• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Official THQ Auction Results [Up2: Purchase Prices, Runner-Ups Revealed]

Glass Rebel

Member
"Koch Media welcomes the addition of these magnificent franchises to the Koch Media family of entertainment properties.", said Dr. Klemens Kundratitz, CEO of Koch Media GmbH, while trying to hide his tears over overbidding by more that 15 million $.
 
"Koch Media welcomes the addition of these magnificent franchises to the Koch Media family of entertainment properties.", said Dr. Klemens Kundratitz, CEO of Koch Media GmbH, while trying to hide his tears over overbidding by more that 15 million $.

22mln vs. 5mln, damn, someone will probably lose their job over this.

How could no one buy vigil? They rock and darksiders sold pretty well.

The main art guy left the company, and Darksiders with different art makes no sense. My guess is there was not enough material for D3.
 
Oh, so purchase of Volition essentially grants the Saints Row IP as well? (Sorry, I haven't been following this thread.)

I think it was THQ's most successful IP of late, so even though they "overpaid" it may end up being worth it I guess.
 

sangreal

Member
it is not possible that they overpaid since it was an open auction and bid increments only had to be $250k. My guess is that they simply assumed a lot more contracts than the competing bid (they assumed a ton -- music licensing, building lease, parking lease, merchandise, etc)
 

sangreal

Member
Really bums me out that one of my favorite developers (volition) is now owned by the Koch brothers.

Aka some of the biggest scumbags in the world today outside of child molesters/genocidal maniacs.

Can't purchase anything that leads them to get a single cent in good conscience.

Koch brothers have nothing to do with Koch media
 

PaulLFC

Member
Really bums me out that one of my favorite developers (volition) is now owned by the Koch brothers.

Aka some of the biggest scumbags in the world today outside of child molesters/genocidal maniacs.

Can't purchase anything that leads them to get a single cent in good conscience.
They are not even related to Koch Media...
 

Santiako

Member
Really bums me out that one of my favorite developers (volition) is now owned by the Koch brothers.

Aka some of the biggest scumbags in the world today outside of child molesters/genocidal maniacs.

Can't purchase anything that leads them to get a single cent in good conscience.

Koch is a German company.
 

Linkified

Member
22mln vs. 5mln, damn, someone will probably lose their job over this.

Doubt it...they knew what they were buying with Saints Row - also the ability of Volition inc to create new IP in one generation and have people love their work,plus Saints Row 4 already deep into development.
 

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
Jason Rubin interview on Game Informer. Great, but sad, read. :(

Link.

:(

"The best example of this is Vigil’s title, codenamed Crawler. When the teams got together recently to show each other their titles, Crawler dropped the most jaws. It is a fantastic idea, and truly unique. The fact that nobody bid for the team and title is a travesty. It makes no sense to me. If I weren’t barred from bidding as an insider, I would have been there with my checkbook. I’m sure that’s little consolation to the team, but that’s a fact."
 

evangd007

Member
How could no one buy vigil? They rock and darksiders sold pretty well.

Darksiders sold only alright, and they were the only studio on the auction block that didn't have a game scheduled to be released this year. That hurt their value a lot, and it's a shame that they didn't have the capital that Crytek and Turtle Rock (they made an unsuccessful bid) do to purchase themselves.
 

kswiston

Member
Looks like ubisoft was only interested in bargain shopping.

$22M for Volition seems extremely low considering Saints Row 3 moved 4 million units and Saints Row 2 moved 3.5 million units.
 

Glass Rebel

Member
here is the full agreement between Sega and Relic: http://www.thesangreal.net/gafpics/sega_relic.pdf

lists all the IP etc that they get and the terms. I didn't feel like buying the other ones, but they might be available free somewhere

they did get the rights to the old 40k games, but from what I understand the license to make new games is still pending negotiation

Thanks!

Weird though, only Space Marine, Kill Team, Chaos Rising and DoWII Vanilla are mentioned. None of the old games or Retribution.
 

sangreal

Member
Thanks!

Weird though, only Space Marine, Kill Team, Chaos Rising and DoWII Vanilla are mentioned. None of the old games or Retribution.

Ah, I didn't realize there were more. As I edited in my post, there is still an ongoing dispute with Games Workshop so I don't know if that is related

gwl.jpg
 
Nintendo buy vigil.. Damn at this point they will probabluy get them for sub 1 million.

Anyone could have bought them for any bid offer yesterday. If they didn't want them for $500k, why would they for a million?

By the way, the employees are gone. It's over. One might be able to recruit a bunch of them or start something new, but it's done.

22mln vs. 5mln, damn, someone will probably lose their job over this.

A reasonable valuation for the company is at minimum double the $22m, so no, no one will lose any job. I bet they didn't think they had a real chance when they submitted the bid to be honest. Plus, it was a closed auction, so what can you do. No one else wanted to put in a half serious bid. They're probably still flying high-fives around the offices over that price.
 

Glass Rebel

Member
Ah, I didn't realize there were more. As I edited in my post, there is still an ongoing dispute with Games Workshop so I don't know if that is related

Yeah it's probably just the usual legal bullshit holding the rights and licenses or whatever up. From what we've heard GW is very likely to work with Relic and SEGA again so it's just a matter of time until these things get resolved.
 

duckroll

Member
Yeah it's probably just the usual legal bullshit holding the rights and licenses or whatever up. From what we've heard GW is very likely to work with Relic and SEGA again so it's just a matter of time until these things get resolved.

My understanding is that it has already been resolved. The "legal bullshit" holding up the license was Games Workshop making a legal objection because they were concerned because their licensing was based on their trust of Relic, and THQ giving Relic full creative freedom or something like that. They have since noted that they are resolving this objection by agreeing to work in good faith with Relic and Sega after the transfer of rights.
 

HoosTrax

Member
Not sure if old, but SEGA's press release:

Notice of SEGA’s Acquisition of Relic Entertainment and Some IPs Owned by THQ Inc.
SAN FRANCISCO & LONDON & TOKYO --

SEGA Corporation (Headquarters: Tokyo, President, Representative Director, and Chief Operating Officer: Naoya Tsurumi, “SEGA”) acquired all of shares of THQ Canada Inc. (Headquarters: Vancouver, Canada, “THQ Canada”) and some IPs owned by THQ Inc., a parent company of THQ Canada on January 24, 2013 in order to further reinforce PC game development capabilities in the U.S. and European regions. THQ Canada has developed million-seller franchise titles such as “Warhammer 40k Dawn of War” and “Company of Heroes” under the brand of Relic Entertainment Studio.

Relic Entertainment was established in 1997 and acquired by THQ Canada in 2004. THQ Canada have been known familiarly as Relic Entertainment since the acquisition and provided a number of high quality games equipped with graphics equal in quality to movies and rich strategic game features mainly for the PC market in the U.S. and European regions. THQ Canada provides several million seller franchise titles, and its representative products include the “Warhammer 40k Dawn of War” series. As a series Warhammer 40k Dawn of War has sold more than 7 million copies worldwide, whilst the “Company of Heroes” series, a real time strategy game based on the modern history of warfare from World War II and after, has sold more than 4 million copies worldwide.

“We are thrilled to have Relic Entertainment join the SEGA family. The acquisition is a strategic fit and a critical step in growing our business,” John Cheng, President and CFO, SEGA of America said. “They are a well-respected studio with a reputation for making creative and innovative games and we look forward to seeing what great things we can create together over the coming years.”

SEGA already owns three development companies in the U.S. and Europe, and is progressing to support compatibility with the rapidly expanding online games field, such as PC online games, smartphone games and social games. As a result of the THQ Canada acquisition, SEGA will further advance the provision of various appealing entertainment contents by utilizing THQ Canada’s high-end content development capabilities and accumulated development know-how, and increase SEGA’s presence in the PC online game market.
 

Glass Rebel

Member
My understanding is that it has already been resolved. The "legal bullshit" holding up the license was Games Workshop making a legal objection because they were concerned because their licensing was based on their trust of Relic, and THQ giving Relic full creative freedom or something like that. They have since noted that they are resolving this objection by agreeing to work in good faith with Relic and Sega after the transfer of rights.

I meant the oddity of THQ owning copyrights to some of the titles while lacking others, which doesn't seem to have any real world implications. I was in no way suggesting that the deal with GW was trivial or "bullshit". :)
 

sangreal

Member
My understanding is that it has already been resolved. The "legal bullshit" holding up the license was Games Workshop making a legal objection because they were concerned because their licensing was based on their trust of Relic, and THQ giving Relic full creative freedom or something like that. They have since noted that they are resolving this objection by agreeing to work in good faith with Relic and Sega after the transfer of rights.

I believe they only agreed in good faith to try and resolve the objection consensually (per the image I posted above). If I'm not mistaken the "good faith" verbage originally comes from this polygon article:

Many will carry over to new relationships; for example, Games Workshop will "work in good faith" with Sega — the new owner of Relic, the studio that created titles based on its intellectual property — in order to satisfy its objections to the sale.

but I think this only says they will work in good faith to negotiate, not to necessarily work with Relic and Sega post-transfer. The verbage reappears in the order, stating "good faith efforts to consensually resolve the objection" as opposed to resolving the objection by agreeing to work together in good faith.

In other words, I don't think the objection is resolved yet but I could be wrong. IANAL
 

Glass Rebel

Member
I believe they only agreed in good faith to try and resolve the objection consensually (per the image I posted above). If I'm not mistaken the "good faith" verbage originally comes from this polygon article:

but I think this only says they will work in good faith to negotiate, not to necessarily work with Relic and Sega post-transfer. The verbage reappears in the order, stating "good faith efforts to consensually resolve the objection" as opposed to resolving the objection by agreeing to work together in good faith.

In other words, I don't think the objection is resolved yet but I could be wrong. IANAL

We might be talking about different matters.

What duckroll meant was that GW objected to the acquisition of Relic and their assets because those included Warhammer 40k related domains and copyrights. Since SEGA bought those we can only assume that GW retracted their objection but for them to work on future games SEGA and GW would have to work out a new deal. At least that's what I got from this.
 

Mrbob

Member
Zenimax almost seems like a better option for Relic, but Sega shouldn't be bad either.

At least Relic should be happy knowing they were the crown jewel of this auction, so the transition will hopefully go smoothly.
 

sangreal

Member
We might be talking about different matters.

What duckroll meant was that GW objected to the acquisition of Relic and their assets because those included Warhammer 40k related domains and copyrights. Since SEGA bought those we can only assume that GW retracted their objection but for them to work on future games SEGA and GW would have to work out a new deal. At least that's what I got from this.

Yeah, Sega will get Relic but what I'm saying is (from my understanding) they are still negotiating on whether or not Sega will be able to assume the contracts THQ had with GW. Whether or not they need a "new" deal will depend on the outcome of those negotiations

The same thing happened with Take-Two buying Evolve. They had to work out a deal with Crytek to assume the existing contract for the engine


was Evolve not next-gen before?
 

duckroll

Member
I believe they only agreed in good faith to try and resolve the objection consensually (per the image I posted above). If I'm not mistaken the "good faith" verbage originally comes from this polygon article:



but I think this only says they will work in good faith to negotiate, not to necessarily work with Relic and Sega post-transfer. The verbage reappears in the order, stating "good faith efforts to consensually resolve the objection" as opposed to resolving the objection by agreeing to work together in good faith.

In other words, I don't think the objection is resolved yet but I could be wrong. IANAL

Their objection was to the sale itself. That objection is resolved. It does not mean that GW is going to license Warhammer 40k to Sega automatically, but their willingness to withdraw the objection and resolve their disagreement with the new owner of Relic themselves is a promising sign.

We might be talking about different matters.

What duckroll meant was that GW objected to the acquisition of Relic and their assets because those included Warhammer 40k related domains and copyrights. Since SEGA bought those we can only assume that GW retracted their objection but for them to work on future games SEGA and GW would have to work out a new deal. At least that's what I got from this.

Right, the only legal objection from GW was to the sale itself because it seems to have included existing licensed GW titles along with the Relic acquisition. Now that GW has expressed their willingness to work out their own concerns with the new owner of Relic instead, the objection to the sale itself from GW has been resolved.
 

ban25

Member
We went over this a bit in the other thread. Most of them have $500-$1 billion in the bank.

The royalty agreement seems pretty toxic though on that product in terms of profit generation, but you know, at $3 million it's *totally* worth it.

Royalties paid to the IP holder, minimum spend for marketing...Potentially agressive ship deadline built into the contract, relative to the current state of development, not to mention it might be a one-shot deal that would require renegotiation for a sequel...most big publishers have given up on licensed games (that was THQ's niche, for all it was worth to them). I suspect it just wasn't worth the effort for most.
 

sangreal

Member
Their objection was to the sale itself. That objection is resolved. It does not mean that GW is going to license Warhammer 40k to Sega automatically, but their willingness to withdraw the objection and resolve their disagreement with the new owner of Relic themselves is a promising sign.


no, their objection was to including their license in the list of contracts that could be transferred (bidders were able to pick and choose from this list). here is a copy of their objection: http://www.thesangreal.net/gafpics/gw_object.pdf according to the order this objection was not resolved and the judge chose not to rule on it because they're working in good faith on a resolution. I posted this before, but it is straight out of today's order and says the judge is giving them time to negotiate the objection:
 
Top Bottom