@Kevin_Cogneto said:

@cmblasko said:

@Kevin_Cogneto: http://www.joystiq.com/2012/01/25/alleged-former-thq-staffer-sends-furious-note-to-board-press/

Read that before continuing to defend any one of THQ's upper management. And yeah, studios have been shut down.

I'm not defending anyone. My comment was specifically directed at the tone of Alex's article, and even more specifically his tone regarding the pay cuts. If Alex had criticized upper management for being incompetent, I wouldn't have batted an eye. It's obvious they're not a very well-run company.

I have to agree with you, Kevin_Cogneto. While this CEO is (probably) incompetent, I don't think taking a 50% pay cut deserves the amount of scorn present in Alex's article. Ultimately, even if the CEO had his salary reduced 100% it wouldn't have made much (if any) difference. Not that it wouldn't be admirable if he had taken a 100% pay cut, of course.

@Hailinel said:

@Baconator Saints Row 3 sold well. Red Faction, on the other hand...

All I've seen is people saying SR3 sold worse than 1 & 2 so far, which is rare for a sequel - especially one that is so much better than the previous entries. It obviously did better than Red Faction but they really released it at the worst possible time, the week after Skyrim and MW3 and same day as ASSREV. It got buried with all the other big games.

I'm just worried about Relic, how bad is this for them?

Sad news. Hope they can bounce back soon.

Man. I hope THQ pulls through. I like them being around.

Maybe I'll buy two copies of Darksiders II, just to be safe.

lol @ hara-kiri tag.

Guys, I have no idea how economics work, but anyone who makes over $50k a year seems pretty rich to me, I don't think anyone should make any more than that.

Completely walking away from the licensed "kids" titles, instead of rebranding and nurturing that product line, will be the death kneel for the company.

Sucks for all those fired, but hopefully they will find work in the very near future.

@theveej said:

A question towards the community:

Anyone here is willing to buy some THQ stock? if it is below 1$ per stock, we might as well get together and buy some stock at cheap, help the company not go bankrupt and hope they turn it around (and mb we get some small return on it eventually,...... I mean I'll through 10 dollars down just cause, but thats just me)

I really like some of THQ titles, and know a few people who work for them and they all are good people, so its kind of sad hearing news that the future is uncertain @ THQ

The people you want to help aren't going to profit from anything like this at all.

"Brian Farrell, the CEO, ... take a cash-rich profitable company and drive it from a $30 share price down to around $.70"

I always find it weird when people are so quick to blame the CEO for the fortune of an entire company (meaning the entire livelihood and success of the company rides on their job) yet these same people are so quick to call them overpaid. Can you not see the massive lack of logic that line of thinking takes?

The CEOs make so much money because the shareholders allow it. Blame the shareholders.

@AnEternalEnigma said:

On NeoGAF, there's a thread with the listing of all the development studios that have been closed since this generation started with the Xbox 360 launch in November 2005. It's a mile long and extremely depressing.

The current model doesn't work anymore.

Out of curiosity, does the post include any info about closures in past generations?

That WH40K MMO seems like the logical thing to kill. The MMO market is so weird right now it's hard to justify trying to dump anymore money into it. Here's hoping for a turn around, but I have a bad feeling we'll be seeing a THQ IP auction sometime later this year.

@Grimluck343: 75,000 is considered well off once you make it past 120,000 your rich

@spartanlolz92 said:

@Grimluck343: 75,000 is considered well off once you make it past 120,000 your rich

Maybe in Podunk, Alaska. 120k is barely scrapping by in SoCal.

Edit: This is more sarcasm and hyperbole people. I'm not really going to get into a economics argument on a video game forum.

The Management here really gets to me! There are so many question that I would love to ask them, How much have you been spending on licenses? More so to a point lets say WWE? How much then did you spend to make that game? I'm sure they spent LOADS of cash to get that licenses and then make that game... and i bet the they never sold that well even if they were Ok. They should of used there heads and Stopped and invested that money else where. Just saying maybe I'm wrong

But the real issue to the fellow developers and the general 240+ people that lost there jobs at this time I hope they/you can find something in this time.

Fuck corporate America.

I would like to have a job where being fired for incompetence brings with it a nice little going away bonus.

this sucks and i just bought SAINTS ROW 3 and SPACEMARINE hope they bounce back if this keeps up pretty soon there will be no more game publishers hope the industry doesnt crash like in 83

Shame on you, Alex. To 'beg the question' does NOT mean 'raise the question.' You are using it incorrectly. I expect your gun and your badge on my desk by this evening.

You know, THQ kept surprising me over and over again with fun games that I didn't expect their name on this last year, I really didn't see all this coming. :( This just sucks imo, and I'm hoping to read a story about the underdog coming out on top sometime soon. Good wishes to those who got cut, and come on THQ, we need a rally call.

It totally sucks that he lost 6 of my salaries and has been reduced to a mere 6 of my salaries.

Should be noted if THQ is delisted that does not the company is bankrupt or can't continue to operate.

Also should be noted that the exchanges have been extremely generous in recent years at granting exceptions to the minimum listing requirements...

still not good they are this bad off, but it's hardly lethal yet.

i think top managment needs a shake up why are the ceo's hardly ever held responsible??

thats why if im ever in the position of share holder im gonna make sure the ceo is one of the people who originally worked there. their the ones who made it a success in the first place idk about this guy but if hes one of those ceos who gets hired in like bobby kotick then well i know why there failing. i mean look at what steve jobs did with apple once they rehired him.

what i really want to know is holds all the licenses for relic and voilition games is it thq or the developer. and i just hope volition and relic are not in the same boat finacially

@MadExponent said:

The CEOs make so much money because the shareholders allow it. Blame the shareholders.

Blame the shareholders for what? For wasting THEIR OWN MONEY. If the shareholders (owners of THQ) feel that throwing $300k at this guy is a worthwhile investment, so be it. ITS THEIR MONEY.

@demonbear said:

God I hope everything's gonna be ok At Relic, probably the last pc focused studio that aint Blizzard!

!!!!????

this is so inaccurate.

@Kevin_Cogneto: I see. The tone of the article doesn't really bother me considering the subject is a person who has cost hundreds, if not thousands of people their job and has lost their company 100s of millions of dollars over a relatively short tenure as CEO.

Oh boy....

@Olivaw said:

Does that guy look like Rob Riggle to anyone else?

First thing I thought too.

@Sooty said:

@demonbear said:

God I hope everything's gonna be ok At Relic, probably the last pc focused studio that aint Blizzard!

But you forgot Valve and CD Projekt.

They both done console games in the past. Well Projekt is about to release theirs anyway. But Dawn of War is a pc only thing, aint it? Space Marine is their first attempt at console gaming in a long time but anyway, i'm refering here to Dawn of War / Company of Heroes.

I feel for the developers but I honestly feel this was and continues to be inevitable. There is just too much product being made. I bought Skyrim, Saints Row the Third and Assassin's Creed Revelations at Christmas. These games are going to take me well into spring and that's not even the tip of the iceberg that is my backlog.

I can't be the only one who regularly passes on games I would otherwise buy if I didn't already have three or four (more like 13 or 14) unplayed or barely played games on my shelf.

@demonbear said:

God I hope everything's gonna be ok At Relic, probably the last pc focused studio that aint Blizzard!

There's this little company, maybe you've heard of it. It's called like Faucet or something.

@Ravenlight said:

@demonbear said:

God I hope everything's gonna be ok At Relic, probably the last pc focused studio that aint Blizzard!

There's this little company, maybe you've heard of it. It's called like Faucet or something.

I love Faucet! My favorite game of theirs is Radioactive Decomposition 2.

@Vadis said:

@Ravenlight said:

@demonbear said:

God I hope everything's gonna be ok At Relic, probably the last pc focused studio that aint Blizzard!

There's this little company, maybe you've heard of it. It's called like Faucet or something.

I love Faucet! My favorite game of theirs is Radioactive Decomposition 2.

Valve is not pc focused anymore, all their latests releases were multiplatform. They do lots of console games.

@MikeGosot said:

Dig deeper into Hara-Kiri. Ouch.

I feel like this is one of those moments where one either decide's that Alex is amazing and awesome and hilarious, or get kind of peeved. Personally, I'm laughing my ass off at that bit, although this is terrible news.

@demonbear said:

@Vadis said:

@Ravenlight said:

@demonbear said:

God I hope everything's gonna be ok At Relic, probably the last pc focused studio that aint Blizzard!

There's this little company, maybe you've heard of it. It's called like Faucet or something.

I love Faucet! My favorite game of theirs is Radioactive Decomposition 2.

Valve is not pc focused anymore, all their latests releases were multiplatform. They do lots of console games.

You're confusing PC focused with PC exclusive. Valve has shown time and time again that even though they make console games, they support their PC customers, by providing add ons to their Left 4 Dead and Portal series and continuing to patch games long past year two. If you want to be that picky, I believe Diablo 3 is coming to consoles, so knock Blizzard off your list also. Not trying to attack you, just change your thinking.

I hope the anonymous letter sent to the board of directors has an effect and the upper management has a shakeout. THQ has talented people and great properties but horrible leadership.

He needs more money. give him a raise.

@MikeGosot said:

Dig deeper into Hara-Kiri. Ouch.

I feel like this is one of those moments where one either decide's that Alex is amazing and awesome and hilarious, or get kind of peeved. Personally, I'm laughing my ass off at that bit, although this is terrible news.

@jtman54179 said:

@demonbear said:

@Vadis said:

@Ravenlight said:

@demonbear said:

God I hope everything's gonna be ok At Relic, probably the last pc focused studio that aint Blizzard!

There's this little company, maybe you've heard of it. It's called like Faucet or something.

I love Faucet! My favorite game of theirs is Radioactive Decomposition 2.

Valve is not pc focused anymore, all their latests releases were multiplatform. They do lots of console games.

You're confusing PC focused with PC exclusive. Valve has shown time and time again that even though they make console games, they support their PC customers, by providing add ons to their Left 4 Dead and Portal series and continuing to patch games long past year two. If you want to be that picky, I believe Diablo 3 is coming to consoles, so knock Blizzard off your list also. Not trying to attack you, just change your thinking.

Ugh you guys... This is Valve, since HL2 :

See? The VAST majority since HL2 : Episode one is MULTIPLATFORM.

Thank you, good bye.

@demonbear: From your chart, you just argued for my point.

Though Valve is not a PC exclusive company...as I stated, all of the the games they released are on the PC platform and five are PC exclusives, proving it truly is a PC focused company.

You're welcome, come again soon.

@danielcampbell said:

This is infuriating. I remember being laid off from THQ and Mr. Farrell still took a multi-million dollar bonus that year. My heart goes out to those who lost their jobs. I know how terrible it feels to lose the job you wanted to have for the rest of your life.

Maybe you need to chat with Patrick for an article. Shit like this is pretty disgusting, where a lot of hard-working folks get laid off because a CEO fails to keep things relevant and just cares about the money in his pocket...at least, apparently he does.

300k is a ridiculously low salary for the owner of a major video game company. I feel like anyone who criticizes this CEO for still making (compared to a minimum wage job) a lot of money has obviously never worked an honest day in their life. The stress that this guy is constantly under must be ridiculous. On top of which, it's not going to get any easier.

Their earnings call is going on right now. They are blaming their poor holiday quarter on the uDraw tablet failing in the marketplace, something to the tune of $100 million below projections.

@el_tajij said:

300k is a ridiculously low salary for the owner of a major video game company. I feel like anyone who criticizes this CEO for still making (compared to a minimum wage job) a lot of money has obviously never worked an honest day in their life. The stress that this guy is constantly under must be ridiculous. On top of which, it's not going to get any easier.

Except most of the money he earns probably is not in the form of paychecks, but bonuses and stocks and stuff. Wait, stock money... ok, I see your point, this dude has no money aside from his salary.

These things are terrible, I hope all those employees get back on their feet as well as THQ.