Not long ago THQ sort of foreshadowed their February 2nd conference call for the third-quarter results of 2011 by releasing a press statement saying that they're ditching kids games and going head-deep into the hardcore territory. Well, turns out the reason that THQ wants full-core or nothing is that their kids games have been selling like poop and their core games have been selling like hot cakes. It's really simple math...really simple.
According to GameIndustry.biz, CEO Brian Farrell admitted that...
"Saints Row: The Third and WWE 12 demonstrate the strengths of THQ's core gaming capabilities," ... "These titles performed at or better than the expectations we shared during our last investor conference call, driven by favourable critical reviews, community engagement and outstanding marketing efforts."
THQ posted a net loss of $56 million in comparison to 2010, the biggest culprit was the poor-selling uDraw tablet for the Nintendo Wii. This is coupled with the fact that their other biggest losses came from the kids and family sector alone. In other words, their casual games tanked and tanked hard. THQ's Farrell realized that the people laying down $60 for their games don't care about kids titles and he wants to keep the company moving in the direction of people who do care about putting that hard-earned $60 on a retail counter, saying...
"Sales of the uDraw GameTablet and related software, and other titles in the kids, family and casual category were far weaker than anticipated, substantially reducing our financial results for the quarter."... "We are implementing a plan to bring costs in line with our lower anticipated level of revenue. With our focused product plan, leaner cost structure, cash balance, and existing credit facility, we believe the company has adequate resources to execute on our plan and deliver on our strong multi-year pipeline of games."
My man. Sounds like a CEO who understands the gaming landscape despite market pressure from Wall Street. What's more is that Brian publicly announced that he would be taking a slash to his annual paycheck...in fact, he's cutting his paycheck in half for 2012. That's how serious he is about getting back on track.
The company isn't really in the gutter but the financial setbacks were more of a wake-up call of where they should be prioritizing their efforts. I definitely don't disagree.
THQ still has DarkSiders II and UFC Undisputed 3 in the pipeline and they plan on focusing more on enhancing WWE 13 for later this year as well as continuing production on inSane.
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