If you believe (incorrectly) that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, you may be impressed that people are still talking about publisher THQ Nordic GmbH. Their ‘Ask Me Anything’ Q&A session on 8chan – an infamous image-board permanently delisted from Google for hosting suspected child porn – got people chattering. Unfortunately it’s the kind of chatter that has brought parent company THQ Nordic AB out of the woodwork to publicly apologise for the incident to “group employees, partners and consumers”, although it’s a predictably rote and half-hearted statement.
“We’re doing an 8chan AMA and we have no idea why,” announced THQ Nordic on their Twitter account earlier this evening. If you’re not aware, 8chan is an imageboard website which has been de-listed from Google search results for hosting “suspected child abuse content,” and which is associated with Swatting and Gamergate.
THQ Nordic’s marketing director has since apologised and claimed ignorance, but both are hard to believe.
Nom Nom Nom Nom. Nom Nom. Nom. That was my impression of THQ Nordic acquiring various IPs as part of it’s ongoing, unstoppable quest to presumably create some sort of bizarre Smash Bros knockoff where you can fight Sergeant Cortez from TimeSplitters as the goat from Goat Simulator. Warhorse, the team behind last year’s Kingdom Come: Deliverance, is the latest studio to say hello to the inside of THQ Nordic’s belly. Nom Nom Nom.
THQ Nordic has today acquired Warhorse Studios, the developers behind Kingdom Come: Deliverance. As well as the studio, the acquisition also includes 'all intellectual property rights.' The studio will be a subsidiary of Metro Exodus publisher Koch Media.
The news comes exactly one year after the release of the medieval open-world RPG, Kingdom Come: Deliverance and has now sold over 2 million copies across all platforms.
The game started off with a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign back in 2014, and while there were a number of bugs and glitches to iron out at launch, the overall realism and attention to detail did prompt a positive reception. You can read what Andy made of it in our review here.
Of course, THQ Nordic is no stranger to acquisitions; just last month they obtained the rights to the action-adventure game Outcast and last year saw them grab Carmageddon as well as a number of other games and studios.
Here's what says Lars Wingefors, CEO of THQ Nordic AB, had to say about all of this. "Warhorse Studios is one of the leading independent studios in Europe and I am proud to welcome them to the THQ Nordic group. Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which has now sold over 2 million copies, has been a great success since the release exactly one year ago. I look forward to continuing to witness the owners run the studio and drive the creative process for many years."
We'd love to see what else is on THQ Nordic's shopping list.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance developer Warhorse Studios is the latest to be snapped up by publisher THQ Nordic, in a deal worth €33.2m (about 29m).
As part of the announcement, Warhorse noted it had now sold 2m copies of its medieval role-playing game.
Over the past year, THQ Nordic has continually made headlines for its acquisitions, including Saints Row and Dead Island owner Koch Media, Wreckfest studio Bugbear and Goat Sim developer Coffee Stain.