THQ Nordic’s making Xbox boss Phil Spencer look like a cheapskate, as it continues to flash its chequebook in the general direction of, well, anyone it sets its eyes on. A bit like Unicron from Transformers: The Movie, the publisher has been gobbling up independent developers like there’s no tomorrow – and Kingdom Come: Deliverance creator Warhorse Studios is its latest purchase.
“Warhorse Studios is one of the leading independent studios in Europe and I am proud to welcome it to the THQ Nordic group,” said flush CEO Lars Wingefors. “Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which has now sold over two million copies, has been a great success since the release exactly one year ago. I look forward to continue working with the founders who will continue managing the studio under strong creative freedom for many years to come.”
As alluded above, the Czech studio will continue to operate independently, with founders Daniel Vavra and Martin Klima, as well as CEO Martin Fryvalsky maintaining their current roles. “We believe that backing by THQ Nordic will give us an extra push in our mission to bring exciting games to our customers and extend the frontiers of the gaming industry,” said a chuffed Fryvalsky.
In other news, THQ Nordic has also snapped up Australian publishing partner 18point2, which it hopes will strengthen its presence in the region. “We see great opportunities to establish us on a new market and through local engagement being able to offer the use of THQ Nordic’s global channels to Australian game developers,” Wingefors said.
Comments 14
First, nice Jim Sterling reference.
Second, just where the hell is this money coming from? Their remasters cant be selling THAT well can they?
THQ Nordic have turned into the Paris Saint-Germain of publishers. No idea where they're getting all this money to invest in these companies, they must have spent a fortune.
@Knuckles-Fajita I'm pretty sure I read they just have huge investment.
@get2sammyb Blimey. They've gobbled up Koch Media for crying out loud. Probably buy one big thing, and then use that expanded pool of money to go further.
@Knuckles-Fajita It's this guy that owns them I believe: http://wingefors.se/
Haven't they also been buying up IP's too? It makes sense to have 'developers' able to make games for their IP acquisitions.
We all know that EA, Activision Blizzard and UbiSoft are probably the 'top 3' with Bethesda and Square Enix as potentially rounding off the Top 5 multi-platform Publishers. It seems to me that THQ Nordiq want to be challenging for Top 3.
All the Top 3 have their criticism from gamers with dodgy practices, releasing annual franchise games etc and I hope that THQ Nordic don't fall into the same category.
Good grief THQ Nordic! You’re buying IP’s and developers like they’re going out of style!
The news wouldn’t be complete without a new THQ Nordic acquisition each week. 90% of the stuff they’ve bought is probably just waste. It feels a little bit like the guy at the roulette wheel just putting money down on all the numbers hoping that eventually one of them will pay off before he runs out of chips. Maybe there’s some kind of master plan behind all this massive spending, but it’s not clear yet.
THQ is one of those companies that doesn't seem to be overrun by greed. Therefore I don't really mind this, and they seem to be set on letting the developers continue their own thing. They're not tied to any platform holder either, no shady Epic Store exclusive deals AFAIK. The only thing they're missing is a couple of amazing games, which is maybe the most important part. It's mostly smaller games to shovelware they're producing it seems. But who knows what they're working on!
Crazy. I didn't realize THQ Nordic has stupid amounts of money.
@get2sammyb THQ Nordic AB stock just jumped by ~11%!
The guy clearly knows what they’re doing. DarkSiders 3 was also recently added to Origin Premier.
I reckon they’re either trying to get in bed with an existing steaming service (Netflix) or trying to set up their own.
They really only need some of their IPs to hit and it will pay for most of the acquisitions.
I expect Metro Exodus to be a big piece of buisness for them.
When you have cash and keep rolling small numbers on the Monopoly board.
man, I pray they Have a Kingdoms Of Amular Remaster & Sequal cooking that game was so good imo.
this studio is a good buy as well just about to start their game this week.
Did Kingdom Come ever get better? It looked good, but it had some pretty big faults at launch and I was hoping they'd be patched out, but then I forgot to ever check.
@NoxAeturnus Yes. It's pretty fantastic now.
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