Evil Avatar - Jason Rubin's Plans to Save THQ

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Jason Rubin's Plans to Save THQ

http://i.imgur.com/oVDaU.jpg

Games Industry has an interview with THQ president Jason Rubin, in which he speaks of his plans to save the company.

Quote:

Q: Is the most difficult part figuring out how to place your investments, figuring out how much money to put into each project? You know, obviously, what a huge risk it is. You put $40-$60 million into a big project, then you throw another $30 million dollars of marketing on top of something... if that game doesn't sell at least 2 million, maybe even 3 million copies, it's a loss. That's got to be devastating, especially when THQ has been in the financial situation it's been in.

Jason Rubin: Right. I think when you look at the business and you model it out, it's not how many failures you have, it's how many successes you have. So the problem is when you don't create hits or you don't create titles that do really well. The reason that THQ is here is because Saints Row is really successful. You have to create titles that sell copies and do well and that's what we're going to focus on. I'm not going to worry as much about the ones that don't do well.

You can only lose everything, but you can make an infinite amount of money. So there's a significant amount more upside than there is downside. You can't fail at everything all the time or you're done. One of the things I plan on doing is making a much more concise portfolio. I will not expand into the money I have because I want to keep this money around for a rainy day. So THQ is going to be a lot more careful with what it does and a little less cavalier. You won't be seeing another uDraw. We're not going to be doing side projects in mobile or casual. You're not going to see that stuff.

Q: So you'd say the focus really is on triple-A console games? The iOS market, for example, you're ignoring that for now?

Jason Rubin: Correct. There will come a day where the tablets are extremely powerful and capable of running games. I think Company of Heroes, as an RTS with its control mechanism, is much easier to move onto a tablet than something that requires a dual stick and a significant amount of controls. It's just inherent. So could a Company of Heroes or something along those lines end up on a tablet soon? Absolutely. Do I think that there is going to be a Saints Row on a tablet? In the immediate future, no I don't. Eventually? Sure, if we can figure out the control issues that are obviously inherent in core gaming. Tilt and touch doesn't really work that well. There are a lot of opportunities.

Read the rest of the interview here.

I have a picture in my mind of a guy on board the Titanic trying to hold the two haves of the ship together as it sank into the murky depths.

Space maurrinessss!!!!

The pic looks like it's straight off match.com.

Flirtatious smile, check. Cameo from my puppy pal, check.

THQ will be fine, this pic confirms!

These guys don't know what the hell they're doing. How the hell does Atlus stay in business when most of their titles sell 1/10th of what any THQ game sells? (exception being the Soul's series)

Same thing with NIS, and a ton of the small pubs. Are they run by the mafia, or do they actually have the decency not to pay their top brass millions of dollars?

Atlus could make bank if they went digital-pub only on like Steam. Atlus always went real conservative on ordering boxed copies. But in a digital world that's a non-issue. No way to go bankrupt by accidentally ordering too many copies.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AkumaATR (Post 2130199)

The pic looks like it's straight off match.com.

Flirtatious smile, check. Cameo from my puppy pal, check.

THQ will be fine, this pic confirms!

The squeaky toy represents his hopes and dreams.

I think he spells the issue out right in the the reason a lot of games that should be successes are failures 30-50 million to make it then almost doubling the cost in advertising. Really does this compute with anyone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fubl (Post 2130321)

This is actually how most publishers operate - the more they spend on a title's development, the more money they spend to negate the investment risk. Essentially the formula is: big development budget = major risk, major risk = big advertising budget, therefore: big advertising budget = big development budget. This also has the same effect of small investments which result in very minimal marketing because there is little pressure to make a negligible sum of money back - which could otherwise mean huge revenue. Ultimately the faith to perform is placed on the money spent and not the product sold. It's never made sense to me as a developer, and god forbid I ever understand it.

Jason, Homeworld, Free2Play. Let's do this shiz.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Demo_Boy (Post 2130344)

Jason, Homeworld, Free2Play. Let's do this shiz.

Yes please!!! I can has moar!?!

I think THQ would be the only company I'd ever miss since I started gaming back in 84, then again, I do miss Origin's stuff :(

Quote:

Originally Posted by Demo_Boy (Post 2130344)

Jason, Homeworld, Free2Play. Let's do this shiz.

I can haz moar Homeworld?