THQ has no sympathy

[Megamixer]

I wouldn't mind but THQ produce almost the definitive list of mediocre cash-in games that scream: "Buy me second hand!"

This.

I can't think of any game with the THQ logo on that I enjoyed/remember in some way. The only games of theirs that I can think of are the sh1tty Spongebob games.

Allod's Online curses your items and requires you to buy (for real cash) something to remove the curse.

So people actually fell for the lesbian fairy adverts then?

[Joey]

I can't think of any game with the THQ logo on that I enjoyed/remember in some way. The only games of theirs that I can think of are the sh1tty Spongebob games.

I think Red Faction is one of their biggest franchises. Saints Row and Metro 2033 were okish.

I am looking forward to Homefront though.

[thevulture]

I wouldn't mind but THQ produce almost the definitive list of mediocre cash-in games that scream: "Buy me second hand!"

This.

I can't think of any game with the THQ logo on that I enjoyed/remember in some way. The only games of theirs that I can think of are the sh1tty Spongebob games.

Full Spectrum warrior-Which i loved and The Outfit:Which i loathed were last i bought.Just looked up list of thier games, Yowza talk about few gems buried under a mountain of dirt.

[ToxieDogg]

And they also currently have the WWE license too...fair enough, you're either a fan or not but THQs main franchise wrestling games have been the best around for over a decade now.

[RMLF]

And they also currently have the WWE license too...fair enough, you're either a fan or not but THQs main franchise wrestling games have been the best around for over a decade now.

Fire Pro Returns says 'hi'

Regarding the issue at hand.. Does it really matter?

So THQ kills the 2nd hand market for new consoles.. Id wager this gen will kill it anyway.

The more this gen goes on, the more I cant be bothered with it knowing that much of it is going to be completely useless within a decade given servers being switched off, DLC not being available and broken games left being unable to be patched console failures causing havoc and so on

The 2nd hand side of gaming will all things considered die off at this rate. What's the point of carrying on 2nd hand gaming when what you buy becomes unusable or a shell of something. For example. All that DLC is on the disc.. but you cant get what is needed to unlock it.. pointless.

[Gabe]

Let's use the Music Industry as a convenient example.

Way back in time the Music Industry thought we'd quite like to buy music. So they released Albums. Albums usually contained 10-14 different songs. Now, not every song on the albums were of "quality" but since the album required at least 10 songs we'd end up getting so-called Album filler; songs written and performed merely to "take up the remaining space." Anyone interested in music can usually spot these, as the quality of writing or music is inferior.

Did the Music Publishing Industry decide to halve the amount of album songs and lower the cost of Albums? No, they didn't. Albums were proven to sell at that pricepoint and so remained there. Album filler and all.

Next example: People eventually got wise to the whole filler situation and so decided to buy singles instead. Why pay for a whole album if you just want a few singles? The Industry quickly pounced on this idea (after a short "Oh noes!! We're all doomed!!" period) and so single records (and single cassettes) became popular. In fact they became so popular that these singles started to get bigger (with more tracks on) and cost more (they "charged" for the extra tracks on the single) Profit was made.

Where are you getting this from? AFAIK singles have *always* been used to promote an album, because singles never used to make any real money. The addition of 'B' sides were in many cases songs that wouldn't appear on the album at all, so you were getting otherwise-unobtainable tracks.

[CraigGrannell]

Mm. Some pretty odd history from Freestyler. Singles predate albums. And while singles became wildly popular for the period of time before cassettes and CDs arrived, they subsequently became loss-leaders and marketing devices, especially when on CD. Unless an artist was massive during the 1990s and 2000s, anything under a fiver was likely to cost the label money.

The 'filler' argument is about right, but singles weren't a counterpoint to that.

[killbot]

Mm. Some pretty odd history from Freestyler. Singles predate albums. And while singles became wildly popular for the period of time before cassettes and CDs arrived, they subsequently became loss-leaders and marketing devices, especially when on CD. Unless an artist was massive during the 1990s and 2000s, anything under a fiver was likely to cost the label money.

The 'filler' argument is about right, but singles weren't a counterpoint to that.

Indeed. Singles came first, with albums - if artists bothered with them at all - tending to consist of one or two singles and a mass of poor quality filler. It was in the 60s when bands like The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Beach Boys and Pink Floyd began putting the time and effort into properly crafting albums which represented a consistant and high quality body of work. What we're now seeing - with sites like iTunes preferring to sell individual songs rather than whole albums - is the market snapping back to what it was fifty years ago.

[Freestyler]

Sorry, I should have been a little clearer in my example, but I didn't want my post to wall-of-text everyone to death!

Yes, Singles were a way of drumming up interest in Albums, which is where the Industry really made a killing. I can remember buying Vinyl singles all the time. Notice the Albums still had those singles on anyway? We had to pay for them twice! What a rip! Like suckers we all did though, drip-fed as they were to us.

People pretty much cottoned on to the above, realising that "hey, why bother buying 4 singles and the album, when I can just buy the album and get them anyway?" So as Gabe said they came up with other ways to entice people to buy singles. We had the 12 inch singles and remixes, which rather conveniently didn't appear on the Album version.

BUT - what happened is more and more people realised single records (and especially cassettes) were better than buying Albums. No more filler, always getting the "superior" version of a song, and always for much cheaper too. Albums went on the new CD format and they expected us to buy for £16.99, even though Vinyl cost £9.99. No thanks.

iTunes allows us to cherry-pick what we like, and the Music Industry struggled to cope. However, they "sleep with the Devil" because 70% of 99 cents from iTunes is much better than 100% of nothing at all from Retail.

[Freestyler]

My worry for the future can be summed up in a few points:

1. Main concern: I buy a game and play it online. I chose not to buy the sequels (or expansions) but Publisher dumps me off their Networks for not having the "Latest" version. Upgrade or die. I don't expect to play Generic Shoot-Em-Up X online for 20 years, but I should be able to play it for more than six months before the Publisher "decides" to end it for me, simply because they have a newer version they want to sell.


2. Secondary Concern: All Your Base Are Belong To Publisher. Publishers can't agree on anything, and are often run as Fiefdoms. I can't see Valve ever using Battlenet, neither will Microsoft ever use anyone other than themselves. So we'll have multiple accounts across multiple identities across multiple "Content Delivery Devices." (that we used to call consoles. )
How many Online Identities do we need to have for Christ's sake? Why are those Identities all handled differently by different Companies? Why am I bombarded by ever-changing and unreadable Terms & Conditions every time I want to play Tomb Raider 16: Lara's Revenge? Why would I need to have 40 different mutually-exclusive Friends Lists across all the Publishers?


3. Tertiary Concern: Streaming "Software as a Service" forces me to continually pay for a subscription; irrespective of whether I choose to play, or not. Unlike MMORPGs that usually have low Subscription costs (Usually £9-£12 per month) Publishers will almost-certainly want a big chunk of money. The tenner a month for an MMO equates to only one "Retail" game every 3 or 4 months. Publishers won't want such low revenue, so I'd be expecting at least £50 a month rates; with heavily restricted lower tier rates to appease Consumer Watchdogs. So your Tenner a month sub will buy you a whopping 1gb per month bandwidth. Yes, really useful. It's not as if fully-installed games are 10-15gb in size already.


As these are concerns rather than anything actually tangible I'm not really trying to make proper complete sense. It's just a case of having a niggle in the back of my brain.

[felgekarp]

And they also currently have the WWE license too...fair enough, you're either a fan or not but THQs main franchise wrestling games have been the best around for over a decade now.

Fire Pro Returns says 'hi'

It doesn't just say 'hi' it powebombs THQ's wrestling games through a burning table.

[thevulture]

@Freestyler:Totally agree with good few of your concerns.I bought a 360 late in the day (compared to my PS3), time i even tried the online gaming side, there were a few games who`s servers were either no longer running, or allowed me to buy items, for online stuff that had been shut down.2)Never understood the logic here, but when i tried to take MGS online on PS3, rather than use PSN servers as i expected, i was given choice of P-2-P servers, all who had such sloth like download speeds, (And file was massive) i gave up.what`s the point of a Sony Exclusive NOT using Sony servers? seem to recal E.A use thier own on 360+PS3 (or did), so IF i`m paying for XBL Gold, how come some of the bigger players do not use MS servers?.Whole online aspect baffles me.I do not want to set up new account for a game for each developer/publisher it`s coming from, yet i can fore see aspects of this happening...

[thevulture]

Also, regarding gaming becoming more Online focused..After much complaining to my ISP, i`ve been upgraded to a 'Better' package-Get more stable connection, but still have the old 'fair usage policy', they still throttle back my bandwidth at peak times.(was promised upto 8 Meg, best i`ve ever had?Just under 3-I live 500 yards from my telephone exchange).Friends in Plymouth were on Virgin Fibre optic,promised 20 Meg.Best they got was 16Meg.UK infrastructure cannot cope, gonna get worse as more and more people take advantage of cheap broadband packages.(Also,lost count of how times a year B.B goes down).

[HalcyonDaze00]

And they also currently have the WWE license too...fair enough, you're either a fan or not but THQs main franchise wrestling games have been the best around for over a decade now.

Really ?

I think THQ have been a disaster with the license, they have done nothing to move the series on and the games now are no better (i actually think they are worse) than the ones from 5 years ago.

Would love to see THQ lose the WWE games and let somebody else have a go.

[Freestyler]

I remember the brand THQ from the old SNES days.

Basically, if it had "THQ" on it you'd know pretty much for certain that it was a bag of censored. Kind of like seeing the dreaded LJN Games logo on NES carts. It was gonna be a stinker!



Sorry THQ; I remember you robbing me with a whole series of naff games on NES and SNES. And now you want to double dip me with my permission? Got shares in Activision and EA Games do you?