Gearbox Bought out by THQ Nordic - Or How Lars Wingefors spent a billion dollars just to get Duke Nukem a new game.

Marissa Moira

Marissa Moira

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This is going to be interesting because now this puts THQ Nordic on EA or Ubisoft levels of size.
 
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>The initial purchase price was $363 million, half in cash and half in Embracer shares, with a further $1 billion to be paid ($360 million shares and the rest in cash) if Gearbox are able to hit “agreed financial and operational targets in the next six years”.

Randy going to screw his employees again, I can feel it. Put them through devastating crunch time and time again, goading them on with promises of a big fat bonus for them all if they meet that target, only to once again embezzle it all.
 
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TakeTwo miss out on the Codemasters deal, now lose the meal ticket in Borderlands. They are going to be far more aggressive in the market trying to buy something to cover those losses
 
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That doesn't make sense, I thought Gearbox received a lot of money from Epic for their Borderlands 3 exclusive?
 
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Doc Cassidy said:
That doesn't make sense, I thought Gearbox received a lot of money from Epic for their Borderlands 3 exclusive?
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Look at Deep Silver. They are another one of the names apart of the THQ fold. Deep Silver had a ton of funding via German government grants and a monopoly on DVD rights in the region prior to becoming a gaming publication, yet still sold out. Everybody has a price.
 
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Anchors-Away said:
Look at Deep Silver. They are another one of the names apart of the THQ fold. Deep Silver had a ton of funding via German government grants and a monopoly on DVD rights in the region prior to becoming a gaming publication, yet still sold out. Everybody has a price.
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I've long wondered where THQ Nordic get their money. Their pockets are faaaar deeper than I expect them to be. I'm aware of what they own but HD re-releases isn't bringing in all that cash.
Look at their releases(sort by year):
 
The Last Stand said:
THQ went from bankrupt to the same level of EA/ Ubisoft. The child is growing up.
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To be fair, THQ Nordic is NOT the THQ that you used to know, aside from scooping up its brandname during the bankruptcy. That one has long gone, though Nordic has been doing a fairly decent job of reassembling the brand from the shitshow that was the final years of THQ.
 
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The Last Stand said:
So this THQ is different people, same name, different philosophy? If they can reignite older THQ franchises, that would establish them.
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Years back, THQ was forced to sell all of it's assets in a week long bidding war due to the uncontrollable debt they built up. You merely need to look into the mishandling of Saints Row 3, (Sasha Grey was almost 1/3 of the budget) the millions invested into what would become EVOLVE and the uDRAW tablet.

2K, Deep Silver and a bunch of other publishers came in and swooped up what they wanted. EA being the real winners, getting UFC for borderline pennies. Whatever was left over, was placed into a large all-for-one sale including the copyright and legal usage of the THQ brand. Nordic games swooped in and claimed it all for a fairly minimal fee. Knowing that the larger gaming public knew nothing about them (prior to doing the Alan Wake PC port) they adopted the name THQ and the rest is history.

What is amusing is the warpath THQ has undergone to not only reclaim it's prior IP's (merging with Deep Silver for example) but the sheer domination they have across the European market. I am willing to bet good money on Focus Home Interactive being consumed by them in the next few years.

It's basically what happened to Midway (becoming Warner games) and the various bastards that became Atari
 
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The Last Stand said:
So this THQ is different people, same name, different philosophy? If they can reignite older THQ franchises, that would establish them.
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They simply bought the name due to brand recognition but Nordic has always had more competent people behind it and are willing to back more smaller titles of very specific genres. and what's even better, they'll give them a full physical release.
 
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Smaug's Smokey Hole said:
I've long wondered where THQ Nordic get their money. Their pockets are faaaar deeper than I expect them to be. I'm aware of what they own but HD re-releases isn't bringing in all that cash.
Look at their releases(sort by year):
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Well, look at the list you posted sorted by release date. Spongebob, Wreckfest, and Destroy All Humans were big hits if I remember, Darksiders and Titan Quest were never my thing, but they seem to have a following.

While I don't know the ins and outs of how THQ Nordic work, one thing that's often left out when people like Jim Sterling cover the industry is that EA and Ubisoft games have huge budgets. I wouldn't be surprised if the games I mentioned were done relatively cheap.

As far as I know, THQ Nordic isn't woke. I'm sure there's some wokeness there (they've just bought Gearbox after all), but they're still hated by the left for refusing to bend the knee.
 
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