THQ Purchases Big Huge Games @ Gaming Target

Written by Patrick Mulhern on January 15, 2008

News: Publisher THQ has acquired Big Huge Games for their upcoming RPG and talent.

Ken Rolston will now be joining THQ in a round about way, since the publisher announced today that they have purchased Big Huge Games, the development house where the designer works. Big Huge Games announced back in February that Rolston, a 25-year industry veteran and designer of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, joined the company instead of retiring. Big Huge Games has since started a new RPG project with Rolston as Lead Designer.

After seeing the ambitious project THQ's executive vice president of worldwide studios Jack Sorensen had the following to say: "I would say that the RPG was enough but what definitely sealed the deal for us on both sides is the next one. It's more innovative, more unique, and we just felt like it requires both long-term thinking from both sides.Ф

"It showed us that this is a studio that can generate some new concepts. Anything else coming out of Big Huge is icing on the cake."

Sorensen also commented on the publisher's love of original IP and how they tackle the process of acquisitions: "From THQ's perspective, I view this acquisition as a poster child for the way we like to approach things, which is that clearly we have a strategy of being in big genres on big, original IP, but we also have a very carefully constructed philosophy in how we look at internal developments, so working with a developer for an amount of time so we can get to know each other is a big prerequisite on internal versus external, so Big Huge Games hits all our strategy points."

Big Huge Games' upcoming, untitled project is currently scheduled for release sometime in 2009 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 and details are still incredibly scarce. The developer is also responsible for such titles as Rise of Nations, Catan, Civilization II and is currently developing a title for the Nintendo Wii as well.

source: Gamasutra