THQ is Bankrupt for Real This Time

Why buy THQ when you could just buy the games you think will do well?

plus, these giant companies already have their own internal strategies.
they only want games that will fit within their already existing strategical framework.

How much free time do you have on your hands to post something on a forum whenever a video game publisher discloses financial info?

The same amount of free time it takes to ask that question? THQ's demise is a big news story in the gaming world. Places like Kotaku, Gamasutra, and the PA Report are providing both up to the minute coverage and extensive analysis. It takes about 5 minutes to read an article and another minute or two to post your thoughts online, and especially if you do this stuff for a living or for a hobby, you already know most of the score and you can talk about it without dedicating your life to it (just like we can talk about CoH gameplay without having to waste our lives).

The information is great, it's the obscene pleasure that Tychus/JimmyRaynor takes in all of this that I find distasteful. It's like he's on some kind of personal vendetta or something.

its because incontrol but an injunction out on him. Stops him writing his fanfics where he gets held by Geoff in his loving embrace

I would pay good $$ to see InControl give JimmyRaynor a bear hug.

The information is great, it's the obscene pleasure that Tychus/JimmyRaynor takes in all of this that I find distasteful. It's like he's on some kind of personal vendetta or something.

Agree 100%.

Unfortunate news.
https://mobile.twitter.com/DDInvesting/status/288376488573673472

Hopefully people will still have their jobs at the other end of this.

So how does the piecemeal thing work? What if company A wants to buy Relic for some amount, but company B wants to buy all of THQ for a larger amount. Who gets to decide which is the better deal/who gets what?

the deal the creditors are happy with

The creditors choose what to do and the court approves it, or sometimes doesn't. THQ tried to pull a fast one by selling at a sweetheart price to an investment group who agreed to keep the company intact and the management team in place by not giving enough time for credible bids to be placed in 30 days bc of the holidays. The judge realized what they were up to and extended the bidding time until the 22nd.

Saints Row and possibly Volition Studios to go with them will probably command the highest bids.

I would pay good $$ to see InControl give JimmyRaynor a bear hug.

its been a long time since the "GosuGuide" and "GosuCoaching" fiascos.
Incontrol didn't really profit very much from the whole thing.
it was clear he was dishonest throughout those events.

people just need to let it go though ... he did his time in the community "dog house" and paid the price with his loss credibility... but its long over.

again, people just need to let it go, he has done nothing unethical since those incidents.

Regarding the THQ bankruptcy proceeding here is a pretty thorough account of the today's events.

http://www.distressed-debt-investing.com/2013/01/distressed-debt-thq-bankruptcy-update.html

A pretty good account of THQ's deceptive practises for the past year is available here
http://michaelsfutter.tumblr.com/post/39753599370/fallandfurtherfallofthq

You don't seem to get it. I just want to see him squeeze you really hard.

As far as Relic being a sensible buy, while I'd agree as a fan, one would have to look at their financial info in order to decide that. Making great games, does not necessarily mean you are the sweet moneymaker an investor is looking for in a very high risk industry.

Why would someone buy the entire THQ brand? Because of IP. The IP they disclosed as "planned for release" are products that are feasible in the near future, but by purchasing their entire stock, they also gain access to EVERYTHING that was canned, planned or incomplete, and many of those concepts can be turned to profit.

Remember, a good game, is not necessarily a profitable one (Psychonauts) and a profitable game is not necessarily a good game (Diablo III)

Starcraft, an RTS, is the least profitable of Blizzard's 3 franchises.. by far.

if a company like Ubisoft or EA sees value in Relic's "new engine" that CoH2 is based upon then Relic will find a nice home.

These companies are all about leveraging a code base.

Relic will live or die on its "Essence Engine" boys.

That is mere speculation, can't be written in stone.

The likes of the three giants(EA, Activision, Ubisoft) have absolutely no need for a new engine. They can either engineer it if its worth the cost, or purchase a license. They have them by the dozen, depending on the type of game. There's no reason you couldn't adapt CoH into the Frostbite engine, for instance. Its not the same, but its also not impossible.

Also, companies like EA have been known to purchase a studio and simply "merge" it. Sometimes the name is retained, sometimes they merge it into something new, or something existing and the past name is forgotten (Westwood comes to mind, but there's others many don't even remember).

The reality is that customers/gamers don't buy games based on the engine. Its selling point to techies, but Battlefield 3 didn't sell because it had the Frostbite engine. It sold because it had Battlefield written all over it. Company of Heroes is not going to sell because of the essence engine directly, either, although saying the new engine brings snow effects and deformable snow is a selling point, it doesn't require the essence engine to do it.

Most gamers/investors brag about superior graphics here or there, but most don't even understand the inner working of ambient occlusion, global illumination, normal, specular and parallax mapping, well rigged inverse kinematics, etc. That's for the nerdiest artists, not the end-customer.

That's not to say Essence Engine is useless (not at all), it could be insanely profitable to tech companies and a high point for a sale if it is THAT amazing, but consider there's a lot of stuff being licensed such as CryEngine, Unreal Engine, Scaleform, Bink Video, etc.

I have no idea on the specifics of the EE, but suffice to say that it seems to be what Relic needs to develop their vision for CoH, and that suffices me, as a customer.

You don't seem to get it. I just want to see him squeeze you really hard.

this maudlin request is just ZZZZzzz....

That is mere speculation, can't be written in stone.

I have no idea on the specifics of the EE, but suffice to say that it seems to be what Relic needs to develop their vision for CoH, and that suffices me, as a customer.

thanks for your long winded agreement.

can DirectX9 power EE3?
iow , does it run on XP?

EE3 can run in dx9 afaik yeah. I don't know if it runs on XP.

When you said "EE3" I immediately thought of Empire Earth 3 and was very confused because that game was terrible. I can imagine EE3 might be able to run on XP, but wouldn't be optimized for it.