Video game developer and publisher THQ, which announced its closing earlier this year, is set to sell of its remaining intellectual properties by the end of May.
The company has already sold many of its best-selling IPs, but there are still several properties to be sold, many of which are older franchises that haven’t been heard from in years. The official press release reads:
THQ Inc. today announced that it will sell certain of its remaining intellectual properties (IP) via a Court-supervised sale process. Last month, THQ sold the majority of its studios and games in development as part of its Chapter 11 case. The company expects to complete the bidding and sale process for these remaining IP assets by mid-May.
Bidding will be open for the next couple of months, with final bids to be place by the middle of April. THQ is selling off its held licenses and owned properties in six separate lots as follows:
Darksiders
The Darksiders franchise is one of the company’s biggest franchises, already having two games in what was originally planned as a four-or-five-game series, with each title following a different Horseman of the Apocalypse. It’s safe to say that interest for this property will be high.
Red Faction
The Red Faction series hasn’t seen much luck in recent years. The series began on PlayStation 2 and PC back in 2001 as a first person shooter, though the series evolved to become a third-person action game when Red Faction: Guerrilla was released for Xbox 360. The latest in the series, Red Faction: Armageddon, was received with low-to-mediocre reviews and failed to sell commercially. It is likely that we’ll see a revival of the franchise in the future if it falls into the right hands. Given the focus on environmental destruction, it would be easy to see EA purchasing the property to power future entries with their own Frostbite 2 engine, but it would also be good to see a studio such as Crytek get their hands on it. This is unlikely, however, due to Crytek already purchasing the Homefront property, which has a sequel currently in development.
Homeworld
Homeworld hasn’t been heard of since the second game in the series was released for PC in 2003, but there were many talks of a potential third entry in the franchise. The IP was picked up by THQ in the company’s acquisition of Relic Entertainment, best known for their exceptional Warhammer 40k games and the RTS Company of Heroes. Relic has since been purchased by SEGA.
Other owned software, including Big Beach Sports, Destroy All Humans!, Summoner, and more
This lot of properties being sold includes several older THQ series, most of which haven’t had any recent titles developed. After the sale of these properties, however, we could see some titles resurrected.
Other Licensed Software, including Marvel Super Hero, Supreme Commander, Worms, and more.
Worms has continued to have success, especially with the recently released Worms: Revolution, and many of the other licenses in this lot are interesting enough to be picked up by well-known publishers.
The closing of THQ came as a bit of a shock to gamers, due to the company’s involvement in several of the most highly-anticipated games of 2013. The projects that are in development have already been sold, and the various publishers responsible for their purchase will release them as planned. The projects include South Park: The Stick of Truth, which was purchased by Ubisoft, as well as Saints Row and Metro, both of which are now in the hands of Koch Media.
We’ll have more updates on the sale of THQ as they arrive.
