by Colin Campbell

That THQ has significant problems is not up for debate. Analysts are worried about how much dough the company actually has tucked away in its bank vault. Shareholders are heading for the hills, sinking the stock price well below a measly buck. The attempt to replicate uDraw's Wii success on HD consoles was a miserable failure. Profits were diminished. Developers thrown overboard.

At the weekend, the online rumor jukebox kicked into blare-mode with confident predictions of the company's imminent demise. A statement, designed to reassure, was duly issued. No, we're not cancelling our games. No, we're not going bust.

But such missives are hardly unknown from companies shooting the rapids with nothing in hand but a rubber chicken.


For now THQ remains very much with us, and that's a good thing. This is a company that can point at solid December sales and stake a claim to be a top five publisher in the U.S. Last year it treated us to Saints Row: The Third, a grotesque comedy classic offering bags of good times as well as the satisfactory and interesting shooter Homefront. THQ keeps the WWE and UFC faithful happy. It still has big licenses such as South Park and Brave, coming in 2012.

And it has well-regarded titles coming up in Metro: Last Light and Darksiders 2, as well as some interesting projects for 2013 such as the Guillermo Del Toro collaboration InSane.

There was a time when core gamers really didn't have much invested in THQ. Back in the day, this doughty outfit's oeuvre consisted of formulaic Spongebob Squarepants titles for Gameboy and mediocre WWE games. The business model was to take a popular TV icon and turn it into a so-so game that, nonetheless, sold well to people who were perfectly happy with their purchase.

That's the thing about selling licensed products to six-year-olds. It takes a particular skill not entirely related to the business of creating 90%+ games for adults.

But today's THQ is really different from that smoky old factory of yore. Indeed, it's also really different to a lot of its more comfortable competitors. THQ, emerging from the verdant land of licenses has been forced to come up with an entire library of original games and fresh ideas.


The TV licensing business has dried up, as companies have found ways to unlock cash from games through their own subsidiaries. And while THQ still operates licenses, it understands all too well the uncomfortable truth that a big wad of cash is going to the license holder every time a game comes out, successful or not.

Companies like EA and Activision sit on huge libraries of famous game names that they can resurrect. Unlike so-called 'original IP', there's no-one else raking in the percentages or cashing in on merchandise. THQ, can draw on some historical credibility - Broken Sword, Summoner, Red Faction, Destroy All Humans – but it's a thin list. This is why investors are nervous. This is why there is even talk of a severely damaging delisting from NASDAQ.

The trouble with new games is that no-one has ever heard of them. So THQ's first person shooter is up against the familiar shooters people buy every year. That means more money spent on marketing, and a much, much higher probability of failure. Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that people like the things that they already like, and need to be persuaded to like the things that are unfamiliar.

The upshot of all this is that many of THQ's attempts to get gamers playing its new games have been met with a mixed reception. Take Homefront. It came to us with a pretty big bundle of buzz thanks to a good core story-line and some very fine trailer work. The final product garnered mixed reviews, and managed to get over the line toward profitability. But it was not the sort of smash hit that is required, these days, to birth a killer franchise. It will never be a Call of Duty or a Gears of War.


Vigil Games' Darksiders offered a mostly enjoyable mish-mash of classic games ranging from Halo to Panzer Dragoon and even Portal. Wholly original? No, but neither was it a tired rerun of some previous iteration.

THQ saw that its core business of licensed crap wasn't working out and by buying in studio talent, it has striven to re-invent itself. This has been a painful experience – most especially for those developers who have been laid off in various re-orgs along the road – but a world without THQ means more power in the hands of companies that, frankly, are doing way less to introduce new ideas and new games into the ecosystem.

THQ is not a creative power-house in the style of, say, Valve. But its demise would send out a pretty grim message to those big publishers still in the hunt, that experimentation rarely pays. There are already too many dull dogs in positions of power who believe this stuff. Let's hope their views aren't validated by the death of a major publisher.


Colin Campbell is head of news and features at IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Share This Article
Recommended Stories and More