THQ Nordic - Acquires Warhorse Studios

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@DSOGaming THQ Nordic has acquired Warhorse Studios who were responsible for Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

THQ Nordic/Koch Media announced that it has acquired award-winning Warhorse Studios, the studio behind Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Warhorse and Koch Media have also announced that the title has sold over 2 million copies across all platforms by now.

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More information.
 
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The good thing is this means more $ for the sequel. The bad thing is this means less history revision tweets from trolls and Vavra's cheeky answers to entertain the audience.

Is it just me or Nordic Games is trying to become the new Tencent?
 
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joxer said:
The good thing is this means more $ for the sequel.
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I doubt it, Nordic is into low AA budget not high AA budget like what Kingdom Come ended up costing (cost over 36m to make).

joxer said:
Is it just me or Nordic Games is trying to become the new Tencent?
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No, Tencent was already huge in telecoms/entertainment before moving into gaming. Amazon is the new Tencent.

Nordic Games was sold back in 2004 for peanuts to its original owner and stayed a tiny local publisher/studio until 2011 when it started to buy the remains of dead publishers after being turned into an Europe-wide publisher instead of a local one. Last year they started to buy new promising independent studios.
 
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Yes it means possible funding but remember it also means more Epic Store exclusives.
joxer said:
Is it just me or Nordic Games is trying to become the new Tencent?
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What buying almost every dead Ip to make money off sales on various digital stores, and only spending a small fraction of that income on funding barely average new games?
 
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I'll try to be optimistic. These are the kinds of players that could, potentially, start to move in to the space vacated by the behemoths of the industry, who are all jumping on the overcrowded gravy train of monetised online "experiences".
 
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Ripper said:
I'll try to be optimistic. These are the kinds of players that could, potentially, start to move in to the space vacated by the behemoths of the industry, who are all jumping on the overcrowded gravy train of monetised online "experiences".
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I'm trying to be optimistic and it may turn out to be a good decision, but based on current facts about THQ Nordic, and it's various umbrella company's it's hard to be.

Add to that how Koch Media an umbrella of THQ Nordic handled Metro it doesn't help.
 
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Well they have a large warchest to fund games better at least.

THQ Nordic net sales rose 713% to $447.6m in 2018 - GamesIndustry
Growing publisher THQ Nordic has released its interim financial results for 2018, showing dramatic increases across the board.

For the 12 months ended December 31, the company reports net sales of $447.6 million, up an impressive 713% year-on-year from $55.1 million. EBITDA rose by 257% to $105.7 million, while operational EBIT rose 139% to $52.5 million.
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Yeah this past weekend there was an article in the Wall Street Journal talking about how THQ was the only publisher increasing sales. They blamed it on the Fortnite, saying gamers are looking for free to play online games, so the only way to make money going forward was to use that model (season passes, microtransactions, etc.)
 
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Couchpotato said:
Yes it means possible funding but remember it also means more Epic Store exclusives.
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Yes, will we see KDC2 exclusive on Epic Store?

I also "sense" some future conflict between Koch Media and Warhorse leads (Vavra) regarding the focus of new big RPG IP (less hardcore, more appeal). I may be wrong but…..
 
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I asked my son yesterday what they talk about in school. Fortnite... everybody is playing Fortnite. He's 11. No income, therefore doesn't buy many traditional games. Why don't the publishers understand this??
 
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Hmm. I'm in wait-and-see mode but I somehow think this doesn't spell much good. They're bound to lose their creative independence.
 
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Philistine said:
Yeah this past weekend there was an article in the Wall Street Journal talking about how THQ was the only publisher increasing sales. They blamed it on the Fortnite, saying gamers are looking for free to play online games, so the only way to make money going forward was to use that model (season passes, microtransactions, etc.)
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What people called sales are retails/unit sales, everything else is put in another column in financial reports.

See Activision 4th quarter of 2018:
Sales : $808m
Other revenue: $1,573m

Other revenues includes (directly form Activision reports): Subscription, licensing, and other revenues represent revenues from World of Warcraft subscriptions, licensing royalties from our products and franchises, downloadable content, microtransactions, and other miscellaneous revenues.

THQ is increasing sales because they acquired a diversified catalog of low budget games that sells well.
 
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Someone mentioned above. Nordic Games spotted the empty space of AA products and jumped in there.
They knew there is an audience that don't want phone and outdated shovelware yet avoiding overhyped, overrated and overpriced trash like GTA5 - that audience had rarely anything available to spend $ on.
 
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Just found this little tidbit on the internet I found interesting.

The owners of the studio used to be Zdeněk Bakala (70%) and developers Daniel Vávra (17%) and Martin Klíma (13%). Guess THQ Nordic owns the 70% or 100% now instead.
 
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Here's hoping KCD2 will be made with full creative control by Vávra. He's as close to a game design genius as we can hope for - and the first game was just shy of brilliance.

A proper sequel with a decent budget could well put it over the top - and I will most definitely support it almost no matter what.

Now they just need to call Roberts and license the StarEngine, so they can properly create a KCD sequel set in Middle Earth ;)
 
Ripper said:
I'll try to be optimistic. These are the kinds of players that could, potentially, start to move in to the space vacated by the behemoths of the industry, who are all jumping on the overcrowded gravy train of monetised online "experiences".
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I suspect you're right. This is probably the first IP they've bought that wasn't at a fire-sale price. Let's hope they aren't as tight with the purse strings during development as they have been in their many previous IP acquisitions.
 
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Couchpotato said:
Just found this little tidbit on the internet I found interesting.

The owners of the studio used to be Zdeněk Bakala (70%) and developers Daniel Vávra (17%) and Martin Klíma (13%). Guess THQ Nordic owns the 70% or 100% now instead.
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What buy up means for small studios is they get their pension early.
 
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