14 DAY TRIAL // Video game publisher THQ might not have the same profile as the big players in the industry, Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard, but its leader believes that the company has the potential to be one of the leaders of the market.
Brian Farell, who is the chief executive officer of THQ, has talked to Industry Gamers about his company and said, “We certainly think of ourselves as one of the big ones. We had the top selling game in March with Homefront.”
He says that the recent launch of Homefront, which came out during the so-called “Second Christmas” March launch window, has been up against other high-profile games in the same genre, like Crysis 2 from Crytek, with Electronic Arts handling publishing.
Homefront was not well received critically but has managed to do well at retail.
Farell added, “So our goal is to have great products, pick our spots, where we can compete and win. We talked about how we’re going to do that with Saints Row: The Third later this year. So it’s picking your spots, having great games from great creators, and it’s not about numbers of products – it’s about bringing great products to market, marketing them as we did with Homefront and as we intend to do with the rest of these games. So when we can compete, we win.”
At the moment THQ is far less capitalized than EA and Activision Blizzard, but the CEO believes that by focusing on quality in its video games rather than on quantity it will manage to catch up with them in the near term.
In the coming year THQ will publish a string of high profile titles, like Saints Row: The Third, inSane, Darksiders 2, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marines, Devil's Third, Metro: Last Light and the usual new games in the long-running UFC and WWE series.