THQ: "No Room" For Mediocre Games In This Industry
See Full ImageThankfully, in this industry, quality sells. In fact, for the most part, the better the game, the better the sales (please bear in mind I said, "for the most part").
And don't think for a second that game publishers aren't aware. THQ has several promising titles on the horizon, and they're all the more promising now that we know the publisher's mentality: mediocrity just doesn't sell. So maybe we should all be a bit more excited about stuff like Red Faction: Armageddon and Saints Row 3. THQ Global Publishing Executive VP Ian Curran put it bluntly:
"We can't afford anymore to bring mediocre games to market. There's no room for them. You're either a standout, best in class, or you die. We won't bring bad games to market anymore. You can't spend $30, $40, $50 million on a bad game and expect to make a return."
Curran says one of the differences THQ has made is that they simply won't release a game until they're convinced it's top-notch quality. Simply put, "we will not release it until it's best in class and everybody's going to be blow away by what we have." He did mention the upcoming Saints Row 3; telling everyone the wait will be "worth it." Recently, the company has produced Metro 2033 and Darksiders but one gets the feeling that Curran and Co. are aiming even higher for the immediate future. They're also apparently working on a "high profile AAA multiplayer co-op action combat project" for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, so stay tuned for the unveiling... No, we don't know what it is.
Regardless of what you think of past THQ games, you have to admit that such a philosophy is encouraging for consumers.
Tags: thq, quality games, industry
7/22/2010 9:10:03 PM John Shepard
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Comments (42 posts)
kraygen
Thursday, July 22, 2010 @ 10:22:20 PM
4 up, 1 down
Fane1024
Saturday, July 24, 2010 @ 12:02:11 PM
1 up, 0 down
manofchao5
Sunday, July 25, 2010 @ 12:28:11 PM
red faction guerilla is one of my favorite games alongside battlefield bad company 2
they made one of my favorite gameboy advance games, scooby doo cyber virus whatever but it didnt suck and thats all i cared
0 up, 0 down
eLLeJuss
Thursday, July 22, 2010 @ 10:05:54 PM
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10 up, 2 down
kraygen
Thursday, July 22, 2010 @ 10:22:54 PM
Reply
1 up, 2 down
kraygen
Saturday, July 24, 2010 @ 12:14:31 AM
0 up, 1 down
maxpontiac
Thursday, July 22, 2010 @ 10:43:41 PM
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2 up, 0 down
DeathOfChaos
Thursday, July 22, 2010 @ 10:55:26 PM
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1 up, 0 down
WorldEndsWithMe
Thursday, July 22, 2010 @ 11:03:22 PM
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1 up, 5 down
booze925
Thursday, July 22, 2010 @ 11:15:13 PM
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holy crap! MAG is a perfect example! it was a very mediocre game who's developers-
oops, NEVERMIND
0 up, 4 down
Godslim
Friday, July 23, 2010 @ 9:42:16 AM
0 up, 1 down
carl0975
Friday, July 23, 2010 @ 7:38:15 PM
2 up, 0 down
Kangasfwa
Thursday, July 22, 2010 @ 11:22:53 PM
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Space Marines! :D
2 up, 0 down
RebelJD
Thursday, July 22, 2010 @ 11:40:37 PM
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2 up, 2 down
Highlander
Friday, July 23, 2010 @ 12:02:45 AM
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Seems like game makers need to carefully manage their own expectations that every game be a AAA title or nothing. Perhaps they don't need a team of 100 developers and testers polishing a game for a year before release, perhaps they simply need to make sure the thing works, accept a few rough edges and not expect 2 million sales.
4 up, 0 down
Temjin001
Friday, July 23, 2010 @ 12:08:31 AM
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5 up, 1 down
Jawknee
Friday, July 23, 2010 @ 1:42:35 AM
0 up, 0 down
Jawknee
Friday, July 23, 2010 @ 2:16:55 AM
0 up, 0 down
Kangasfwa
Friday, July 23, 2010 @ 5:18:47 AM
0 up, 0 down
StangMan80
Friday, July 23, 2010 @ 12:16:37 AM
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0 up, 2 down
Qubex
Friday, July 23, 2010 @ 1:41:22 AM
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A $2.99 PlayStation mini may be cheap, but I believe you could class it as AAA if it exudes quality and is very addictive. Small cheap games don't necessary have to be bad... There is place for both sub $10 games and $60 games, and both could be classed AAA if they are really really good and stand out...
Q!
"play.experience.enjoy"
3 up, 1 down
Highlander
Friday, July 23, 2010 @ 9:39:07 AM
Sales do not determine the quality of a game. However they might be taken as a measure of quality, or at least perceived quality.
1 up, 0 down
___________
Friday, July 23, 2010 @ 3:45:59 AM
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but than they never have released a bad game.
saints row 2 is 10 times more fun than GTAIV, for once a game lets you let your hair down and do sh*t you would not dream of doing in real life.
thats the whole point no?
i dont play games to drive carefully make sure i dont crash otherwise ill go flying out the windscreen and die.
no, i play games to go wising down the highway at 200MPH weaving in and out of cars, than leap off a cliff into the sea!
same goes for the missions, thats what made saints row 2 so good.
i mean hiring a sewer tank and spraying the streets with poo.
CLASSIC!
still a little disappointed we did not get that trophy patch they promised us!
or even red faction guerrilla, the combat in that was infuriating as f*ck! because there was no cover system.
BUT running around mars, driving a garbage truck through a lookout tower.
i mean what more could you ask for!
its a shame they did not let you use a walker once you finished the game just for the fun of it.
thats one thing i hate about games, they create this really cool powerful weapon than only let you use it for .02% of the game!
yea there really powerful and that would unbalance the game but so what!?
if you have already finished the game, why not let us just go crazy and have fun?
i dunno about anyone else but i dont replay a game for the challenge, or to say ive finished it multiple times.
i play games again for the fun of it, i mean dead space was so much more fun the second time around because i had all my upgraded weapons.
GOW3 would of been so cool if you could start the game again with all your upgraded weapons.
2 up, 4 down
Highlander
Friday, July 23, 2010 @ 9:40:54 AM
Sounds like Burnout Paradise to me...
3 up, 0 down
Jawknee
Friday, July 23, 2010 @ 11:43:19 AM
4 up, 0 down
___________
Saturday, July 24, 2010 @ 10:50:52 AM
its about the exploration.
its about the collectibles.
its about choosing the best vehicle for the job.
its about choosing the best route, the fastest car does not always win.
plus GTA is not suppose to be a driving game, its suppose to be a open world styled gang game.
i dont play open world styled gun games to drive carefully making sure i dont crash otherwise ill go flying out the windscreen!
where is the fun in that?
0 up, 0 down
Lawless SXE
Friday, July 23, 2010 @ 4:04:44 AM
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A very good philosophy though, and one that I would agree with completely aside from the fact that not every game can be a AAA title. If it was then what would we use as our guilty pleasure games? Ah well, I guess I'm talking crap.
Peace.
0 up, 0 down
Imagi
Friday, July 23, 2010 @ 4:44:49 AM
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0 up, 0 down
Zorigo
Friday, July 23, 2010 @ 5:05:24 AM
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(often in the sense that its just about as much as your wallet can take at THIS rate) then no one is going to worry for poor games.
Thats why not many proper gamers pay attention to movie tie-ins. they're never top quality. they're for casual gamers/ fans of the series (the recent transformers game, the toy story game etc etc)
0 up, 0 down
Scarecrow
Friday, July 23, 2010 @ 12:53:18 PM
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And the game sucked...
THQ seriously sucks....
Hopefully this new philosophy of only releasing good games is true.
0 up, 0 down
RadioHeader
Friday, July 23, 2010 @ 1:52:36 PM
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What does all that money get spent on? Do game developers only eat diamonds?
2 up, 0 down
sunspider13
Friday, July 23, 2010 @ 2:20:18 PM
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0 up, 0 down
A2K78
Saturday, July 24, 2010 @ 1:01:25 AM
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I can name tons of examples on the PS2 where you're completly wrong.
0 up, 1 down
A2K78
Saturday, July 24, 2010 @ 1:01:26 AM
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I can name tons of examples on the PS2 where you're completly wrong.
0 up, 2 down
A2K78
Saturday, July 24, 2010 @ 1:11:59 AM
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Somebody should tell this guy that regarless of the quality, games theses day are largely unprofitable. For petes sake, games such Uncharted 2 and Killzone are high quality titles, but have been unprofitable.
Overall I love how the game industry is currently shooting itself in the foot with the high cost of making games the unprofitable nature of them.
0 up, 2 down
___________
Saturday, July 24, 2010 @ 10:54:50 AM
dude you do realize even uncharted 2 a game that sold 2M units is well in the green zone!
lets say uncharted 2 cost 100M bucks to make, it did not im sure it cost less than that but what the hell.
ok 2M units multiplied by 60 bucks, LCD, other territories games cost more than that but most copies would of been sold in the US so what the hell.
2M units multiplied by 60 bucks brings us to 120 million bucks, now IF uncharted 2 cost more than 120M bucks than ok it was not profitable but i seriously doubt it cost that much to make!
and thats uncharted 2, how about take in GTAIV or MW2 which sold well over 13 million units!
if your game sells 1M units your pretty much well profitable!
1 up, 0 down
PHOENIXZERO
Sunday, July 25, 2010 @ 11:19:33 PM
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0 up, 0 down
frostface
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Thursday, July 22, 2010 @ 9:55:21 PM