In an industry that's known for forcing people to maintain a healthy lifebar, one company is down to their last handful of health-points. It's THQ. The reason they're on "life support" as many have said across the interwebs is that they made a couple of dumb business decisions to cash in on a trend and it failed. That trend was casual gaming.
After reporting massive losses due to the uDraw failure, THQ has mentioned that they're refocusing the company solely on core games. Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick made a harsh, although realistic, comment about THQ not surviving the next six months due to some less than smart business decisions. GamaSutra doesn't really think THQ will be dead that soon, though.
The < ahref=http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/168169/Opinion_Despite_Zelnicks_prediction_THQ_not_quite_on_life_support.php>GamaSutra article details a couple of common-sense moves THQ could make to stay afloat, namely announcing one big IP at this year's E3. One big game could really turn things around for the company and put them back on track. It's entirely possible, but THQ has rarely been a show-stealer at the Electronics Entertainment Expo.
One thing that GamaSutra points out that could hurt THQ more than not announcing a new IP is delisting from the stock exchange, which seems quite imminent. For the most part THQ has yet to fully explain what they plan to do from a management perspective, however, as they mentioned earlier this year, their hardcore titles have managed to sell quite well and they could potentially rely on these games to turn the company around.
THQ also sold off unnecessary ties to licensed properties to D3Publisher, completely removing themselves from publishing movie-based and TV-based games for kids and casual gamers. This enables the company to plug some of the money holes but it doesn't really do much to increase the company's value.
While Zelnick has apologized for his comments, word around the web is that he's right. However, THQ isn't dead quite yet and with the success of their UFC games, their WWE games, Warhammer games, Saints Row, Darksiders, Metro and just over $32 million in capital to burn, the company might be able to hang on just a while longer.
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