Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Ace on February 06, 2012, 11:27:05 pm
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http://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/02/how-thq-went-from-bad-to-very-bad/#more-488321
In 2007, shares in publisher THQ were going for over $US30 a piece. Today, in 2012, they’re going for around $US0.70. Studios are rumoured to be on the chopping block. Over 200 employees are being let go. And the company’s boss has taken a 50 per cent pay cut.
How’d it all go so wrong?
Easy. THQ has been one of the most poorly managed publishers in recent memory. What was once a troubled second-tier publisher (in 2008 it closed five studios and sold a few more off) got it in its head a few years ago that it wanted/needed to compete with the big boys, the EAs and Activisions of the world, and figured the best way to do that would be to spend money. A lot of money. Blockbuster money, the kind of money it couldn’t back up with blockbuster games.
So, naturally, things went wrong.
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Red Faction. A few years ago, THQ brought back the Red Faction franchise with Guerilla, an open world game with a robust physics engine. It had its problems, but it sold well, reviewed well and had a lot of promise for a sequel. That sequel, Armageddon, proceeded to improve nothing, and indeed in many ways removed the best bits of Guerilla. It was so poorly received that it contributed to the premature shelving of the entire franchise, only a couple of years after it had seemed on the cusp of bigger things.
Red Faction, Part Deux. Oh, but it wasn’t just the games world where THQ blew it with Red Faction. It also thought it would be a good idea to make a TV show about it. Not one based on the awesome Guerilla, though. It made one based on the awful Armageddon. The show was equally awful, which is why you probably never saw it, or had even remembered it existed until now. Sorry. Way to blow a franchise’s chances at multimedia cross-over, THQ!
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Homefront. A disaster. THQ marketed this game as a serious contender to the military shooters coming out of Activision and EA. The thing is, Activision’s shooters are made by Infinity Ward and Treyarch. EA’s are made by studios like DICE. THQ’s shooter was made by…the guys behind Frontlines, a pretty average… strategy game. Homefront did a few neat things, especially in multiplayer, but it was a short, linear, boring and occasionally stupid/insulting game. The gulf between the amount of marketing behind the game and its eventual quality perhaps best sums up THQ’s problems of late; namely, you can’t just throw money at bad games and hope that’ll make them better.
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Warhammer. Another example of THQ not really understanding a licence, or its market potential. Warhammer 40K is a storied franchise, one that’s very popular in Europe, but it’s not so big in the US, limiting its global appeal. To have stuck Relic — one of the world’s premier developers — on the licence for so long is like grinding metal. The Dawn of War games, and even the latest Space Marine title, were always going to hit a glass ceiling because of that licence.
Because of these and other missteps, the recent history of THQ reads like a stab victim slowly bleeding to death. Since recording massive earnings in 2006-07 on the back of licensed kids games, THQ has closed five internal studios (2008), sold another (Big Huge Games, 2009), sacked developers in both the US and UK (2010), cancelled an online WWE game and closed its Korean outpost (2010), sold its mobile business (2011), closed two more studios (Homefront developers Kaos and THQ Warrington), killed the Red Faction franchise (2011), closing two more internal studios (Blue Tongue and THQ Australia, 2011) and killed its MX vs ATV franchise (2011). This year, its sacked 240 employees and been threatened with expulsion from the Nasdaq stock exchange, and also faced accusations it cancelled its entire 2014 lineup, along with the cancellation of the long-in-development Warhammer 40K MMO.
So, what’s the problem? Why all the closures? It keeps coming back to the argument that it’s all management’s fault. Many of the studios above made good games that sold pretty well! Yet there’s a delusion on the part of THQ, and you see it everywhere from its marketing spend to the size of its booths at trade shows to the licenses it spends millions on, that its games are awesome, and that they sell millions. Which they don’t.
Or maybe Volition is cursed! First Interplay, now THQ! :P
The worst part is that the studio meddling is apparently what caused a lot of the problems with the last Red Faction entries...
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Speaking of this topic, one of the :v: guys has a rather stupid take on used games (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6349861.html).
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Speaking of this topic, one of the :v: guys has a rather stupid take on used games (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6349861.html).
That's quite an interesting opinion actually
As for THQ going kaputz, well... they shot themselves in the foot. What else would you expect?
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Speaking of this topic, one of the :v: guys has a rather stupid take on used games (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6349861.html).
Actually it's not so stupid. the second hand games market competes directly with new games because within a week of a game coming out you can reliably find second hand copies on the shelves for £5-10 cheaper than a full priced game. The publisher and developer sees no profit from second hand sales and every second hand game bought is 1 less new copy of that game sold, to a publisher and developer's bank balance it is no better than piracy and its the bank balance that keeps a company afloat.
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On the other hand it got me some really awesome Warhammer games to play, so I'm cool with that.
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And there's one good thing about that whole mess: The Warhammer 40k MMO got canceled (thank god), so at least that franchise is (for now) safe from becoming an MMO embarassment.
Just let Relic do Battlefleet Gothic already and I'll be happy... lol.
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TBH, it's hardly surprising that THQ is having financial problems, as it made plenty of bad games in a time in which people started to be careful about their money, not to mention general financial climate is bad for pretty much everyone. Many game studios are closed these days, a lot of different companies went bankrupt. And even politicians were getting pay cuts, or at least talked about it. I only hope DoW franchise keeps going.
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Well, I'm not saying that the general GameStop practice of buying a week-old game from someone for $20 and then putting it back on the shelf next to new copies for $45 isn't really scummy, because it is. I've pretty much stopped shopping there because of that. However, my concern is more for the long-term. I only get around to a lot of games a few years (or more) after they're released, so a significant part of my non-Steam game collection comes from digging through used bins for previous generations to find good stuff I missed when it was new. (One or two game stores near me have used titles going all the way back to the Atari 2600, which is awesome.) If the industry's major players start widespread implementation of anti-used measures now, what's that going to mean for me in a couple of years, when I'm looking to pick up older titles? That's what worries me, and that's why I can't agree with opinions like in the link.
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Actually it's not so stupid. the second hand games market competes directly with new games because within a week of a game coming out you can reliably find second hand copies on the shelves for £5-10 cheaper than a full priced game. The publisher and developer sees no profit from second hand sales and every second hand game bought is 1 less new copy of that game sold, to a publisher and developer's bank balance it is no better than piracy and its the bank balance that keeps a company afloat.
Rubbish. Nobody is entitled to rewrite the laws of economics just because he doesn't like them.
The exact same thing happens in used car markets. The solution isn't to prevent people from buying used cars, it's to make buying a new car an attractive option.
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Actually it's not so stupid. the second hand games market competes directly with new games because within a week of a game coming out you can reliably find second hand copies on the shelves for £5-10 cheaper than a full priced game. The publisher and developer sees no profit from second hand sales and every second hand game bought is 1 less new copy of that game sold, to a publisher and developer's bank balance it is no better than piracy and its the bank balance that keeps a company afloat.
Rubbish. Nobody is entitled to rewrite the laws of economics just because he doesn't like them.
The exact same thing happens in used car markets. The solution isn't to prevent people from buying used cars, it's to make buying a new car an attractive option.
and then gamers complain that new content, or certain features are only available to those who bought a new copy.
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My 1997 car with 155,000 miles on it that I bought for $3,000 gives no money to Honda. But it's much degraded from buying a new 2011 car with 250 miles on it that I could have bought for $22,000.
The $45 used copies of the games you buy are completely identical to the $60 new copies you could have bought. The developers don't see any of it, and you see no degradation for buying used. The exception is DLC and, in some cases, game passes for content, which actually does offer a form of degradation.
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Barely on-topic:
I was going to apply for a job at THQ, but their online interface said something to the effect of "we don't support Firefox, use Internet Explorer 5 or Netscape Navigator". So I didn't bother. I don't want to work at a company run by Neanderthals.
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Nice to know they haven't touched their site in ten years. :lol:
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My father once used Netscape, it was a nice browser. About 10 years ago. :)
It's especially funny since Firefox is descended from NN (IIRC).
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Rubbish. Nobody is entitled to rewrite the laws of economics just because he doesn't like them.
Boom, right there. The "debate" in a nutshell. If any other industry tried this kind of thing, they'd be laughed at. Imagine some Ikea rep coming to your garage sale and telling you you couldn't sell your chairs because they weren't getting any money from them?
If I buy a disc, whether it's a movie, music or a game, it's my property. If I wish to sell that disc to someone else, that's entirely within my rights and one of the basic tenents of capitalism. Now, admittedly, the game companies aren't exactly obligated to support whoever I sell it to in the form of DLC, patches etc., but it'd be a bit of a massive dick move if they didn't, and rather nonsensical if it's paid DLC, which they receive 100% of the money for.
But all that's window dressing. Ultimately, it's my disc and I'll do what I bloody well want with it.
With regards to THQ's financial problems, well, it shouldn't affect [V] too badly. If they go down the gurgler, [V] will be sold off as a unit - they've made some very profitable games of late (most notably Saints Row) and they're a valuable asset. The only thing it does mean is that THQ are even less likely to authorize any kind of risk taking project from [V], like I dunno, an attempt to reinvigorate a near dead genre by reviving its greatest franchise. But given that that more r less just decreases the likelihood of a FS3 in the next few years from 0.1% to 0.05%, I can't say it's affecting me too badly. :p
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Rubbish. Nobody is entitled to rewrite the laws of economics just because he doesn't like them.
Boom, right there. The "debate" in a nutshell. If any other industry tried this kind of thing, they'd be laughed at. Imagine some Ikea rep coming to your garage sale and telling you you couldn't sell your chairs because they weren't getting any money from them?
And there's the flaw in that thinking. Comparing something digital, that does not degrade with use nor time, to something tangible that you can feel, which does degrade with use and time.
Which is why someone who'd not have second thoughts about buying a used movie or show may think second thoughts about buying a used chair because it'd be in poorer condition than the new thing.
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THQ is on the verge of being delisted from the stock market. If that happens, the company is done. Volition and the other developers under it will be sold off to pay debts. THQ as a company will go the way of Interplay.
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And there's the flaw in that thinking. Comparing something digital, that does not degrade with use nor time, to something tangible that you can feel, which does degrade with use and time.
Which is why someone who'd not have second thoughts about buying a used movie or show may think second thoughts about buying a used chair because it'd be in poorer condition than the new thing.
I understand that position, but I still dismiss it. If they don't like the second-hand market, then they should start making sandwiches or something perishable. It's simply a reality of their industry that they have to deal with, and it ought to be by incentivizing people to hold onto their games, either with DLC, quality multiplayer or by making it enjoyable enough that people might want to play through the singleplayer again at some point in the future.
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indeed if you have the money to buy a new car, most people dont instead try to save money by buying the 3 yr old model of that car because in all likelihood it wont be as reliable and will probably not have some of the features of the newer car. with software this is not the case, short of special editions a 3 yr old version of the game will have all the same reliability (so long as the disks are ok in the case of software stored on recordable media) as a brand new copy, this in itself warps the traditional idea of capitalism which is founded on physical objects not entities that we cant see or touch.
also when you read the T&C supplied with 90% of software you dont own the software, only a licence to use it.
THQ is on the verge of being delisted from the stock market. If that happens, the company is done. Volition and the other developers under it will be sold off to pay debts. THQ as a company will go the way of Interplay.
Yer I read that too, a shame really as THQ was one of the better publishing houses
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Rubbish. Nobody is entitled to rewrite the laws of economics just because he doesn't like them.
Boom, right there. The "debate" in a nutshell. If any other industry tried this kind of thing, they'd be laughed at. Imagine some Ikea rep coming to your garage sale and telling you you couldn't sell your chairs because they weren't getting any money from them?
And there's the flaw in that thinking. Comparing something digital, that does not degrade with use nor time, to something tangible that you can feel, which does degrade with use and time.
Which is why someone who'd not have second thoughts about buying a used movie or show may think second thoughts about buying a used chair because it'd be in poorer condition than the new thing.
You could argue, though, that the degradation is retrospective, a game that is 10 years old will not look anywhere near as good as a modern game. Whilst it is true that, strangely enough, the gameplay would have changed little, even Distributors wouldn't be so silly as to put old games on sale at full modern day prices. That's where my problem with the current war on the second hand market stems from, the fact that re-releases are not assured, especially in this climate of failing companies as this thread shows. There's even talk of the new member of the X-Box series to be designed for a single activation of a game under a single user-name, so it will not play used games at all. Whilst I can, sort of, understand this at the level of the first 6-months to a year of release, it sort of negates the point of degradation if the material involved is that young, be it chairs or computer games, and actually pulls the industries' argument of games being art off track and turns them into being a consumable, because they have no public legacy.
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There's even talk of the new member of the X-Box series to be designed for a single activation of a game under a single user-name, so it will not play used games at all. Whilst I can, sort of, understand this at the level of the first 6-months to a year of release
Torn on that one myself, while I can understand companies needing to protect profits at the same time I want to rage at the level of restriction in a system like that. As you say there needs to be a cutoff point on the system, I am not sure about something arbitrary like 6 months, perhaps something like 2 months after the publisher stops printing disks or something
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That's why I'm staying away from consoles. You simply can't do something like that on PC, and if you try, somebody will crack it.
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A lot of software companies have gone the route of non-transferable license keys. Look at any product put out by Microsoft or Rosetta Stone if you need an example. Rosetta Stone will only install a demo version of the product without a proper license key. I would look to the gaming industry to go the same way in the not too distant future. Maybe not so much on the consoles but definately with PC titles.
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And there's the flaw in that thinking. Comparing something digital, that does not degrade with use nor time, to something tangible that you can feel, which does degrade with use and time.
This is utterly irrelevant. Back in the early 20th century, manufactured goods were incredibly durable. You'd buy one stove, one table, one refrigerator, etc., and it would last a lifetime.
One of the fundamental principles of Western civilization is the concept of private property. If you buy something but can't resell it, then do you really own it? Is it yours to do with as you wish? If you're constrained to follow the whims of the person who sells you the article, you're no better than a serf.
It's the same thing with software licensing (which I doubt is even legally enforceable according to traditional contract law, but IANAL). You license a trademark or a logo. You do not license a game.
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I should've posted this link here (in response to the [V] quip: http://www.gamepolitics.com/2012/02/06/039i-feel-used039-quips-volition039s-jameson-durall-used-games
The real truth is that the damage caused by used game sales is like the threat of communism infiltrating Hollywood the 1950s: an apparition conjured up by parties seeking to create a cause for a danger that is not real. But instead of blacklisting actors and directors, the industry is using its messaging to convince consumers and the games media that their actions to further monetize what used to be free is fair. It is fair because games costs so much to make, and because they don’t have a fair deal with GameStop, and because used game sales aren’t shared with game developers, they reason.
Yes there are inequities with the deals that publishers and developers have with GameStop, but this is hardly the fault of the consumer. When publishers and developers use punitive measures to recoup unverifiable losses (online pass codes, DRM), they do more damage to their future than any used game sales ever could.
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The stove you bought that lasted a lifetime costs, say, $600 to construct and distribute, and $1,000 to buy. And you didn't even need a factory because it's a stove. The initial costs are at about $5,000 - $10,000 for your stove-making business. And if you sell that stove, you can never make use of it again.
The game you bought costs, say, $5 to "construct" and distribute, and $60 to buy. However, it costs $20,000,000 to design. And once you've played it, you probably have no need to do so again, and lose very little from selling it. It's like selling a book except you don't even lose an item for your library, you just lose a box containing a disc that won't even work in 20 years.
The principles of economics break down because of how digital goods are made and distributed. Adam Smith would have written some footnotes & exceptions for intangible goods if he lived long enough to see such a thing.
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It's like selling a book except you don't even lose an item for your library, you just lose a box containing a disc that won't even work in 20 years.
.... wut? yeah, you DO loose that item from your "library." unless you made a copy and cracked the game before you sold it (illegal), you have lost the game and cannot play it again. whether or not you intend to play it more than once is irrelevant. i'd wager that games get more replay than books or movies do.
i'm tired of media companies blaming everything and everyone but themselves for falling profits. make your stuff worthwhile and people will buy it. we aren't fooled by **** like half-assed releases followed by a relentless stream of paid DLC or "free to play, pay to win."
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Well, the cold hard fact is that used game sales hurt revenue many, many times more than piracy. Whereas only a small percentage of pirates would have bought the game new, the vast majority of people who buy used copies would buy new if used copies did not exist. And the used game market is huge. I'll be fine with one-game-per-account if some concessions are made, such as the permanent removal of other DRM schemes from games, no more scummy (launch-day, perhaps) DLC, better overall quality because extra resources will not be needed to be spent on anti-piracy and anti-hacking measures, etc.
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Well, the cold hard fact is that used game sales hurt revenue many, many times more than piracy. Whereas only a small percentage of pirates would have bought the game new, the vast majority of people who buy used copies would buy new if used copies did not exist. And the used game market is huge. I'll be fine with one-game-per-account if some concessions are made, such as the permanent removal of other DRM schemes from games, no more scummy (launch-day, perhaps) DLC, better overall quality because extra resources will not be needed to be spent on anti-piracy and anti-hacking measures, etc.
Cold hard facts need bitter frozen blue Citations.
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Let me ask EA's marketing division. I'll post again when I get the statistics.
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Well, the cold hard fact is that used game sales hurt revenue many, many times more than piracy. Whereas only a small percentage of pirates would have bought the game new, the vast majority of people who buy used copies would buy new if used copies did not exist. And the used game market is huge. I'll be fine with one-game-per-account if some concessions are made, such as the permanent removal of other DRM schemes from games, no more scummy (launch-day, perhaps) DLC, better overall quality because extra resources will not be needed to be spent on anti-piracy and anti-hacking measures, etc.
Evil people wanting to resell what they own.... how can they...
Adam Smith would have written some footnotes & exceptions for intangible goods if he lived long enough to see such a thing.
People are still quoting Adam Smith with his allpowerful "invisible hand" that makes everything right for the whole society, if only everyone indulges in their own personal greed? ;) In this day and age? ;)
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It's the same thing with software licensing (which I doubt is even legally enforceable according to traditional contract law, but IANAL). You license a trademark or a logo. You do not license a game.
I have the misfortune of living in one of the two states that passed UCITA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Computer_Information_Transactions_Act), Virginia. :( The other is Maryland.
used game sales hurt revenue many, many times more than piracy. Whereas only a small percentage of pirates would have bought the game new, the vast majority of people who buy used copies would buy new if used copies did not exist. And the used game market is huge.
Plausible. But it still reeks of entitlement.
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A single-user game disc situation could possibly eliminate second-hand game sales if:
1) Prices of new discs are guaranteed to be discounted after release. Say... $5 for every 6 months elapsed past launch for big releases.
And 2) A sufficient supply of new discs was constantly produced, or could be ordered custom from the publisher
After all, aren't those the two primary reasons for buying used? They're less expensive if you're willing to wait a bit, and are always available somewhere even if the new supply has dried up. That's also why download services like Steam are popular: lower cost (sometime after release, or if sales aren't going great at $60, or during a sale) and constant availability.
Unfortunately, since both of those points would cost a lot of money in the short term, they're not likely to ever happen. Aside from things like ye olde Greatest Hits rereleases and stuff.
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Well, the cold hard fact is that used game sales hurt revenue many, many times more than piracy. Whereas only a small percentage of pirates would have bought the game new, the vast majority of people who buy used copies would buy new if used copies did not exist. And the used game market is huge. I'll be fine with one-game-per-account if some concessions are made, such as the permanent removal of other DRM schemes from games, no more scummy (launch-day, perhaps) DLC, better overall quality because extra resources will not be needed to be spent on anti-piracy and anti-hacking measures, etc.
even if that is true (this isn't cold hard fact, it's speculation), producers simply AREN'T ENTITLED to the money from sales of used games. One large measure of the sucess of a game is the number of active players yes? That's their target. That's how many copies were sold. If they want in on the used market, then offer a publisher-run buyback program. That might even work out. They could probably not rip people off as hard as Gamestop and cut them out of the market.
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The thing is, Capitalism isn't founded purely on the acquisition of goods and money, it is also dependent on the movement of them, any truly capitalist state would adopt policies that allowed goods to keep moving and changing hands, because that keeps wealth moving around
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Rather than selling their AAA titles for $60, why don't they just market the hard copy (and ability to resell) as the "deluxe edition" or whatever at $70 and offer the download at $50? Smaller print runs would mean less competition from the used market, but people would still have the option to invest in a hard copy and hope that the game turns into a rare classic that can be resold in 15 years to some obsessive collector for a sweaty $200 bill.
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Hey guys, just thought I'd post a few posts since Kara doesn't want to remove my captcha.
So I guess this whole THQ thing sucks, I mean they made some good games but- well, they didn't actually make any games, they're a publisher.
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This is utterly irrelevant. Back in the early 20th century, manufactured goods were incredibly durable. You'd buy one stove, one table, one refrigerator, etc., and it would last a lifetime.
Yeah, but they didn't have auto defrost or cruise control either. Kind of like saying "Can openers don't stay sharp worth nothin' anymore. Back in my day, we used to open cans with a rock."
Whyyy do I have to do this? I just want to not have to deal with the captcha.
One of the fundamental principles of Western civilization is the concept of private property. If you buy something but can't resell it, then do you really own it? Is it yours to do with as you wish? If you're constrained to follow the whims of the person who sells you the article, you're no better than a serf.
Civilizations almost by definition need some idea of property to work. I think you're thinking of something along the lines of freedom from servitude.
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While waiting for results, I am going to throw this in:
Stoves, refrigerators, computers, etc. are capital. They are goods. If you build one you gain capital and if you destroy one you lose capital.
Print another CD with your game on it, copy your game to a new flash drive, and you have had no change in capital. You could print a million copies of your game and you will only have the capital from a million boxes with CDs inside, not from a million copies of the game. That's because only the blueprint and the game's production rights are worth anything in terms of capital gains. Therefore, the price comes not from material/labor but rather an arbitrary licensing fee. Used sales are just one user reselling the license to another, not simply selling off capital. This is a very shady business practice, and is not illegal only because of the loophole that you're selling "just a box with a CD in it", even though that's not why the item is valuable at all.
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Ultimatively, the developers, distributors, consuimers and pirate all have a different POV. I can guarantee you that if your paycheck depends on the game selling well, you'd have a lot harsher view on this issue.
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I think the thing about used games is that you'd have to see a rise of sites like GoG before they could be ruled out as a medium. I certainly think the real concern is sales of recent releases as used games, the problem is that the current approach is a bulldozer doing the job of a crafting knife.
Maybe it would be a good idea to go the route of, similar to headdies' suggestion, a certain period of time after the game goes out of print, the license can be leased and re-published by companies such as GoG. That seems the best way to keep everyone happy, companies still see a small royalty from old games they do not produce any more but there is still a demand for, and users get their older games at used game prices, whilst the need for a used game market is greatly reduced.