THQ confirms new round of lay-offs

By Fred Dutton Published 26 January, 2012

Insists its five internal studios are unaffected.

Publisher THQ has confirmed a fresh batch of redundancies.

The news follows a statement from the publisher earlier this week explaining that it was re-focussing its business away from licensed kids' IP. The job losses apparently reflect that shift.

"THQ confirms a reduction in force to the company's administration and publishing organisation," read a statement handed to Game Informer.

"As recently announced, the company is exiting the kids' licensed games category, and is focusing on its core game franchises and developing its digital initiatives.

"The streamlined organisation reflects the company's new strategy. THQ's five internal studios were not affected by this action."

It didn't offer a firm number for how many people are out of a job.

It's the second round of lay-offs at the publisher in as many months, with a number of staff on the uDraw team handed their P45s in December.

A report earlier this month, which THQ denied, suggested the publisher had cancelled its release slate for 2014 and beyond in preparation for a sell-off.

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About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (5) Latest comment 3 weeks ago

  • Shotofen #1 4 weeks ago

    This is not boding well for THQ. I don't buy their games (little interest in them really) but if they go down...well, less competition and purchasing options are not good for us consumers. Best of luck to those affected by the lay-offs.

  • dsmx #2 4 weeks ago

    What are you talking about shotofen? It's good for THQ after years of them shoveling substandard games that nobody had enough interest in to justify the cost of making them THQ are refocusing it's efforts on games people will actually buy.

    Or I'll put it another way, there's a much bigger market out there for company of heros 2 rather than udraw 2.

  • killuminati2911 #3 4 weeks ago

    I hope that this is just to focus on more productive and core games as they mentioned in the past days. I love their games, got lot's of em on my pc/xbox/ps3.
    They got powerfull brands and IP, if they stop screwing things up as they did with Udraw they still got time to regain their status, as one of the best publishers on the market.

  • ToAks #4 4 weeks ago

    uDraw... never seen that in a shop here,not even the games that support it....

  • SeesThroughAll #5 3 weeks ago

    re-focussing its business away from licensed kids' IP
    So, when can we expect that Company of Heroes modern warfare spin-off we've been waiting for, heh?