THQ's Closure

Yesterday, THQ officially closed down. They previously issued a bankruptcy statement a few months ago and gave out some of their most valuable games as part of their last Humble Bundle packs. Now, their main franchises are scattered across different companies, which could lead to a good or bad final product. Some examples of these are Koch Media (Deep Silver) in charge of the Metro franchise, and Crytek with Homefront.

What are your final thoughts and reactions about THQ's closure, and where do you see these franchises heading?

I am disappointed with THQ's closure, because they were one of the few companies out there that did their job correctly and somewhat listened to their community. However I am excited to see what Crytek has planned for Homefront's next entry. I know Deep Silver will do a decent job with Metro, but I wished Crytek also took Metro, because I can see them doing a much better job than Deep Silver would.

Also, I don't need to state sources because if you don't believe me just google or search for "THQ Closure" and there should be a decent amount of articles on various sites regarding this news.

I will miss THQ a lot, they made a lot of quality games.

Metro: Last Light looks like it will be the last Metro, then, unfortunately :(

I really did expect this, though, with the THQ Humble Bundle and whatnot. Oh well, still a shame to see them end like this.

THQ had a good run.. they made tons of great games and they will be missed. Let's just hope someone else will take their place and continue making awesome games like they did.

I really enjoyed the wrestling games they made. It was my favorite out of the THQ series.

Didn't know about this until now, pretty gutted tbh since they developed some great games!

Yeah, I heard they filed for bankruptcy a while ago, so I'm not really surprised. Certainly saddened though, THQ was one of the better companies, although I'll admit, I didn't play many of their games. I was intent on getting Metro Last Light though, read an article on that and it sounded amazing. Hope the new companies treat the games well.

Just remember that just because THQ is gone doesn't mean their franchises are. Their games have been sold to other publishers (South Park, sadly, was sold to Ubisoft, among others), and most of them (other than Ubisoft) are pretty good. Also remember that, like THQ, the publishers that get these games simply publish, they do not develop the games. Therefore, their quality will largely still rely on those that develop the games (the publisher does have quite a bit of control, though).

Though it is sad, they published some pretty good games. They'll definitely be missed.

Also, to the OP, even if it is easy to find, I still recommend adding a source to that people will be able to read a more detailed, official report.

Oh great, the only company worse than EA got Metro. At least some of the other franchises seem like they'll be fine, like Warhammer.

machomuu said:

Just remember that just because THQ is gone doesn't mean their franchises are. Their games have been sold to other publishers (South Park, sadly, was sold to Ubisoft, among others), and most of them (other than Ubisoft) are pretty good. Also remember that, like THQ, the publishers that get these games simply publish, they do not develop the games. Therefore, their quality will largely still rely on those that develop the games (the publisher does have quite a bit of control, though).

Though it is sad, they published some pretty good games. They'll definitely be missed.

Also, to the OP, even if it is easy to find, I still recommend adding a source to that people will be able to read a more detailed, official report.

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Ubisoft is fine.

I'm a little startled at Take 2 Interactive taking over the WWE licensed video games from THQ. I wonder what sort of things to expect as a result.

@twocows - As a developer, sure (Montreal does wonderful things to the gaming industry with games like Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed, and Splinter Cell). As a publisher...they're not really that great. They produce an innumerable amount of shovelware, hardly promote any games that aren't Montreal, and aren't so great when it comes to game distribution (especially on the PC). They're not...bad, per se, but they aren't really that good, as far as publishing goes.

I still don't think Koch is nearly as bad as EA. No one is, not even Activision. Maybe they are worse than EA's oppressed developers (though they don't make or publish games, so I'd say that's pretty far fetched), but not EA. All they do is own publishers, and they haven't really done much to hinder their developers, from what I could tell. The worst they could do is not advertise enough, but they certainly aren't that bad.

Maybe worse than Ubisoft, though, seeing as their priorities aren't in gaming.

OokamiReki said:

Yesterday, THQ officially closed down. They previously issued a bankruptcy statement a few months ago and gave out some of their most valuable games as part of their last Humble Bundle packs. Now, their main franchises are scattered across different companies, which could lead to a good or bad final product. Some examples of these are Koch Media (Deep Silver) in charge of the Metro franchise, and Crytek with Homefront.

What are your final thoughts and reactions about THQ's closure, and where do you see these franchises heading?

I am disappointed with THQ's closure, because they were one of the few companies out there that did their job correctly and listened to their community. However I am excited to see what Crytek has planned for Homefront's next entry. I know Deep Silver will do a decent job with Metro, but I wished Crytek also took Metro, because I can see them doing a much better job than Deep Silver would.

Also, I don't need to state sources because if you don't believe me just google or search for "THQ Closure" and there should be a decent amount of articles on various sites regarding this news.

Click to expand...

Over the last few years, I found that they actually did a pretty poor job at this, especially for the WWE games (one of the few recent titles I played from THQ). They wouldn't release any gameplay patches even though they were sorely needed, and for a good portion of 2012, online servers were inaccessible, with no real reason given. I've got no problem that the WWE license has been passed on, as it should be interesting to see what Take Two and 2K do with the series.

That being said, I did enjoy some of their past games (the Rugrats PS1/N64 Games, MX vs. ATV, older WWE games), so it's always a little sad to see a company have to declare bankruptcy. Hopefully former employees are brought on to the new teams that bought out some of THQ's assets, or they're given opportunities elsewhere sooner than later.

THQ was such an icon in the video game industry and it's sad to see them go, the games I'd probably know them the most for was the WWE wrestling games.

Well, glad to see their most famous franchises in the hands of new companies.

Wait what, when did this happen?? That's a huge shame, THQ have made some wonderful games in their time, I'm surprisingly sad to see them go. I figured they'd be one of those staple companies which kept on going producing hit after hit, but shows what I know eh? THQ are one of the few gaming companies that actually seemed to listen to their market and produce games that they had asked for rather than how the company wanted them to be, which I found really appealing whenever buying one of their works. Their games weren't always the best but it's still a shame to hear there won't be any more.

It was sad to see THQ gone...
Because they have made one of the greatest games that I know of.

Brendino said:

Over the last few years, I found that they actually did a pretty poor job at this, especially for the WWE games (one of the few recent titles I played from THQ). They wouldn't release any gameplay patches even though they were sorely needed, and for a good portion of 2012, online servers were inaccessible, with no real reason given. I've got no problem that the WWE license has been passed on, as it should be interesting to see what Take Two and 2K do with the series.

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I have never heard of that before. Then again, I have never played any of the WWE games, so I wouldn't have been paying much attention to what has been happening to that game anyways. I'll fix that last sentence...

Brendino said:

Over the last few years, I found that they actually did a pretty poor job at this, especially for the WWE games (one of the few recent titles I played from THQ). They wouldn't release any gameplay patches even though they were sorely needed, and for a good portion of 2012, online servers were inaccessible, with no real reason given. I've got no problem that the WWE license has been passed on, as it should be interesting to see what Take Two and 2K do with the series.

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Really? I owned WWE 12, and at first it was pretty bad, yes. But they had a patch download, and I thought that it fixed the important stuff. The servers weren't even that bad, iirc. Never did play WWE 13 though, so maybe I'm wrong.

machomuu said:

@twocows - As a developer, sure (Montreal does wonderful things to the gaming industry with games like Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed, and Splinter Cell). As a publisher...they're not really that great. They produce an innumerable amount of shovelware, hardly promote any games that aren't Montreal, and aren't so great when it comes to game distribution (especially on the PC). They're not...bad, per se, but they aren't really that good, as far as publishing goes.

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Their DRM hasn't been that bad lately and you can just ignore shovelware, that's the sort of thing that keeps publishers afloat so they can fund decent games.

I still don't think Koch is nearly as bad as EA. No one is, not even Activision. Maybe they are worse than EA's oppressed developers (though they don't make or publish games, so I'd say that's pretty far fetched), but not EA. All they do is own publishers, and they haven't really done much to hinder their developers, from what I could tell. The worst they could do is not advertise enough, but they certainly aren't that bad.

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They're a terrible publisher that prioritizes advertising over bugchecking the games they release.

twocows said:

Their DRM hasn't been that bad lately and you can just ignore shovelware, that's the sort of thing that keeps publishers afloat so they can fund decent games.

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Fair enough. Though they really gain enough revenue from Montreal alone that they could really just drop the shovel-companies. It'd actually be nice for us, as consumers, as it is. But hey, it gets people jobs and it makes the kiddies and the casuals happy, so I won't complain.

They're a terrible publisher that prioritizes advertising over bugchecking the games they release.

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I still wouldn't put them as a worse company than EA, especially looking at The Sims 3 and the number of bugs that, even years after release and multiple expansions and stuff packs (all of which are probably the greatest cash-grab they do; poor, poor Sims). Though really, EA is worse because of the incredibly negative impact it has had on the industry as a whole, all Koch did was found Deep Silver. Deep Silver even does good jobs with their games. Other than Dead Island, which was riddled with glitched, there were games like Catherine, Sacred, Risen, Singles, Gothic 3, Anno 1701, and so on that ran rather well. Dead Island was more prone to bugs than the others given its scope and, well, because it was an open world RPG (which results in it being prone to glitches), and while I can't exactly say that that makes it justified, I can say that Dead Island was one of their buggier games. Interestingly, Dead Island also had more advertising priority than all of their other games.

Bloodex said:

Really? I owned WWE 12, and at first it was pretty bad, yes. But they had a patch download, and I thought that it fixed the important stuff. The servers weren't even that bad, iirc. Never did play WWE 13 though, so maybe I'm wrong.

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By about June, the online servers got close to what they should've been, but unfortunately that was already 7 months after its release. And until a month ago, the servers were alright for '13, but are slowly regressing to not connect for matches or being able to download any content. Also, '13 only put out one 3MB patch, that fixed a small problem only a few were experiencing (leaving many other glitches intact such as significant framerate drop at points for PS3 and music playing randomly during a match).

I always felt that THQ had the potential to put out very high quality games (and many times did), but it was things like this that disappointed fans, and hurt their overall sales. Granted, I don't think it would have solved all their problems, but it might have given them just a little more time to finish whatever games they had been working on.

I've known about this for a while now, but I was always hoping THQ would somehow stay alive. Sad to see this company finally go under.

I was never a fan of THQ itself. My only real concern is for the future of W40k games. Does anyone know who (if yet anyone) their rights and/or Relic were sold to?