On one hand Jason Rubin, the final president of now-defunct THQ, isnât making excuses for the publisherâs failure. Asked by MCV if the industry pains squeezing out mid-tier publishers are what sank the company, Rubin said no, THQ created a lot of its own problems.
âTHQ had every chance to survive had it not made massive mistakes,â Rubin added. Mistakes that were made âlong before I joined.â
It may sound self-serving but Rubin is totally right. Danny Bilson was in charge when THQ was throwing good money after bad on things like uDraw and kiddie titles, and when Bilson was fired in May, few tears were shed for him in his own company.
https://lastchance.cc/how-thq-went-from-bad-to-very-bad-5881479%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Rubinâs blunt about the failures, citing:
the incredible losses attached to uDraw, massive wasted capital in the unpublished MMO that was cancelled, sticking with childrenâs and casual titles far after mobile and tablets had killed the business, bad, late, or otherwise inferior titles like Homefront, and a generally haphazard and inefficient approach to deal making, left the company with too much negative hanging on its books.
As for Homefront, Rubin wouldnât attribute its flop to bad luck or to an audience that just didnât warm up to the game. And Homefront was a Bilson favorite, too.
MCVâs postmortem on THQ goes into a lot more detail about the firmâs demise and its sale, including the general surprise that neither Electronic Arts nor Warner Bros. showed up to bid on any of THQâs studios or assets. Thereâs also an explanation for why Koch Media paid $22.3 million for Volition, Inc. and Saints Row when the backup bid by Ubisoft was only $5.4 million.
https://lastchance.cc/thq-is-getting-sold-off-today-heres-everything-we-know-5978425%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
But thereâs nothing about the fate of WWE, of course. Probably with publicly traded companies and contracts involved, no one is answering any questions about that dealâwith $45 million left on itâuntil a new owner is found, which is rumored to be Take-Two Interactive, publisher of 2K Sports.
