Warhorse Studios bought by THQ Nordic

[evdk]

Worse than the sack of Prague during the 30 Year War, Sweden rapes us again.

http://www.thqnordic-investors.com/en/regulatory-press-releases/?releaseId=3204543

 

[Funposter]

Would have preferred they stay independent, but maybe this will lead to some better quality control/QA etc. which KCD sorely needed. THQ Nordic have been pretty cool guys so far.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

The only good game they've ever done is the first Darksiders.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Worse than the sack of Prague during the 30 Year War, Sweden rapes us again.

http://www.thqnordic-investors.com/en/regulatory-press-releases/?releaseId=3204543

Pretty sure that war always worse than one company buying other, but I do agree that this is can be a bad news for industry if we consider how negative influenced publishers on games in past 10 (or even more) years.

Maybe I am stupid, I struggle to understand, why the fuck you need publisher in age of digital distribution and social media, when you can market your own game without being a pocket bitch for people that in some cases worse than mafia.

 

[evdk]

Worse than the sack of Prague during the 30 Year War, Sweden rapes us again.

http://www.thqnordic-investors.com/en/regulatory-press-releases/?releaseId=3204543

Pretty sure that war always worse than one company buying other, but I do agree that this is can be a bad news for industry if we consider how negative influenced publishers on games in past 10 (or even more) years.

Maybe I am stupid, I struggle to understand, why the fuck you need publisher in age of digital distribution and social media, when you can market your own game without being a pocket bitch for people that in some cases worse than mafia.

Cos games cost money and you can't KS 30 million.

 

[passerby]

You can't blame owners for taking a payout, such a studio is one flop away from not being able to sell for 33M anymore, sellout is the ultimate goal from an owner perspective. Unless you manage to launch a major franchise like CDProjekt you can't be safe and relaxed in this bussiness.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Cos games cost money and you can't KS 30 million.

They cost money indeed, but I struggle to remember when 30 million was poured in gamedesign and not in marketing department or CEO pocket. Maybe I wrong, tho.

 

[evdk]

You can't blame owners for taking a payout, such a studio is one flop away from not being able to sell for 33M anymore, sellout is an ultimate goal from an owner perspective. Unless you manage to launch major franchise like CDProjekt you can't be safe and relaxed in this businness.

This. Plus CDP has the GOG cushion.

 

[Big Wrangle]

This sounds great and all but I get the feeling THQ Nordic just buys anything it sees as generating mildly positive PR, they seems to just throw shit at the wall to see what sticks.

 

[karoliner]

THQ Nordic is like a whale eating all the little plankton.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Bought out by THQ, lol.

Even War whores need a pimp I guess.

 

[Wunderbar]

Breaking news! "Kingdom Come Saga: Cumans Strike Back" to be released exclusively on Epic Store.

 

[RapineDel]

On the plus side, at least it's not Koch Media. I don't see a huge issue as any sequel to KC:D will likely sell less copies as the console players who bought it and whinged it's not Skyrim won't be around for a second time.

Better they sell now while they're higher value then for pennies when they're desperate.

 

[Tigranes]

Cos games cost money and you can't KS 30 million.

They cost money indeed, but I struggle to remember when 30 million was poured in gamedesign and not in marketing department or CEO pocket. Maybe I wrong, tho.

These days the game costs 100 million, and marketing 300 million. You're a decade late.

 

[V_K]

A patch for KCD reskinning half the NPCs as black and the other half as women confirmed.

 

[evdk]

On the plus side, at least it's not Koch Media. I don't see a huge issue as any sequel to KC:D will likely sell less copies as the console players who bought it and whinged it's not Skyrim won't be around for a second time.

Better they sell now while they're higher value then for pennies when they're desperate.

I have some worse news:

THQ Nordic AB's indirectly wholly owned subsidiary Koch Media GmbH has today entered into an agreement to acquire Prague based Warhorse Studios s.r.o., a leading game developer behind the successful award-winning title Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

A patch for KCD reskinning half the NPCs as black and the other half as women confirmed.

That would make the porn mods easier to do at least.

 

[Wunderbar]

Cos games cost money and you can't KS 30 million.

They cost money indeed, but I struggle to remember when 30 million was poured in gamedesign and not in marketing department or CEO pocket. Maybe I wrong, tho.

games aren't cheap to make.
For example, Dishonored production budget (not marketing, not bonuses for execs, just production) was $25m, which was back in 2012. And it wasn't an open-world RPG with tons of characters.

 

[Funposter]

Cos games cost money and you can't KS 30 million.

They cost money indeed, but I struggle to remember when 30 million was poured in gamedesign and not in marketing department or CEO pocket. Maybe I wrong, tho.

Consider: rent, equipment, payment for dozens of employees if not hundreds of employees at a professional, living wage for several years which is not just limited to programmers & artists but also some HR people, office staff etc.

The average wage in Australia, for instance, is $78,000 per year. You'd hope that educated professionals are earning more than this (but they probably aren't because game devs are slaves lol). Let's say you have fifty developers, and a three year dev cycle. That's $11.7million dollars per year, 3million more in AUD than Shenmue 3 raised. What about that office? You need one of those too, right? Pay at least $300 per person, per month for office space over that three year period. Likely more. That's another $540,000 on top of the aforementioned costs. Halfbrick Studios had to close their Sydney office in 2016 because I'm sure the office rent was fucking killing them (101 Bathurst Street is a nice building after all). Developing video games is an expensive business once you hit a certain scale or level of quality. This is why you need either private investors, or a publisher to bankroll you.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Cos games cost money and you can't KS 30 million.

They cost money indeed, but I struggle to remember when 30 million was poured in gamedesign and not in marketing department or CEO pocket. Maybe I wrong, tho.

These days the game costs 100 million, and marketing 300 million. You're a decade late.

Rather cost-inefficient way to produce shit.

 

[RRRrrr]

but I do agree that this is can be a bad news for industry if we consider how negative influenced publishers on games in past 10 (or even more) years.

It depends on the publisher. It's not like they have been acquired by EA or a publisher that ruthlessly burns through franchises like it's nothing.

 

[SpaceWizardz]

These days the game costs 100 million, and marketing 300 million. You're a decade late.

Those are Bethesda/Bioware numbers, KCD only cost (Correct me if i'm wrong) $36m to make.

 

[Abu Antar]

THQ Nordic, the new owners of the Euro Action RPG subgenre.

 

[Rahdulan]

You'd think Vavra would've learned his lesson after Mafia 2.

 

[LESS T_T]

Next: Owlcat Games?

Anyway, press release from Koch Media side has a bonus quote from Vavra's new boss, and some stats:

Dr. Klemens Kundratitz, CEO Koch Media GmbH adds: “We are delighted to welcome the team from Warhorse Studios in the Family. The successful cooperation we developed during our journey with Kingdom Come: Deliverance linked both our companies already very closely and I am sure that our now even closer combined knowledge and experience will open up amazing new opportunities for both companies. Not only the 2 Million sold copies but also the motivation within the teams to create new ideas combined with the learnings from the past, are a rock solid foundation for future projects to build on.”

Some more numbers:

To bring perspective to what has been a journey back in time the team sat back and relaxed a bit, which is an achievement in itself given the fact that over 5.000 liters of coffee went into creating Bohemia 1403.

Looking back the devs want to share even more facts about Kingdom Come: Deliverance and the story that started as one of the most successful Kick Starter projects and grew into one of the most celebrated RPG experiences of the past year. The script alone fills over 2.200 pages of text, that’s 4.1 Million letters. The amazing journey took Henry and the team at Warhorse to over 40 public events around the world – meaning Henry travelled 4 times around the globe – not bad for the son of a 1403 blacksmith from Bohemia! 50 actors recorded more than 45.000 unique lines for the games amazing cut scenes. And while part of the team was on the road others dedicated one year of their life to create a in game monastery.

 

[Thal]

This is what happens if you have a vision, a good one, stick to your guns and refuse to apologize when the cretins come after you.

If your game/whatever is good enough, you can even wear a Burzum shirt in the public and nobody who matters bats an eyelash.