THQ battling economic turmoil

Posted By: Sean Bassinger In: Gaming News On: 03 Feb

THQ, the publisher behind titles like Saints Row: The Third and the WWE franchise, has certainly seen better days in the financial world.

Since last week, multiple reports have acknowledged everything economically catastrophic within the company, ranging from mass layoffs of administrative staff to a record Q3 loss of $53 million. To put things into perspective, losses totaled $15 million at the end of 2010, a mere fraction of what they lost this past December. To make matters even worse, Nasdaq threatened to delist the company if their share prices dropped below $1 following the layoffs.

One of the largest factors in the company’s struggle is the failure of uDraw, a console peripheral marketed towards younger audiences.

“Sales of the uDraw Game Tablet and related software, and other titles in the kids, family and casual category were far weaker than anticipated, substantially reducing our financial results for the quarter,” CEO Brian Farrell told gamesindustry.biz. “We have since concluded an extensive review of our operations to realign our business, focusing on our key franchises with the most potential.”

Farrell also agreed to halve his yearly salary from $718,500 to $359,250. As it stands, the struggling publisher is currently planning Darksiders 2 (summer 2012) and UFC Undisputed 3 (Feb. 14).

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