THQ threatened with stock exchange delisting

Oh man, things are looking really, really bad for THQ at the moment. Last week Friday a particularly angry, open letter was issued to THQ’s Board of Directors; that letter detailed the personal impressions and feelings of those THQ staff members who had lost their jobs. A few days later, it was revealed that THQ’s Asia-Pacific branches had also been hit with massive layoffs, essentially gutting THQ’s global staff.

The reasons for the publisher’s current financial quagmire are numerous: mismanagement, the uDraw Tablet disaster, investing in shoddy cash-in titles, you name it. Now, adding to THQ’s gradual disintegration is the fact that they have been threatened with Nasdaq delisting if they cannot revive their price per share.

As revealed last week, THQ’s stock prices have plummeted from more than $30 a share to $0.70 a share over the last four years. In order for a company to be listed on the stock exchange, its shares are not allowed to drop below the $1 price mark. THQ has until 23 July 2012 to raise their share price to over $1 and keep it there for no less than ten consecutive business days, otherwise the company will be delisted.

Source: Gamesindustry.biz

Posted by Miklós Szecsei Feb 01, 2012

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THQ cuts more staff, ex-employees air dirty laundry

Publisher THQ is in a bit of a pickle at present. The company’s monumental failure with their uDraw product has resulted in massive financial issues. To put it into perspective, THQ share prices were valued at $30 not too long ago; currently, the shares are worth $0.70. Drastic action is needed in order to salvage the company, and that has resulted in them permanently dropping their children and family game labels in order to focus on core, AAA titles titles like Saints Row: The Third. I’m sure many gamers don’t have a problem with this new strategy.

THQ has just announced further employee layoffs, with those from the administrative and publishing departments receiving pink slips. None of the five internal development studios have been affected, so at present this looks like a structure shuffle for THQ itself and not its collection of dev teams.

How did this all happen? Well, a fairly insightful and venomous explanation can be found in an open letter issued to the THQ Board of Directors. The letter was penned by those THQ staff members who have lost their jobs in this recent restructuring – the ex-employees refer to themselves as “The Formerly Mismanaged”. They’re placing all of the blame on the publisher’s senior management, specifically CEO Brian Farrell.

You got Team Fortress 2 in my Saints Row

THQ and Valve seem to be going steady these days as the two have already, ahem, cross-pollinated their two brands: a while ago, Team Fortress 2 players received Killbane’s Mask and the Apocafists for the Heavy; Third Street Saints badges were also applied to all characters in Valve’s online shooter.

Now it’s time for Team Fortress 2 to return the favour to Saints Row: The Third. Publisher THQ has announced, via the game’s official website, that Team Fortress 2 masks will be added to Saints Row: The Third on 17 January. Oh hey, that’s today!

The bad news is that this is only for the PC version of Saints Row: The Third. When next you fire up Steam you’ll be given a title update for THQ’s latest sandbox game, which will bring the “9 custom TF2 giant-sized character masks” to your game for free. As the official website puts it, this will allow you to “streak around naked, beat up pedestrians, and hit those big stunt jumps with the character of your choice”. Good times.

Source: Saintsrow.com
Via: Joystiq

Posted by Miklós Szecsei Jan 17, 2012

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Dreadnoughts coming to purge the unclean?

Here’s some good news for fans of THQ’s third-person action game Space Marine. Developer Relic tweeted the above screenshot saying that they have a “big metal surprise coming to @SpaceMarine in January”.

Whether or not we’ll get to play as a Dreadnought or just have them as AI teammates is not certain; at this time all we have to go on is that one tweet and screenshot. In an ideal world we’ll get some single-player DLC in which you play as a Dreadnought ripping through waves of Chaos Marine bastards; at least then we won’t have to hear Orks shouting “Space Marines!” every three seconds… because we’d be a Dreadnought, and there wouldn’t be any Orks. Ideal!

Space Marine wasn’t a bad experience insofar as action games go; you can check out our review here. It certainly wasn’t going to win any Game of the Year awards, but it was definitely worth a playthrough especially for fans of the Warhammer 40K universe. We’ll update you as soon as Relic and THQ reveal more about this possible Dreadnought DLC.

Source: Game Informer

Posted by Miklós Szecsei Dec 28, 2011

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Is Relic working on Company of Heroes 2?

Relic makes some of today’s best real-time strategy games. Sadly, when we say “today’s” we really mean the Dawn of War franchise because it’s been ages since the development team looked at one of their other RTS series.

In 2006, along with publisher THQ, Relic brought Company of Heroes to the RTS scene. It is one of the most fantastic real-time strategy games ever made and at the time it was woefully under appreciated. That might be because of its World War setting; if people side stepped it for that reason then they honestly missed out.

According to the latest edition of PC Gamer magazine, Relic is rumoured to be working on a full-on sequel to 2006’s Company of Heroes. For fans of the original and its expansion, that’s fantastic news. This development is supposedly going one while the team works on another Dawn of War game as well. Now if Relic would just add Homeworld 3 to that to-do list then we can all pass out it unison from overexcitement.

Source: Kotaku

Posted by Miklós Szecsei Dec 21, 2011

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More details on the South Park RPG hit the web

Obsidian and the duo behind TV series South Park are making a game. Yes, there have been South Park games in the past, but this is pegged as a AAA RPG epic. It just might be considering the Fallout: New Vegas developers are making the game.

In South Park: The Game, you’ll take on the role of a new kid in town. It’ll be up to you to win the approval of the other South Park kids. The game starts off with you taking part in a live action role-play game with the more familiar characters from the show. This LARP game rapidly escalates into something more real – we’re guessing it’ll be similar to episode thirteen of season six: “Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers”.

Central to the gameplay mechanic will be your character’s cell phone. This time, however, you won’t be continually badgered by useless cousins; instead you’ll access the game’s main menu via this in-game phone, and you’ll use a Facebook-like app to see how many friends you’ve made in South Park and what your standing is with the various kids’ factions in the town.

Obsidian’s next RPG is…

Huh, a South Park RPG? As revealed by magazine Game Informer on their January 2012 edition cover, the legendary RPG development team Obsidian (the people who brought you Knights of the Old Republic II and Fallout: New Vegas) are creating a South Park role playing game. This is not one of those little, downloadable South Park games we’ve been given in the past; this is a full-on, AAA retail RPG coming to PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

The script and dialogue are being handled by series creators Tray Parker and Matt Stone. South Park is no stranger videogame content – just look at the “Make Love Not Warcraft” episode from season ten. There’s potential here for the game to be genuinely funny. There’s also potential for it to be a full-on RPG with Obsidian at the helm and publisher THQ standing by.

You’ll take on the role of a new kid in South Park and it’ll be up to you to defend the town from hostiles. South Park: The Game will be on all the major platforms in the last half of 2012.

Source: Game Informer

Posted by Miklós Szecsei Dec 02, 2011

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Review: Saints Row: The Third

Okay, I’ll just come right out and admit it. I’m not a fan of the Saints Row franchise. The previous two games didn’t exactly blow me away. They seemed cheap compared to the Grand Theft Auto series and even in Saints Row 2, the control system felt clunky and outdated. They had attitude and there was some fun to be had there, but the lack of polish made it hard to enjoy.

With that track record, I wasn’t expecting much from Saints Row: The Third, despite the hype surrounding it. I was even planning to let it pass me by entirely – which, in hindsight, I’m glad I didn’t do. Yes, I was wrong, and Saints Row: The Third managed to exceed my limited and unfair expectations. It’s really, really good.

Let’s watch the Saints Row: The Third launch trailer

We won’t hold hands or anything, just hang out platonically and watch a guy try to drive a car while a tiger swipes at his face.

Did you know that there are games other than Skyrim and Modern Warfare 3 coming out at the moment? No really, it’s true and has something to do with it being that time of the year; otherwise affectionately named the “oh my God publishers, think of my wallet” time of the year. I’m convinced gamers have a love-hate relationship with the months of October and November.

THQ’s brazen take on the GTA clone is about to see its third release in the franchise. The game lands this Friday (18 November) and brings with it dildo bats, manic Japanese inspired cartoon cats, lucha libre masks and (my personal favourite) a car that has a human canon strapped to its roof. Or is it the octopus gun that’s my favourite? I can’t remember; either way the game looks amazeballs and has been getting some seriously good looking review scores.

Watch! Watch and be blown away by the sheer WTF-ishness of the whole package.

Posted by Miklós Szecsei Nov 16, 2011

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Now Saints Row: The Third gets a season pass

Developers love it when you pay for the games that they’ve made. No really, apparently is has something to do with the fact that they have families to feed and stuff. What they’d love even more is if you paid for stuff that hasn’t even come out yet. That’s why this whole notion of “Season Passes” is catching on really quickly.

Gears of War 3 recently allowed you to pay a lot of money to gain access to all future DLC. It works out cheaper for you to approach DLC in this fashion than if you had to pay for it all individually. Well, that’s how they get you to agree to it first that is! Next up, it’s THQ’s turn to make you drop cold, hard cash on stuff you haven’t seen yet.

Saints Row: The Third will have a Season Pass that allows you to gain access to four pieces of DLC while giving you a saving of 15%. Three of those four pieces will be full-on mission packs, and to be fair, just the names of them are enough to seal the deal. “Genkibowl VII”, “Gansgtas in Space” and “The Trouble With Clones” are the mission packs; the fourth piece of DLC will give you access to the “Nyte Blayde” pack, which gives you two outfits, a motor bike and car all designed for hunting vampires. Man, the more I hear about this game, the more insane it sounds.

Source: Joystiq

Posted by Miklós Szecsei Nov 11, 2011

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