Speaking to GamesIndustry, Former THQ president Danny Bilson, who was ousted before the publisher’s collapse, has said the company had financial issues the whole time he was there. The one-time executive said this was due in part to an ongoing tendency to rely on licenses, which had served THQ so well from 1991 to 2007, and weren’t shucked fast enough.

“We were shutting studios the whole time, and I was the guy going out there and giving the bad news,” he said. “It’s like the worst thing that… it’s the worst. I’ll stop right there. Awful.

“When I left a year ago, we didn’t see what eventually happened on the horizon. I’m not kidding, okay: we knew we were in trouble, but we knew we had a good line-up, and I thought we had enough money put away to support that stuff, finish it, and market it properly. We had a plan to live another day.

“And this is honest, honest, honest: I do not know what happened after I left. No idea. I’m not privy to what went on in there and I didn’t try to find out. I needed to move forward. I really wasn’t engaged at all, and then the news came in December.

“This was happening to my friends. I felt terrible. I just felt terrible.”

Bilson has never made any comment on his exit from THQ ahead of the appointment of former Naughty Dog lead Jason Rubin as president, and said he has to count on influential figures in the industry and press knowing the truth.

“Do I take responsibility for being involved in the decline of a company? Absolutely. Will I tell you candidly that it was the hardest job I’ve every had in my life? Well, it was. But I gave it my best, and I didn’t see the end result coming at all,” he said.

“On my watch, we, meaning my team, took [THQ] from one place and got it to another. We made a lot of improvements, but obviously it wasn’t enough; it wasn’t fast enough and it wasn’t good enough. I take responsibility for that. I’m proud of the portfolio my team built under duress. My team helped to raise the quality bar at a company that was built on something else entirely.”

Source: GamesIndustry

THQ is bankrupt and all its assets have been auctioned off – end of story, right? Wrong. A huge list of creditors have made claims on the defunct publisher, according to a Bankruptcy Court of delaware filing [PDF], with a whopping total of $200 million allegedly owed.

Microsoft is claiming $213,772 in licensing fees for third-party peripherals and $888,652 for financing fees. UFC parent company Zuffa, LLC is asking for $1.9 million in unpaid royalty fees. Codemasters has filed a claim for $1 million in unpaid royalties and stock on various titles including Dirt 3 and Bodycount. LucasFilm is after royalties on mobile games. Even indie darling Double Fine Productions says it is out of pocket $595,000 in royalties.

On top of that, a tattoo artist is claiming $4.16 million for a copyright infringement suit; former executives Jason Rubin and Jason Kay say they’re both out about $2 million each; and various THQ child companies are claiming millions in loans and interest; and the ESA wants its money back for a reserved E3 2013 booth.

Polygon reports the claims may not be paid, but if they are, it won’t be until the end of May.

Source: GamePolitics

Polygon has dug up court documents pertaining to the final auction of properties beloning to shuttered publisher THQ.

Final bids were due on April 15, and the offers will be presented in court and potentially finalised sometime in May. Although the documents don’t reveal who bid on what, and for how much, they did note that “certain of the IP” attracted 17 bids, and the sales could bring in up to $7 million if approved.

Bids have been accepted since February. The six lots on offer were the Darksiders series; the Red Faction series; the Homeworld series; the MX series; Other Owned Software, including Destroy All Humans!, Summoner, and more; and Other Licensed Software, including Marvel Super Hero, Supreme Commander, Worms, and more.

We know for sure where one of these lots did not end up; teamPixel was unable to remain competitive in its attempts to save Homeworld.

Source: Polygon

THQ is apparently expect “a vigorous sale” when it comes to picking up the last few remaining titles and franchises still in the hands on the now-defunct publisher. Darksiders, Red Faction and Homeworld are just some of the IPs up for grabs in an upcoming auction due to start April 15.

Six distinct packages are to be offered: a Red Faction package with rights to all the games therein, a Darksiders package, a Homeworld package, an MX package, an ‘Internal Titles’ package (de Blog, Destroy All Humans! and so on) and a ‘Licensed Titles’ package (which, as you may expect, contains licensed titles such as Costume Quest, Let’s Ride and Jeopardy).

More than 100 expressions of interest have apparently already been received.

Last month, THQ sold off all its major studios, including delivering Relic to SEGA, Volition to Koch Media Group, and THQ Montreal to Ubisoft.

Source: VG247

SEGA’s acquisition of Relic from the burning wreckage of the THQ fire sale was one hell of a smart move. If you’d told me fifteen years ago that SEGA would have not only stopped making consoles, but gone on to become one of the juggernauts of the RTS market, I would have probably laughed at you. Laughed at you, and then ran like hell as you chased me through the corridors of my high school and demanded my lunch money.

Instead, fifteen years and $56 million later, SEGA now makes zero consoles but owns both The Creative Assembly and Relic — two companies who together make up some of the biggest names in the RTS genre, and a genre practically exclusive to PC.

So what does it all mean? Let’s take a look.

It’s business as usual for Homefront 2 following the IP’s purchase by Crytek.

“Nothing has changed with regards our development of the game, and we look forward to sharing the finished product with players,” Crytek games GM Nick Button-Brown said in a statement.

Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli said in a statement said Crytek has been a “firm believer” in the Homefront IP since it signed on to develop the sequel.

“Our cooperation with THQ was always positive and we would like to thank them for all their support over the last two years and express our sympathy to those affected by the recent events at the company,” he added.

The first, poorly-received Homefront was developed by Kaos Studios, which was later closed. New developer Crytek UK is the studio once known as Free Radical, which produced the Timesplitters series.

Source: CVG

If you follow industry gossip at all, you’ll know that Ubisoft’s acquisition of THQ Montreal is a little bit amusing, because the studio was founded when Assassin’s Creed creator Patrice Desiléts jumped ship to THQ, taking so many former colleagues with him that Ubisoft sought an injunction against its rogue agent.

Desiléts is yet to speak out about the acquisition, but Ubisoft Canada boss Yannis Mallat seems pretty calm about it. “I’ve known Patrice for 13 years and I know him very well, he’s a great talent and I respect him as a creator. We’re very happy to look forward to working with him again,” Mallat told the Financial Post.

THQ Montreal employs around 170 staff and was working on two new IPs, codenamed 1666 and Underdog, which Ubisoft now owns. Ubisoft already has extensive offices in Montreal, where its flagship development studio boasts one of the highest headcounts in the world and has fingers in practically every triple-A Ubi pie.

Source: Financial Post via GamesRadar

SEGA have confirmed yesterday’s news that they have acquired Relic from THQ.

“SEGA Corporation acquired all of shares of THQ Canada Inc. and some IPs owned by THQ Inc., a parent company of THQ Canada on January 24, 2013 in order to further reinforce PC game development capabilities in the U.S. and European regions,” reads the statement.

“We are thrilled to have Relic Entertainment join the SEGA family,” the statement continues. “The acquisition is a strategic fit and a critical step in growing our business (…) They are a well-respected studio with a reputation for making creative and innovative games and we look forward to seeing what great things we can create together over the coming years.”

With both Creative Assembly and Relic now wholly owned by SEGA, the company has suddenly captured a huge portion of the PC RTS market and give itself a potentially important advantage over companies like Blizzard. It’ll be interesting to see if SEGA puts the two studios on a two-year turnaround schedule, with alternating Total War and Company of Heroes titles each year. We’ll see!

Source: Blue’s News

THQ’s President Jason Rubin has used a company-wide email to confirm the sale of multiple THQ-owned studios to other various publishers as the company continues its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

Leading the pack is the sale of Relic to SEGA for a cool $26 million, followed by Koch Media Group who purchased the rights to the Metro series for $5.8 million, and Volition for $22.3 million. Meanwhile, Ubisoft have picked up the THQ Montreal Studio and the rights to South Park: The Stick of Truth around $5.7 million combined.

Crytek purchased the rights to Homefront for an almost insultingly low $500,000, and Take-Two Interactive paid $2 million for the rights to Turtle Rock’s new game Evolve, about which no details have been released. Turtle Rock themselves tried to buy the rights but could only offer $250,000, meaning that Take-Two literally outbid them on their own game. Whatever Evolve is, somebody clearly think it’s going to be a big deal.

Total proceeds from the auction came to around $100 million, but there are some losers in today’s news: namely that Vigil Studios and Darksiders failed to attract any bidders. THQ is hopeful that a sale will go through but warns that buyers may not be found.

Bethesda has lodged a backup bid for Relic if SEGA’s deal falls through financially, offering $26.3 million for the RTS developer.

You can read Jason Rubin’s company-wide letter below:

(more…)

Sad news for THQ this morning as news breaks that the company’s assets will be auctioned off on a “title by title” basis to interested parties come January 22.

Those interested parties are now known to include EA, which has completed on-site visits of major THQ operations. Warner Bros. is also known to be in the running, following the weekend’s news that a judge had ruled the current bankruptcy operation was seemingly designed to thwart other non-Clearlake bidders rather than actually being in the best financial interests of THQ’s creditors.

As such, all parties have now agreed to a title-by-title auction — which may mean that different interested parties end up with different IPs.

Source: Develop

During the course of a hearing into THQ’s increasingly unlikely wholesale purchase by Clearlake Capital, five potential purchasers have expressed interest, Distressed Debt reports. One of these is Warner Bros.

As you may recall from yesterday, the US Trustee in charge of THQ’s bankruptcy, and its creditors, objected to the sale. Centerview, THQ’s banker, said it has proof buyers are keen on a piecemeal sale of THQ’s assets, but that THQ didn’t provide enough information to allow these to be valued. THQ was also made to look a little dodgy over the course of the hearing; it had projected a cashflow of $10 million debit, but actually holds $3.4 million credit.

Looking over the details of the proposed sale, the judge did not approve either the bidding process (which at 30 days is considered too short for alternate parties to participate) or the DIP motion (which would allow THQ to act as trustee for its assets in place of its creditors).

The hearing will reconvene on Monday and all parties have been told to get together and work out their problems beforehand if possible.

Source: Beefjack

When THQ went bankrupt, we were relieved to learn that none of its studios were in danger of closing, and that its line up of 2013 and 2014 titles were still on track. This unusual result came about thanks to a proposed deal between THQ and its “stalking horse” purchaser, one Clearlake Capital, who proposed to lend it money to keep itself going, purchase all its assets as a job lot, and take over its debts.

Unfortunately, the US Trustee assigned to oversee THQ’s bankruptcy took one look at this deal filed a formal objection to its very narrow bidding window – just 30 days – and excessive fees to be paid to Clearlake should the deal fall through, both factors likely to squeeze out competing bids.

Meanwhile, THQ’s creditors – those who hope to recoup cash lent to THQ over the years have sent in their own complaints, saying the deal had been brokered “specifically to thwart any potential bidders from stepping forward to compete with Clearlake’s bid” rather than in the best interest of THQ’s creditors.

The future of THQ’s stable (Company of Heroes 2, South Park: The Stick of Truth, Metro: Last Light and four unannounced games) is uncertain should creditors insist on a piecemeal sale of the publisher’s assets.

Source: Joystiq, Distressed Debt