News: Things have apparently come full circle as a number of IPs are now returning home after THQ Nordic acquires Deep Silver’s parent company, Koch Media.
THQ Nordic has revealed that they have acquired Koch Media. If you aren’t familiar with Koch Media they are the parent company of Deep Silver. Thanks to this acquisition THQ Nordic now owns gaming franchises like Homefront, Metro, Saints Row, Dead Island and more. When THQ went out of business a number of years back they had to sell off their IP. When they did that Deep Silver acquired a number of those franchises. Nordic Games also acquired some of the other franchises, such as the MX vs. ATV franchise and the Darksiders franchise. Eventually Nordic Games decided to use the THQ brand because it was well known and more people were familiar with THQ as opposed to Nordic Games. So they rebranded as THQ Nordic and now that they have acquired Deep Silver, it appears most of those franchises have returned home, so to speak. Saints Row is probably the biggest name that started with THQ and is now back in the THQ fold. Of course there are different people at this new version of THQ but it is interesting to see things go full circle like this.
With this acquisition THQ Nordic now has a combined 36 studios, some of them internal and the rest being external. They have over 1,600 employees and own 106 intellectual properties. If you combine THQ Nordic with Koch Media there are a total of 50 games that are currently in development while, reportedly, there are also 33 unannounced titles. From a personal standpoint I certainly hope one of those unannounced titles is Saints Row V but only time will tell on that one.
According to the release I saw Koch Media will continue to operate as a separate entity under the THQ Nordic label. More importantly for employees it appears likely there won’t be layoffs due to this acquisition. What do you think about this latest acquisition by THQ Nordic? I think it is pretty cool that when Darksiders 3 gets released it will be released under the THQ banner just like the original two titles. Which THQ franchise is your favorite?