The Rise and Fall of Embracer (aka THQ Nordic)

[Deflowerer]

pay debts by new money generated by releasing new bonds. Rinse and repeat.

You know that most companies roll over their debt?

 

[Infinitron]

I did not heard about NovaLogic since 2003? I think...
Will not be surprised if it end in another popamole garbage put into badly skinned old kult klasik...

Their last big effort was Joint Operations, released in 2004 and their answer to Battlefield. It supported large sprawling maps, vehicles, 64 player support and a level editor. Popamolers played Battlefield, pros and bros played this.

They announced Delta Force: Angel Falls in 2008 with a brand new custom-made engine rivaling Crysis, and there was a closed Alpha I believe in 2010. But for some reason development kept dragging out till it became vaporware. We have never since heard anything from them. Perhaps THQ Nordic could pick up the assets and source code and let some other developer finish it.

Huh: http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=88160511&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch

 

[unfairlight]

They announced Delta Force: Angel Falls in 2008 with a brand new custom-made engine rivaling Crysis, and there was a closed Alpha I believe in 2010. But for some reason development kept dragging out till it became vaporware. We have never since heard anything from them. Perhaps THQ Nordic could pick up the assets and source code and let some other developer finish it.

They were building the engine for ages and once they were at the beta state with it they couldn't even afford to continue production of the actual game.
Source is a Youtube comment from Scott Lee who was the composer for it on this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIaq8AsKccg

Scott Lee wait, you're not kidding, you're really a dev?

Correct! I worked on the Delta Force Xtreme series and Angel Falls with my time at Novalogic. Delta Force: Xtreme 2 was the filler game while we worked on Angel Falls. The problem was, Angel Falls engine was in-house and already had a 4-5 year investment. When 60% of focus is the engine code, the content suffers unfortunely. No API for development tools, less money for assets! By the time the engine was getting into a beta stage, it just was no where near what unreal could do. Delta Force: Xtreme 2 was to buy us more development time, but it just came down to the industry moving too quickly. I do have unreleased material from Angel Falls I might release one day.

 

[LESS T_T]

https://www.thqnordic.com/article/thq-nordic-acquires-outcast-ip-its-original-creators

THQ Nordic acquires the “Outcast”-IP from its original creators
January 10, 2019

Is there any better way to start off a new year than with an acquisition? We don't think so.


Karlstad/SWEDEN, Vienna/AUSTRIA, Charleroi/BELGIUM, January 10, 2019: THQ Nordic today announced that the acquisition of the intellectual property “Outcast” has been finalized with the three original creators of the game.

The acquisition itself is being handled by THQ Nordic AB, based in Karlstad, Sweden, and daily operations (sales and distribution, evaluation of sequels & new content etc.) will be done via THQ Nordic GmbH in Vienna, Austria.


About Outcast
GameSpot’s Adventure of the year in 1999 puts you in the role of Cutter Slade, a former U.S. Navy SEAL, and right in the middle of the alien world of Adelpha. After a couple of things went South with a probe sent to a parallel universe, Cutter is given the job to escort 3 scientists, close the black hole and safely get everyone back to Earth. So one cakewalk of a job and he blew it... Damn it, Cutter…

I guess rights to the remake are stilling belong to Bigben?

 

[RapineDel]

It's a shame most of the Point and Click Adventure IPs are all likely too expensive to get bought out by them. IPs like Monkey Island and some of the Sierra ones seem like the sort of things they'd go for.

 

[LESS T_T]

THQ Nordic runs amok again:

• Buys Warhorse Studios for 33.2m euro. Thread here: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/warhorse-studios-bought-by-thq-nordic.126167/
• Buys Australian local publisher 18POINT2, expanding its distribution network: http://www.thqnordic-investors.com/en/news/?releaseId=3204609

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Plot twist: later Activision-Blizzard, Bethesda Softworks, Tencent, THQ and other over9000 publishers merge with EA and thus creating vile and evil financial Empire that will push laws (through bought governments around the world) which will forbade indie gaming and only *live-services(tm)* will be legal.

 

[a Goat]

Plot twist: later Activision-Blizzard, Bethesda Softworks, Tencent, THQ and other over9000 publishers merge with EA and thus creating vile and evil financial Empire that will push laws (through bought governments around the world) which will forbade indie gaming and only *live-services(tm)* will be legal.

Dude sex

 

[Abu Antar]

They have 77 projects in development. Holy crap.

 

[LESS T_T]

More, more!: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-02-21-thq-nordic-raises-usd225m-for-further-acquisitions

THQ Nordic raises $225m for further acquisitions
“Substantially oversubscribed” share issue brings on a range of new investors for growing publisher

Last night, THQ Nordic raised 2.09 billion Swedish krona (roughly $225 milliion) that will be put toward further expanding the publisher's portfolio.

The Darksiders publisher issues 11 million new Class B shares last night, which were quickly snapped up by a variety of investors, including some who have yet to invest in THQ Nordic.

Among the new shareholders were First National AP Fund, Second National AP Fund and Odin Fonder. Meanwhile, established shareholders Swedbank Robur Fonder, TIN Fonder and Olsson Family and Foundation picked up more shares.

The publisher has described the new share issue as "substantially oversubscribed."

In a statement, THQ Nordic said it "intends to use the proceeds... to finance new acquisitions of franchises, game development studios or other assets which complement the operations, and to enable a higher rate of investment in the development of the Company."

THQ Nordic has acquired countless IP and studios in the past few years, initially from the portfolio of the previous THQ but also from wider games firms.

Last year alone, it acquired Carmageddon; Coffee Stain, including their three internal studios, plus various IP such as Goat Simulator and Sanctum; Bugbear Entertainment and the Wreckfest IP; the Expeditions series; Alone in the Dark; Act of War; Kingdoms of Amalur; TimeSplitters; Second Sight; developer HandyGames, plus its IP such as Townsmen and Aces of Luftwaffe; and, of course, Koch Media and Deep Silver, including their three internal studios, 800 employees, the Dead Island and Saints Row IP, plus the licence for Metro.

Since the start of 2019, THQ Nordic has acquired Appeal Studios' Outcast IP, Australian publisher 18Point2 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance developer Warhorse Studios.

The publisher is also celebrating a strong financial year, with the acquisition of Koch Media/Deep Silver helping to propel net sales up 713% year-on-year to $447.6m.

We named CEO Lars Wingefors as one of our People of the Year 2018, and spoke to him about the company's ongoing strategy for mergers and acquisitions.

Press release: http://www.thqnordic-investors.com/en/regulatory-press-releases/?releaseId=3213296

 

[BlackAdderBG]

This is two major flops short of bursting, not to mention all the big IPs are Deep Silver's.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Wingefors' strategy is different from what's currently popular with AAA publishers. EA reduced their releases from 40 to 8 per year, he has the opposite strategy:

Wingefors tells us this is intentional, as he is actively avoiding the 'fewer, bigger, better' strategy -- one that the previous THQ adopted in its waning years -- that has contributed to the downfall of publishers past.

"We have the opposite strategy, not concentrating on a few IPs but looking at a very diversified pipeline," he says. "All these labels like AAA, AA, indie - I'm not looking at things from that perspective, I think we need to stay focused on the daily business."

 

[a Goat]

Yeah, don't make few, quality games, make shittons of shovelware with some good ideas in need of development, that can only succeed if released in right release window.

 

[Azalin]

Generally throwing stuff to the wall and see what stick isn't a good business strategy.A lot of them are bound to fail and end up in money loss.Big publishers have trimmed their number of projects for a reason

 

[LESS T_T]

One interesting prospect is that the coming of streaming and subscription platforms from Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, EA, and Verizon. If they all pay content providers (dev/pubs) upfront for some duration of licensing like Netflix, THQ Nordic is golden.

 

[flyingjohn]

I think people are missing the entire point of aa development.
The cost are so low that even failures like darksiders 3 got a return of their investment very quickly.It is return tot he 90's model which worked before budgets exploded.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

I think people are missing the entire point of aa development.
The cost are so low that even failures like darksiders 3 got a return of their investment very quickly.It is return tot he 90's model which worked before budgets exploded.

They have to be really careful as most AA devs what to make AAA game sooner or later.

 

[Morkar Left]

I think the market is oversaturated.

 

[PulsatingBrain]

I think the market is oversaturated.

To use an industry buzz-line: They're competing for our time now more than our money.

The sad part is that so many of them seem to think the solution is to make games shorter, and of course sometimes a game should be short, but the price should reflect that too.

 

[DeepOcean]

Actually THQ is right, what many people forget is that Ubisoft, Activision, EA got as big as they are now because they mined all kinds of IP until they got their favorite golden gooses. It is very easy to claim "Im gonna place all my money on this project and I gonna make buckloads of money" is a winning strategy if you already have proof that the ip you are investing is trending on a good direction so investing more is a done deal, doing that on the darkness on non proven IP and investing 200 million dollars on it, is a fucking suicide.

Look to Activision Blizzard, they got so lazy and failed to release new IP when it was time, the result is that they have a massive money making machine like CoD that is running out of steam slowly and they are panicking because they don't have a fucking clue about what to do to replace it, this insanity is just gambling with luck. THQ realized they need to fire like crazy until they find their money making machines. You see this on things like Darksiders 3, the game sold poorly but it already paid the investment while old THQ invested a money they didn't have on Darksiders 2 and when it failed, it got the whole publisher down with it because THQ was all in with it.

This strategy won't generate trillions quickly but if you are creating a new publisher, that is the only strategy safe enough available to you simply because of the lack of a safe ip to invest in. I bet that if THQ had a a 1 billion dollar worthy Ip, their strategy would be completely different.

 

[Mark Richard]

Generally throwing stuff to the wall and see what stick isn't a good business strategy.A lot of them are bound to fail and end up in money loss.Big publishers have trimmed their number of projects for a reason

Propping up the entire AAA industry with Call of Duty and Battlefield might sound great for business in the short-term, but what happens when that stops working? Where are their successors going to come from? Its like skimping on building extra lifeboats just because the ones currently in use are working fine. Experimenting with lower budget AA games could give some a chance to gradually develop into heavy hitters, and the ones that aren't suitable for that role can still earn decent money and make subscription services like Origin Access look more attractive by adding variety.

THQ have the right idea if you ask me. Let's return to a time when a game's budget was proportional to its demand, and not every game had to be an all or nothing blockbuster.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

I don't think this strategy actually works and Ubisoft's past shows that, none of their smaller projects worked and became big hits. All of the big publishers have cash cows and make them AAA from the start.

 

[Latelistener]

They're developing IPs no one would've touched, so I'm glad this is happening.

I also need a new Red Faction game.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Investing in a billion IPs, especially undervalued ones that you can get for relative peanuts, is just textbook risk management. Eventually one of them will give you a hit which will smoothen out the losses for the failures, that's how the market works.

BlackAdderBG it's the same logic as agents for actors in Hollywood - if they have enough capital, agents usually have multiple clients to mitigate individual risk. The expectation is for the successes to outweigh the losses. In a broader sense, it's just basic speculation.

 

[Azalin]

Generally throwing stuff to the wall and see what stick isn't a good business strategy.A lot of them are bound to fail and end up in money loss.Big publishers have trimmed their number of projects for a reason

Propping up the entire AAA industry with Call of Duty and Battlefield might sound great for business in the short-term, but what happens when that stops working? Where are their successors going to come from? Its like skimping on building extra lifeboats just because the ones currently in use are working fine. Experimenting with lower budget AA games could give some a chance to gradually develop into heavy hitters, and the ones that aren't suitable for that role can still earn decent money and make subscription services like Origin Access look more attractive by adding variety.

THQ have the right idea if you ask me. Let's return to a time when a game's budget was proportional to its demand, and not every game had to be an all or nothing blockbuster.

Experimenting sure,that is always needed to some extent,but buying everything under the sun and having 77 projects in development maybe too much too fast