Features & News
THQ Closes Down (Under)
October 10, 2012, Author: Matt Parker, 2 Comments
THQ’s financial problems have been well documented. They’ve had poor sales, they’ve had to let go of licenses and they’ve had to let their own IP’s ‘have a rest’.
As part of a shake-up to revive the company, THQ Australia has now been shut-down. Is this a move that will help save the company, or just a way to delay the inevitable?
Whilst it’s clear that THQ’s Australian outfit was hardly huge (‘only’ 18 jobs were lost as a result of the closure) or likely to be a cornerstone for THQ’s future, it’s a worrying continuation of bad news that’s been flowing out of the company for some time.
For a long while, THQ’s shares were in free-fall, allowing the company’s price-per-share to hit the dreaded ‘less than $1′ mark. This was a real issue as NASDAQ, the stock exchange that THQ are registered with, threatened to remove them from their listings as certain standards need to be kept. This was averted a few months ago as a ‘reverse-split’ took place, meaning that instead of being split into 68 million shares worth $0.50 each, they’re now made up of 7 million shares worth $5 each. Roughly.
uDraw? uSuck!
The trouble they had selling their uDraw tablets, which saw millions of the peripherals sitting in warehouses gathering dust, cost a lot of money. The UFC games they made didn’t sell nearly as well as they needed to, meaning that EA now has the UFC license. THQ have jumped out of the children’s games market, claiming their SpongeBob and movie tie-in games weren’t earning them what they needed to. The Red Faction IP has suffered of late and we won’t likely be seeing another entry in that series for some time.
I could go on, but there’s no point going over old ground. They’re in trouble.
Whilst this isn’t likely to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, there’s still a huge amount of concern surrounding THQ. Here’s to hoping that Darksiders 2 and some of the other releases THQ have got lined-up (South PArk, WWE, Company of Heros 2, etc) can help pull this company through these troubling times and that those affected by the lay-offs are back on their feet soon.
Feature Type: News | Tagged Australia, Saints Row: The Third, thq, WWE 13
Trent said:
THQs problem is that they keep trying to do something new without a solid foundation. Red Faction was a classic and an earner, yet they fucked with it and made it into a mediocre Mercenaries-style 3PS that flopped. So they make the next one the same but set it jnderground?! I don't see the thinking. Then yeh, the UDraw was a useless bit of plastic and I dunno what made them think it was anything else but the biggest problem was that they had no solid revenue to cusion the always-risky release of a new peripheral. EA could take on the UFC franchise because they didn't need to make a fortune off it as they have so many other sports streams and other series that sell shiteloads. If THQ stuck with a couple of popular franchises and occasionally threw out something whacky I don't think they'd be so fucked. Now great games like Darksiders 2 kinda get buried in the mire of other crap they put out...
Posted on: October 13 1:04 PM || Report || Reply
Andy said:
Yeah, unfortunately this has affected two of the good folk there that I dealt with. One of them left a while ago and has ended up at 2K, the other left on Friday.
Can't deny that as a company, THQ got too big for their boots, though.
Posted on: October 14 8:11 AM || Report || Reply