Maintaining the Vigil

[smiles] Publishers are evil by nature, but THQ just happens to be better than most...

You always hear the strained relations, because it's a pretty stressful thing. There's a lot of money involved, a lot of people involved. The one thing I've been impressed with at THQ, since we've been there... it's funny, because when we signed with THQ we didn't think they'd want to publish us, but since then they've put out Saints Row, Company of Heroes, Red Faction, UFC...

I read an article that Brian Farrell wrote the other day, and it's actually true - a lot of their recent releases have been 80-plus rated, and not a lot of publishers have that consistent level of quality. There's definitely this pall over THQ, where people have this impression they they just make kids games...

Yeah, wrestling and kids...

I think so. It's going to take some time, though - you can't change the perception of something overnight. They just gotta keep doing what they're doing, and we'll keep making cool games. Eventually people will get it.

I don't actually know the details. They had the license, and Relic made a lot of 40K games which Games Workshop really liked because they actually took the IP seriously. At some point in the process THQ got the rights to the online game.

From my point of view, I really love 40K, so it was thrown out there casually at one point and I said: "Hey, we'll make it!" It was literally that simple...

I don't think it's changed that much if you really think about it. Before World of Warcraft, Everquest was the most successful. Then WoW came along and built on it in the past five years. A lot of people have entered the fray and failed miserably, but I don't think that core of the way MMOs play, or the business model in general - for the most successful ones - it really hasn't changed that much. At least not in the US.

There are a lot of different payment plans and things that people are testing out, and just social gaming in general is becoming really huge now, but I think for that core MMO audience - the guys that played EQ and are now playing WoW - will be playing the next big game, whatever that is... probably 40K [smiles]

It's a pretty steady pattern - it hasn't changed that much.

Well, we're making female space marines, which is quite cool... just kidding.

What's cool about the IP for me is that a) it's been around for a long time, and b) one of the things that Games Workshop has always done a good job of is... it's a table top war game, but if you look at all the expansions and rule books they've put out, they've done a good job of building up the fiction and IP. They'll put little fluff boxes in there and give you information about the universe.

It's plus or minus. On the good side Games Workshop has a really good pulse on what's cool, so there are buckets of raw, cool content. If you just flick through the books and read random content, or look at the pictures, there's definitely a lot of inspiration to be had there.

Overall I think it's a huge benefit - you can't escape the fact that it's got 25 years of history - all the different races, the way the Empire works... and it's interesting. It's great fodder for games.