Struggling publisher claims PC model is good for gamers

THQ President, Jason Rubin, claims that the future of video game distribution will follow the PC model of digital sales as the industry broadens up from the traditional model. Not making too much sense? read on…

THQ has had plenty of problems on the financial front, as the company has had to let a significant percentage of its workforce go as well as split its shares. The former was more to cut costs while the latter was to ensure it was not delisted off the New York Stock Exchange.

During this time the publisher also lost the rights to the Ultimate Fighting Championship, which rival publisher, Electronic Arts, snapped up.

At the same time a number of top THQ executives also resigned and moved on but the publisher remains in business thanks largely to the ‘better than anyone expected’ sales of one of their IPs, Saints Row: The Third.

The studio also scrapped the DLC for the game in favour of developing of a new entry in the series. In the meantime THQ is relying heavily on their upcoming title WWE ’13 to keep the company afloat and have even announced a Special Edition for the game in the hope of milking every last penny out of the diehard fans of the series.

However, they still have plenty of pedigree in the industry and if there are lessons to be learnt from any studio’s experiences, it is THQ and the president of the company, Jason Rubin, was on hand to comment on the future of how video games would be developed and distributed.

Rubin began by stating that gamers have the power to decide how the industry would evolve and what trends would stay on and which would die off. He said, “At the end of the day, the gamer will determine what succeeds and fails because they’re the ones with the dollars in the pocket.”

He also believes that gamers had the power to potentially change how games were developed and what price points they could be released on. He said, “I don’t think gamers realize how good opening up the rules so that game developers can distribute and price as they want and do whatever they want is.”

Rubin went on to predict the end of the full retail priced games and believed that the PC model of distributing games would soon make its way on to other consoles as well.

“As time progresses, the entire industry will move closer to what we see in the PC model emerging now, which is a lot of different-sized games and different types of games that all get a place in the sun because you can buy things that aren’t $60 boxed goods.”