make money, it is in their best interest to invest more money. This creates more jobs. So essentially, you're saying one person keeping their job is more valuable than a multitude of people being hired at a new one.

@Brodehouse said:

Hey guys, you're only supposed to get value for your money if you're buying a product, not if you're financing the production of said products!

edit: Oh wow, two people actually defended the investors. I'm... actually taken aback. It's almost like everyone's... all grown up. I'm ... I'm not crying! I'm not! I'm just... I'm just so proud!

Financial competence: Harder to find than a rocket scientist.

@Jace said:

@Arabes said:

(pretty shitty for the people working there but good for investors, and we all like support the investors, right guys ;) ).

I'm interested to know why you'd make a sarcastic remark towards investors in that context. You realize it's investors who gave most of those people jobs in the first place, right?

you also realize investors are fucking shortsighted and always makes dumb decision like this one, right?

@sate2801 said:

@Jace said:

@Arabes said:

(pretty shitty for the people working there but good for investors, and we all like support the investors, right guys ;) ).

I'm interested to know why you'd make a sarcastic remark towards investors in that context. You realize it's investors who gave most of those people jobs in the first place, right?

you also realize investors are fucking shortsighted and always makes dumb decision like this one, right?

...no they don't. They do sometimes, but far from always, in fact generally speaking investors make pretty good decisions, including I think, this one. As it stands you can't keep THQ together, it's a fucking behemoth that's bleeding money which is why it failed in the first place. If its broken up it's less valuable IPs can be ditched (or more likely sold) and the more valuable ones can get the investment they deserve. Yes people will lose their jobs which is shitty but they'll recover and we'll get new games from whatever comes out of this. In fact we'll probably get more new games because the good IPs aren't being held back by the costs of the lesser ones.

@sate2801 said:

@Jace said:

@Arabes said:

(pretty shitty for the people working there but good for investors, and we all like support the investors, right guys ;) ).

I'm interested to know why you'd make a sarcastic remark towards investors in that context. You realize it's investors who gave most of those people jobs in the first place, right?

you also realize investors are fucking shortsighted and always makes dumb decision like this one, right?

So let me get this straight:

An investor who has gathered enough wealth (we're talking in the early 100m's) to be a majority holder (and/or is on the board of directors) of THQ is someone prone to making shortsighted and dumb decisions with their money?

Oh yeah baby, you nailed it. Can I have some more of your sweet, sweet logic?

Can we get back to concern for the well being of CoH2 and DoW? Or should we just continue bickering over who is more hard done by, the investors or the employee. Based on what I've heard about 4a owning Metro, and Viacom funding South Park I think it's safe to say I will see those games but god damn...I would love to see more Dawn of War.

@Inkerman said:

@sate2801 said:

@Jace said:

@Arabes said:

(pretty shitty for the people working there but good for investors, and we all like support the investors, right guys ;) ).

I'm interested to know why you'd make a sarcastic remark towards investors in that context. You realize it's investors who gave most of those people jobs in the first place, right?

you also realize investors are fucking shortsighted and always makes dumb decision like this one, right?

...no they don't. They do sometimes, but far from always, in fact generally speaking investors make pretty good decisions, including I think, this one. As it stands you can't keep THQ together, it's a fucking behemoth that's bleeding money which is why it failed in the first place. If its broken up it's less valuable IPs can be ditched (or more likely sold) and the more valuable ones can get the investment they deserve. Yes people will lose their jobs which is shitty but they'll recover and we'll get new games from whatever comes out of this. In fact we'll probably get more new games because the good IPs aren't being held back by the costs of the lesser ones.

wait, arn't they selling ALL the titles regardless of how well or not well they did?

@TheManiacsGnome said:

Can we get back to concern for the well being of CoH2 and DoW? Or should we just continue bickering over who is more hard done by, the investors or the employee. Based on what I've heard about 4a owning Metro, and Viacom funding South Park I think it's safe to say I will see those games but god damn...I would love to see more Dawn of War.

that really depends on who brought them on 22th

if they are dumb enough to sold DoW and the 40K license separately then it'll be fucked

@sate2801 said:

@Inkerman said:

@sate2801 said:

@Jace said:

@Arabes said:

(pretty shitty for the people working there but good for investors, and we all like support the investors, right guys ;) ).

I'm interested to know why you'd make a sarcastic remark towards investors in that context. You realize it's investors who gave most of those people jobs in the first place, right?

you also realize investors are fucking shortsighted and always makes dumb decision like this one, right?

...no they don't. They do sometimes, but far from always, in fact generally speaking investors make pretty good decisions, including I think, this one. As it stands you can't keep THQ together, it's a fucking behemoth that's bleeding money which is why it failed in the first place. If its broken up it's less valuable IPs can be ditched (or more likely sold) and the more valuable ones can get the investment they deserve. Yes people will lose their jobs which is shitty but they'll recover and we'll get new games from whatever comes out of this. In fact we'll probably get more new games because the good IPs aren't being held back by the costs of the lesser ones.

wait, arn't they selling ALL the titles regardless of how well or not well they did?

Yeah, but the other way they were doing it would keep all the titles, good and bad, under one roof. This way the better titles won't be weighed down by the lesser ones.