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Degausser on 28 July 2012
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MontanaHatchet said:
zarx said:
MontanaHatchet said:

What is this based off of?

Why would low budget games be the ones making THQ lose huge amounts of money? uDraw was successful on the Wii, or at least successful enough that someone decided it should be ported to the 360 and PS3 (where the game incurred massive losses for THQ). A title like de Blob might not have been a huge hit, but at about 900k copies solid, it likely gained a solid profit on the Wii. The equivalent title on the HD consoles would be a complete failure.

I know we all want THQ to make games we want to play, but personally, I don't want to see THQ go bankrupt because of something like Homefront 2.


http://www.vg247.com/2012/05/30/dont-blame-danny-bilsons-core-games-kept-thq-afloat/

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/39832/THQ_exits_kids_licensed_game_business.php

and plenty more 

Your second link doesn't really argue for your point, and the first reiterates my point that the biggest money-loser for THQ was uDraw on the PS3/360. The problem isn't casual vs. core, it's high vs. low development costs. For a company like THQ, with a very tenuous financial situation, betting on high budget games is a very risky strategy.

I'm sure we all want THQ to bankrupt themselves making games we like to play, but it's not a sound buisiness strategy.


 From the way THQ is setup, paying their 'execultives' on 7 figure salaries and whatnot I don't think a lower developement cost / profit type strategy would really work for them. They've got huge overheads to pay which means they need huge revenue streams to keep things stable - if they can't pay shareholders large sums then the share prices will plummet further, and if that happens more so then it already has then it'll be curtains for THQ. A return to profitability is important but keeping their share prices up is just as important and looking like they're trying to 'cut' costs and scale-down would harm shares.

 I think they need to find that balance of making the big budget blockbusters - Saints Row, Darksiders, InSane - but having the lower cost stuff there to bring in some profitability if the big hits fail. Problem is they don't really have the IP to do anything lower budget... Red Faction:Battlegrounds was a failure, Wii software sales have crashed and I can't think of anything they could really do in the handheld space. The uDraw brand could probably make some money on the Wii-U if they  dare go down that route again. Most of the profitable lower cost stuff relies on using existing IP... THQ just don't have it, which is why they're in this mess I guess.