THQ Break-up Confirmed
Image via THQ (www.thq.com)
THQ, one of the biggest video game publishers in the world, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy a short while ago. Rumours have been flying around for a while about the selling-off of their various assets and intellectual properties (IPs). On Wednesday of this week, bids were made and accepted for most of those assets, and the results were made public.
The Homefront series has been sold to Crytek. Koch Media has picked up development studio Volition, makers of the Saints Row series and the Metro series, developed by 4A Games.
Take Two Interactive, publishers of Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, and L.A. Noire, acquired the game Evolve for just over $10 million. Evolve is a previously-unannounced game in development at Turtle Rock Studios, the company who created the original Left 4 Dead game.
Ubisoft has picked up the THQ Montreal studio, along with the 1666 IP, Underdog IP, and the licence for the upcoming South Park: The Stick of Truth for roughly $5.75 million. Ubisoft, of course, publishes the Assassin’s Creed series, which we on the video games team have a love/hate relationship with.
SEGA has bought the Company of Heroes IP and the development studio Relic for $26.6 million. That last part makes sense, given that SEGA recently entered into a partnership with Games Workshop to publish strategy games set in their Warhammer universe. Relic, of course, currently holds the licence to publish games set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. See how that works out?
It’s worth pointing out that Vigil, the company behind Darksiders, has not been picked up. Given that the auction window is now closed and all sales are due to be finalised on Friday of this week, it’s not looking likely that they will be.
MCV UK has a more detailed breakdown of who purchased what and for how much, along with the text of a letter sent out to all THQ employees which confirms that any staff not part of an entity already sold off will definitely lose their jobs.
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How the balzack can they close Vigil?!?!?!? Homefront was the single worst game of the decade but Darksiders gets the bump?