South Park: The Stick of Truth Message Board older than one year ago

The creators of South Park stop by our booth at E3 to discuss their upcoming video game based on the popular cartoon.

All you need to know to learn the art of fending off enemies with a deadly move called the Nagasaki.

Goodnight, sweet publisher.

THQ is no more.

The publisher, which found itself on the wrong end of a bankruptcy-induced auction yesterday, will dissolve as soon as its bankruptcy hearing and subsequent sales transitions are completed. Confirmation of this news comes in the form of a letter sent to THQ employees today, which was obtained by Kotaku. According to the letter:

• Ubisoft has purchased the rights to THQ's Montreal Studio, and South Park: The Stick of Truth. There is no immediate word on how this purchase will be affected by South Park Studios' lawsuit to prevent their property from being included in this sale. Also of note is the fact that Patrice Desilets, the former Assassin's Creed creative director who left Ubisoft to pursue new opportunities at THQ, is now back with his former publisher for at least the moment.
• Koch Media, the parent company of Dead Island publisher Deep Silver, has purchased Volition Inc. and the Saints Row brand, as well as the Metro franchise.
• Sega will be taking control of Company of Heroes developer Relic Entertainment.
• Crytek has purchased the rights to the Homefront franchise for some reason.
• Take-Two Interactive takes over Turtle Rock Studios' Evolve.

That leaves a few properties and studios unaccounted for, most notably Darksiders developers Vigil Games, as well as the company's long-held WWE license. The letter outlines that THQ will be making every effort to find buyers for the remaining properties. However, outside of a skeleton crew remaining to help with the transition, THQ's primary staff is apparently being laid off.

We'll update this story as more information becomes available.

Update: DDInvesting, who has been covering the THQ hearings with great regularity, has posted the prices apparently paid for the individual properties. They are as follows:

• $500k Homefront (Crytek)
• $26M for Relic (Sega)
• $2.5M for THQ Montreal (Ubisoft)
• $3.2M for South Park (Ubisoft)
• $11M for Evolve (Take-Two)
• $22.3M for Volition (Koch Media)
• $5.8M for Metro (Koch Media)

Goodnight, sweet publisher.

THQ is no more.

The publisher, which found itself on the wrong end of a bankruptcy-induced auction yesterday, will dissolve as soon as its bankruptcy hearing and subsequent sales transitions are completed. Confirmation of this news comes in the form of a letter sent to THQ employees today, which was obtained by Kotaku. According to the letter:

• Ubisoft has purchased the rights to THQ's Montreal Studio, and South Park: The Stick of Truth. There is no immediate word on how this purchase will be affected by South Park Studios' lawsuit to prevent their property from being included in this sale. Also of note is the fact that Patrice Desilets, the former Assassin's Creed creative director who left Ubisoft to pursue new opportunities at THQ, is now back with his former publisher for at least the moment.
• Koch Media, the parent company of Dead Island publisher Deep Silver, has purchased Volition Inc. and the Saints Row brand, as well as the Metro franchise.
• Sega will be taking control of Company of Heroes developer Relic Entertainment.
• Crytek has purchased the rights to the Homefront franchise for some reason.
• Take-Two Interactive takes over Turtle Rock Studios' Evolve.

That leaves a few properties and studios unaccounted for, most notably Darksiders developers Vigil Games, as well as the company's long-held WWE license. The letter outlines that THQ will be making every effort to find buyers for the remaining properties. However, outside of a skeleton crew remaining to help with the transition, THQ's primary staff is apparently being laid off.

We'll update this story as more information becomes available.

Update: DDInvesting, who has been covering the THQ hearings with great regularity, has posted the prices apparently paid for the individual properties. They are as follows:

• $500k Homefront (Crytek)
• $26M for Relic (Sega)
• $2.5M for THQ Montreal (Ubisoft)
• $3.2M for South Park (Ubisoft)
• $11M for Evolve (Take-Two)
• $22.3M for Volition (Koch Media)
• $5.8M for Metro (Koch Media)

Update 2: Both Ubisoft and Koch Media have sent out press releases confirming the purchases. Koch provided few concrete details, except to say that its publishing arm Deep Silver would be at the head for continued development in the Metro and Saints Row franchises, and that more details on each franchise would be coming in the next few months. As for Ubisoft, its press release simply confirms the aforementioned purchases, but does at least note that South Park: The Stick of Truth is still scheduled for release this year.

Elsewhere, IGN is reporting that Take-Two Interactive has stepped up to take control of the WWE game license. We've sent a confirmation request to Take-Two's representatives and will update with a response if we receive one.

THQ's transformation from a licensed-driven company in the last 10 years has not been easy.

It’s rough waters for two notable video game publishers in early 2013. Both THQ and Atari are entering bankruptcy, and it’s unclear how the two companies will emerge on the other side of it.

Atari is the latest development. Over the weekend, it was revealed the US branch of Atari filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy for a very specific purpose: detach itself from its parent company, Atari S.A.

This is part of an effort to transition Atari’s US branch from traditional retail company to full-fledged digital publishing, but the company will do without some of its most celebrated franchises. As part of chapter 11, in the next 90-to-120 days, Atari will sell the rights to Asteroids, Backyard Sports, Battlezone, Centipede, Missile Command, Pong, Tempest, and Test Drive.

There are updates on THQ, as well.

THQ’s big asset auction is due to take place today, but it’s unlikely we will have any real-time updates on what franchises, developers, and other material goes to the highest bidder.

However, one game, South Park: The Stick of Truth, may not be part of that lineup. South Park Studios has filed a complaint alleging the contract between the company and THQ stipulates a new owner cannot be found without the explicit approval of South Park Studios.

There’s more, too. South Park Studios believes it has the right to buy the rights to the game back for the amount of money THQ put into it, which would allow South Park Studios to find a new publisher on its own, rather than participate in the bankruptcy process. It also claims THQ owes South Park Studios money.

THQ said it hoped to resolve differences prior to the auction, but that it doesn’t owe any money, and elements of the deal between THQ and South Park Studios could be auctioned off. It’s unclear which rights THQ is referring to.

#kotakulongreads Feargus Urquhart was freaking out. More »

Just gonna go ahead and put my vote in now for a DLC side adventure starring the goth kids.

We finally get to see the South Park RPG in action. And it's PACKED with references to the show.

Underpants Gnomes, Crab People, Sparkythey're all in this RPG.

Ah, South Park. When it’s got a good head of steam going, it’s marvelously spot-on, but when it steps over the line, it ends up miles off the mark. So naturally, I’m approaching South Park: The Stick of Truth with some trepidation, because it looks exactly like an episode of the show. Granted, with Obsidian at the wheel and years’ worth of development time to make sure every joke lands just so, this one certainly has a far better chance of being consistently strong than an average drop in the series’ ridiculously large bucket. But yes, new footage! There’s cursing and Kenny jokes and Cartman being Cartman and all that good stuff. Go watch.

(more…)

Spare the stick, get spoiled with the kids of South Park's latest trailer. We've also whipped up the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 trailer from tonight VGA awards.

Update: Sadly, these trailer's have been pulled. We'll update this post (and the rest of our VGA 2012 posts with video) as soon as it's back up.

Spare the stick, get spoiled with the kids of South Park's latest trailer. We've also whipped up the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 trailer from tonight VGA awards.

Update: Sadly, these trailer's have been pulled. We'll update this post (and the rest of our VGA 2012 posts with video) as soon as it's back up.

Spare the stick, get spoiled with the kids of South Park's latest trailer. We've also whipped up the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 trailer from tonight VGA awards.

THQ said it's delaying its upcoming slate to focus on polish required to remaining competitive.

THQ’s fiscal 2013 second quarter call today was not filled with much joy, and the company was quick to end it.

Firstly, South Park: The Stick of Truth was scheduled for March 5, 2013, but it’s now scheduled for “early fiscal 2014,” which means sometime after March 31, 2013. Company of Heroes 2 and Metro: Last Light are now both scheduled for vague releases in March, though presumably before the fiscal year is up on March 31.

Darksiders II was released to a decent amount of fanfare in August, but it hasn’t translated into stellar sales, with THQ characterizing the sequel as having underperformed.

The company also refused to issue any financial guidance for the future, and cancelled the traditional Q&A session with analysts and investors at the end of the call. THQ basically hung up the phone, but alluded to the publisher continuing to have money flow problems as it continues its painful transition.

It doesn’t seem like things are going to get any easier at THQ anytime soon.

Obsidian Entertainment has proven through its Project Eternity Kickstarter that it can afford to make original IPs. However, just because the company doesn't necessarily have to work in existing franchises doesn't mean the team will stop doing so.

"Working with franchises can be challenging, but at the same time I really did enjoy working on Star Wars, for example, and I have done a lot of Dungeons & Dragons games, but I still enjoy it very much," Obsidian creative director Chris Avellone told me. "And there's plenty of franchises out there that we would love to work with still."

Developing games in pre-existing universes can be rewarding for Obsidian, Avellone suggested. South Park: The Stick of Truth, which is as far from Obsidian's comfort zone as anything would be, illustrates the benefits.
"The fact that you're implementing game system mechanics that cater to the South Park franchise, in the sense of rude and obnoxious different weapon types," Avellone explained, "we rarely get a chance to flex our design skills in those directions, and it's a lot of fun to do. We're actually learning a lot while we're doing it. That's another advantage of working on someone else's franchise. You sort of get inside their head for a sense of how they think, and how that stuff can be converted into game mechanics."

Obsidian was dropped into South Park with a surprisingly clear vision of what to do, as a concept had already been proposed. "We didn't actually know what they were thinking about in terms of RPGs, so we went up there for one day, they ran us this animatic sequence of how they imagined the opening of the game playing," and Obsidian "got it" immediately. "It was hilarious, and we got it, we see what you're trying to make here. It's going to feel like the show, it's going to look like the show. Here's how you interpret the controller mechanisms."

What wasn't as clear from the outset was whether the Stick of Truth offer was true. "I would never have thought we'd get a chance to do an RPG like that, and like holy crap," Avellone said. "When we first heard about it, I seriously thought some other game company was punking us. 'Ha ha ha, we're from South Park and we want to do an RPG!... ha ha, fake.'"

#southpark We here at Kotaku are pretty darned excited about the upcoming South Park RPG South Park: The Stick of Justice. More »

IGN's resident South Park superfans break down the E3 gameplay trailer.

#thq Oh, THQ. Is there any more embattled video game company that you right now? Its financial woes have led some to believe that the company may not be exist in the near future. But new president Jason Rubin isn't one of them. The Naughty Dog co-founder gave an interview to Games Industry International that gives a glimpse of what he feels the company should focus on and what THQ will be avoiding in the near future. More »

Trey Parker and Matt Stone discuss the difficulties of writing the RPG-based South Park: The Stick of Truth.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone take the E3 stage to talk about their new RPG, South Park: The Stick of Truth.

The new kid has a power yet to be understood in South Park: The Stick of Truth.