THQ Cuts off 200 Employee's

[BountyHunterinc]

THQ have just brought the hammer down on 200 of it's team members. Two of the studio's were based in Australia. One being in Brisbane, which closes today, and BlueTongue Entertainment in Melbourne, which will go some time this week. Another smaller part of the development team were located at Phoenix, Arizona.

One of the reason's being, is because the company have decided not to 'actively pursue further development of the MX vs. ATV franchise at this time.'

Ofcourse, this isn't the first time THQ have shut down a Studio, the same happened to Kaos Studio's only two months ago, the team that worked on the FPS title, Homefront. Along with this, they also put an end to the Red Faction franchise just this year as well, because of poor sales.

This leaves only five studios remaining, which include THQ Montreal, Volition, Relic Entertainment, Vigil Games, and THQ San Diego.

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In THQ's statement, they revealed that they are focusing on a new strategy, one which will eliminate licenced properties and children's games, in place for 'high-quality owned IP's.'

"With this realignment, we are narrowing our focus to high-quality owned IP with broad appeal that can be leveraged across multiple platforms, and to work with the best talent in the industry. By right-sizing our internal development capacities for our console portfolio, our five internal studios are focused on delivering high-quality games with talented teams driving the execution of those titles to market,” Said Brian Farrell, THQ President and CEO. “As we have outlined in our business strategies, we are making shifts to reduce movie-based and licensed kids’ video games in our portfolio, which underscores our strategy to move away from games that will not generate strong profits in the future.”

Sounds good to me. Axing movie licenced games and children's titles is a step in the right direction, and I hope more studio's come through with the same idea in mind. It's time to focus on videogames that are worth being put into our hands.

What are yours thoughts on this revelation? What do you think of THQ's new strategy?

Source: Eurogamer

[TheSecretSociety]

sounds like a new day is dawning for THQ

that or maybe theyre not trying to admit that they cant afford the team

for reasons of sales