THQ's "heavy lifting is done"
CEO Brian Farrell believes things are starting to come together for THQ
Despite its recent troubles, THQ CEO Brian Farrell believes that his company is ready to begin its rise from the ashes. The publisher is more focused, new president Jason Rubin is on deck, and the board of directors has approved the company's reverse stock split to keep it alive on the Nasdaq. Farrell told Gamasutra that everything is "starting to come together."
"We want to show the shareholders that the heavy lifting is done," said Farrell. "The last six months have been an exercise in great pain and suffering. We feel like we're getting there. We've taken a lot of negative things in the press - and frankly a lot of that was deserved. This company has changed. We have strong, new leadership. Look at our fourth quarter earnings. … It's starting to come together."
Despite its new stated focus on the core market, THQ is not putting all of its eggs in the AAA basket.
"I think there's a real opportunity in the changing business models we see happening in the marketplace for a smaller and more agile company like us to position ourselves quite differently," said Farrell. "We think there's a real opportunity - particularly in the digital space on the core gamer side [and] especially on emerging platforms like the PC and some of the things we see coming down the road, where there's an opportunity for core games that are not just [made with] the highest budgets, but [offer] alternate pricing and business models. There's a place to attract the core gamer there."
While many blame Farrell for the position THQ is in now, he believes it's best if he steers the company out of the hole it currently is in.
"There is no question who is responsible for where THQ is right now. That's with me," he says. "That said I feel equally responsible for getting this company out of it. And I'm committed to do it until I'm relieved of my duties. That's the way I'm built and I'm going to keep pushing forward to get this company to where it needs to be. That's the mission and I think the actions speak for themselves."
I guess with them being smaller then they can be far more agile to take advantage of the few stalwart franchises that they have left, and then perhaps use those revenues to push the company into markets thay would make sense for them.
Certainly Darksiders 2 seems to be getting a bit of press and advertising, and with promotions on the original game right now across multiple platforms I can see this doing well.
Saints Row has now established itself as a AAA open world title.
WWE will always have it's wrestling fan base so they really should be able to do something with this.
Homefront could be a success but the FPS genre is very tough and even Crytek with it's superb tech and Crysis franchise has not dented the market the same way CoD or Battlefield has - but still it will always be a popular game genre.
Company of Heroes Online is doing OK and that is certainly due a new title in the franchise
Warhammer always sells as Space Marine proved (although perhaps through heavy discounting).
Enough there to really turnaround their fortunes and they certainly have great franchises here.
I just hope Jason can have the impact he needs to, as if the shares have indeed dropped as much as 99% of their value, but the same CEO is in place (who is supposedly responsible for decisions that nurtured the position THQ is in right now), then I wonder if the wrong decisions will continue to be made, despite having the right franchises.
And that would be disappointing (especially considering Darksiders is awesome, even if the Zelda team feel ripped off:))
Posted:10 months ago