With THQ being imploded....now what?

[Kamshaft]

With the auction going on this week and many employees loosing their jobs.  I'm just curious what will happen with the whole MX franchise that they own.  Reflex may, be dropped from Steam or go on sale.  Who knows.  Any thoughts?

[JamieT (A)]

Wow... so its finally happened then.  I'd been reading before the new year that THQ were in a bad way...  I haven't read any of the recent news, but whoever takes control of THQ's assets will most likely continue to allow digital sales of any games as it will still generate revenue for the new owners.

As for the MX ATV franchise, this can only mean good news, as it gives another publisher the chance to purchase the IP dirt cheap, and start to develop new games under the MX ATV name.  It's a massive long shot as the franchise, along with other MX Games don't exactly light up the sales charts...

It would be interesting to know how much the MX vs ATV IP is worth, and what you would get for your money... I'd assume that you'd have access to all the work that was done by the guys at Rainbow, such as the most advanced/developed game engine for any MX title to date   As the franchise was completely dropped, and probably written off financially by THQ, I'd be really curious to see how much THQ would want for the MX ATV franchise... Maybe I should pose as an eccentric millionaire and make inquiries :d haha

By the way, great to see you drop in at Twisted Dirt, Kamshaft... MCM Legend right there!

[al167]

i agree jamie, whatabout maybe a partnership in buying the rights to mx vs atv (laurie and bruce also?).... but it may be worth more than you think though. but jamie id really like to see what deal you could cut with thq and im not joking either!!!!!!
it would be good to know what the franchise is worth.
acording to this site, http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=alive
they sold 750, 000 copies of alive on ps3 and xbox360 world wide. (including 1 to me)
thats more than sales than i thought....but if you put this into pespective there where 775 000 tickets sold to ama supercross events in 2011 for all 17 rounds.
so if even half the people  had a copy.... you get the drift

[JamieT (A)]

Hehe "Twisted Dirt Studios - the new owners of the MX vs ATV franchise!"  lol

Even if THQ valued the franchise at $1 per copy sold of 'Alive', it still makes it an expensive and unrealistic purchase for any independent entity.  If I win the National Lottery tonight we'll be in business Got a 1 in 14 million chance but I feel lucky.

I've been reading some articles about the THQ Auction, and so far they've raised $72 million from selling their studios and IPs.  Although, a studio called 'Vigil' who developed the supposedly popular Darksiders series, was not sold at the auction.  There is little, to no mention of what happened to the MX vs ATV property, other than a statement which read, "The remaining franchises will be sold in a separate auction in a few weeks."  I can only assume that no one had any interest in the MX ATV franchise, or the starting bid was valued higher than anyone was willing to pay.

I think the franchise would only be worth something if all the technologies that were developed with Reflex & Alive were included in the deal.  The name alone holds very little value in my opinion, the real asset is the game engine.  I'm not sure where to start with making inquiries about the value of the franchise, but it pretty unrealistic to expect an affordable price for the franchise.  I'm thinking that a law firm dealing with THQ would be a good place to start.

If it ends up being pretty cheap, a Kickstarter campaign could provide some funds.  There's a game called Broken Sword which generated $771,000 from 14,000 pledges to help develop a new game in the series... http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/165500047/broken-sword-the-serpents-curse-adventure?ref=live  I'm sure media sites like Racer X, Transworld, Brotocross would give some much needed coverage for a campaign...   Twisted Dirt is a long standing community site within MX gaming, and I'm sure it would give some credibility to a campaign.  I'm certainly dreaming here with these ideas, but my philosophy is, if you don't ask, you don't get.

[JamieT (A)]

With a little bit of digging I found the company that seems to be dealing with the sale of THQ's assets.  I found this link on the THQ site in the Investor Relations section.
http://www.kccllc.net/thq

There is plenty to read on there and I haven't looked through everything yet, but what I find interesting is that THQ Digital Studios Phoenix, Inc. is listed under debtors.  I thought that THQ already closed down this studio when they ended the MX vs ATV franchise... Perhaps not?..

This would suggest that any desires to accquire the assets of the actual game engine would probably mean purchasing the studio? As they were the ones who developed it...I'm not really sure how it would work.  I haven't found any information about MX vs ATV yet, as there's pages and pages of legal documentation to look through, but I'll post something if I find it.

[Fixer]

I would be interested in 'investing' in this if the conditions were right....also interested in hearing from Bruce,Laurie,Jeff,Pete,Randall...?

[JamieT (A)]

I sent an email out to Rivian Bell & Sydney Isaacs, which were the two email contacts for media inquiries, on the link I posted yesterday.  They might be the wrong people to ask, but I wasn't willing to make an international phone call to speak with someone at THQ Investor Relations.  I just asked for any information or contact details regarding a potential sale of the MX vs ATV assets.

Although after reading some more news articles last night, it seems that MX vs ATV will be up for auction in the coming weeks along with the rest of THQ's back catalogue, in what's dubbed as a 'Legacy Auction'.  If there are no developers interested in the franchise, I expect that it will be snapped up by some publisher that will just enable the games to continue selling through distribution channels, then pocket whatever they earn from future sales.  2XL are probably a great candidate to continue some kind of development in the series, as a lot of the guys there are ex-Rainbow staff.

I just hope that the game engine and source code etc. for Reflex & Alive aren't lost in this whole affair.  Those are the biggest assets for this franchise and it would be a shame to see them disappear.  I think it would be great if we - the community managed to purchase those assets.  I think now would be the best time to make inquiries about it, because as soon as a big publisher gains the rights to the source code, they will certainly be asking for more money than what they paid for it.

I mentioned the Kickstarter campaign site in an earlier post, but I'm not sure whether it's appropriate to set up a campaign, asking for funds to simply purchase the assets of a franchise.  Kickstarter campaigns are geared towards funding an actual propject, so without any plans to use the source code or MX ATV name in a future application, I don't think we'd have a right to set up a campaign.

As Fixer said, it would be interesting to hear what you guys (Bruce, Laurie, etc.) think about this idea.  At the moment it's just a dream of course, but if it starts to get serious, then it's probably a good idea to move this discussion to a more private section...

Oh... and I didn't win the lottery last night either...

[mototank]

any news on mx vs atv like who bought it and what are they going to do with the franchise?

[JamieT (A)]

The details of the next auction were released a few days ago. It'll be be another month before we know what happens.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/2/27/4035056/mx-vs-atv-franchise-developers-express-interest-in-the-series-future

[T-USA Old Racer (A)]

Hi Guys, I found a a site called XLink Kai that claims to support reflex multiplayer on the Xbox.  I'm PC only so I can't verify this and was wondering if anyone here could.  Here's the site: http://www.teamxlink.co.uk/?go=games .  If this works I guess I'll be in the market for an Xbox unless somebody buys the franchise and sets up servers...SOON!

[JamieT (A)]

Here's the news in case anyone hasn't seen it yet...
http://www.kccllc.net/documents/1213398/1213398130422000000000021.pdf

MX vs ATV has been sold to a Swedish company based out of Vienna, called Nordic Games.  It'll be interesting to see what follows in the coming weeks.

Here is their website,
http://www.nordicgames.at/index.php/

They're encouraging discussion of their newly aquired titles, and how to move them forward, in their forums.

[al167]

thanks for that update and link JT, it apears that may 13 is the date that they will most likely aquire it.

"Nordic Games and THQ expect the US Bankruptcy Court to hear the motion for the sale on May 13, 2013 and to finalize the purchase transactions thereafter."

[mcm2boys]

You do a great job of keeping up with this stuff.. wonder if we can expect the Steam servers to come up again once it all goes through..

[JamieT (A)]

Hehe thanks I've been searching every day for the past week for any news on THQ.

I've posted on their forums, and made them aware of Twisted Dirt, and what I think about user-made content.  Apparently, MX vs ATV is the one franchise they're having trouble with understanding what happened with regards to servers, and DLC stores being recently shut down.  I'm sure they will try to get things up and running shortly.

The next few weeks will be exciting times I rekon!

[mcm2boys]

I was just starting to think about  trying to find the PS3 LAN mode screens and adding them to the PC version, maybe I'll hold off for a while.. Sounds like there is room for hope.

[JamieT (A)]

Yeah I certainly think so!  It's in their best interest to keep the servers up and running in my opinion, otherwise it would hurt their chances of any future sales of Reflex or Alive.  There might not be much potential for future sales, but anything is better than nothing.

They're also showing interest, and asking about the DLC that was planned for Alive before everything went to pot.  So it looks promising.   Although, until they get the full data from THQ, there is only hope with regards to that.

[DirtTwister]

This is one thing i hate about closed "cloud" systems.  The new game consoles seem to be ratcheting up this scheme to the point of eliminating used games.  I don't believe I'll be able to support them.

When THQ shut down Rainbow they should have at least made some effort in making user hosted serving available.  Even if it was only releasing some documentation.