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As part of the Chapter 11 liquidation the various studios and their IP were sold at auction.

Link

Kyle Orland/Arstechnica wrote:

• Sega
• To purchase Relic (developer of Warhammer 40K and Company of Heroes 2) for $26.6 million. (Interestingly, Bethesda Softworks owner Zenimax media came just short of winning this portion with a $26.3 million bid.)
  
• Koch Media
• To purchase Volition (developer of the Saints Row and Red Faction games) for about $22.3 million.
• To purchase the Metro franchise license for nearly $5.9 million.
  
• Crytek
• To purchase the Homefront license for $544,218.
  
• Take 2
• To purchase Evolve (a Turtle Rock Studios project trademarked last year) for about $10.9 million.
  
• Ubisoft
• To purchase THQ Montreal (developer of the upcoming 1666, among others) for $2.5 million
• To purchase the license to South Park: The Stick of Truth for about $3.26 million (though South Park Studios is putting up some legal argument over that part of the sale)
  
• Darksiders developer Vigil Games received no bids and unfortunately will be shut down.

I'm especially disappointed that Vigil Games and Darksiders will be closed.

Koch Media is also known as Deep Silver who published Dead Island, Gothic 3, STAKER: Clear Sky. So Volition should be safe to continue their work on Saints Row 4.

I'm curious how much culture shock Relic will endure going to Sega. Zenimax would probably have been a better fit.

Yes, I think Zenimax would have been a much better landing spot for them. Sega, I think, will probably be a little too...controlling to really let Relic do what it does best (i.e. make the best damn RTS games that have ever been made). I mean they've done a decent job with the Total War series. But I'm very wary of what will happen to Relic.

I hope that Metro Last Light is not affected by this in any way, considering that the game is practically complete.

CampinCarl wrote:

Yes, I think Zenimax would have been a much better landing spot for them. Sega, I think, will probably be a little too...controlling to really let Relic do what it does best (i.e. make the best damn RTS games that have ever been made). I mean they've done a decent job with the Total War series. But I'm very wary of what will happen to Relic.

Sega at least puts proper resources into their PC games...even their little games (I can at least speak for Sonic 4 ep2 and Sonic Adventure 2) have DX11 support, whereas nothing of Zenimaxes (yet) does.

They also have the Total War series under them, which I don't particularly like but Shogun 2s graphical upgrades were impressive.

Metro will not be negatively impacted at all. Only the license to publish was obtained. 4A Games based out of the Ukraine and is privately owned. With Koch Media/Deep Silver having European roots this new relationship might even turn out to be a boon to 4A Games.

In other news: Link

Looks like Platinum Games wants to buy Darksiders (and perhaps they mean Vigil too).

Relic under Sega! woot!

Everyone chant with me, "Homeworld 3, Homeworld 3, Homeworld 3..."

I'm not so happy with Sega getting Relic... I really don't see that working out well for the Warhammer games.

I NEED The Stick of Truth and Metro Last Light. F*** I'm entitled as **** and I don't care. GIMME GIMME GIMME!

Philldoe wrote:

I'm not so happy with Sega getting Relic... I really don't see that working out well for the Warhammer games.

Likewise ... that was pretty much worst case scenario in my book. Knowing Bethesda was thiiiis close to getting it makes me feel even worse if that's possible.

Sad about Darksiders, Crytek got the Homefront IP for cheap (That story + their engine = sex), and hopefully most of the other titles won't be negatively affected.

Oh man...

I'll admit that I haven't played the Company of Heroes or 40k games, but I feel like THQ was doing some real good work with Saints Row and Darksiders. Good to see SR will survive, but Darksiders looks lost.

Walkintarget wrote:

Philldoe wrote:

I'm not so happy with Sega getting Relic... I really don't see that working out well for the Warhammer games.

Likewise ... that was pretty much worst case scenario in my book. Knowing Bethesda was thiiiis close to getting it makes me feel even worse if that's possible.

At the moment I'm praying that Bethesda comes back with a counter bid and snatches it up, but that's not really how it works... I can still hope though. To see Relic continue making WH40K games with the possibility of an Elder Scrolls RTS... I would be drooling.

lilbuddhaman wrote:

Sad about Darksiders, Crytek got the Homefront IP for cheap (That story + their engine = sex), and hopefully most of the other titles won't be negatively affected.

I thought that it was cheap too when I first read it, but it kind of makes sense now that I think about it. Red Dawn, World in Conflict, Homefront, and many other games, books, and movies have all operated in the same U.S. is invaded by communists world. The truth is that Homefront wasn't especially distinctive in that world. There's really no reason why you would need the Homefront characters or events to make another game like Homefront. The name "Homefront" is probably what they paid half a million for. They just want the name for marketing and not because they value the world that game created.

TurtlePerson2 wrote:

lilbuddhaman wrote:

Sad about Darksiders, Crytek got the Homefront IP for cheap (That story + their engine = sex), and hopefully most of the other titles won't be negatively affected.

I thought that it was cheap too when I first read it, but it kind of makes sense now that I think about it. Red Dawn, World in Conflict, Homefront, and many other games, books, and movies have all operated in the same U.S. is invaded by communists world. The truth is that Homefront wasn't especially distinctive in that world. There's really no reason why you would need the Homefront characters or events to make another game like Homefront. The name "Homefront" is probably what they paid half a million for. They just want the name for marketing and not because they value the world that game created.

Crytek has been developing Homefront 2 and its expected to be released next year. They probably didn't want to scrap all the work they've done tying the game to its predecessor.

Link

THQ also owned the Homeworld IP. There is an IndieGoGo drive to obtain the IP to make a Homeworld 3.

Vigil was apparently preparing a 4 player coop mode for Darksiders III. That could have been amazing.

I think those teamPixel folks are off their rocker - but more power to them if that can at least get 1 and 2 released on Steam. Maybe the controls for Homeworld could be translated to a touch screen but it would be tricky... As far as their dream to make HW3? Not a chance...

"Off their rocker" might be a positive trait.