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In light of THQ’s losses last year, they’re looking at expanding revenue streams, and finding new ways to prevent piracy.

Here’s another Gamasutra article covering the news.

The first of these was to prepare a more competitive slate of titles, as outlined in its financial results. The second was to bring in new management talent to product development, along with a four stage greenlight process that would not let games through until they met key competitive technological and gameplay feature benchmarks.

Finally, new CFO Colin Slade explained that THQ would be realigning its cost structure along four key elements, notably a company wide plan to reduce infrastructure.

In addition, Slade promised the company would be realigning its resources toward more strategic franchises, instituting a new company-wide operating budget, and making sure its product development and marketing dollars were focused more efficiently on its most competitive titles.

also

Finally, Farrell was optimistic about its first foray into new revenue streams with the upcoming Asian launch of Company Of Heroes Online (pictured), a co-production of its Relic studio and China’s Shanda, which will be free to play but feature paid microtransaction downloads. Farrell wouldn’t say whether the game would be launched in the West any time soon, but said that THQ did “have those rights” and was investigating potential markets, and added that the company was looking into future products of that nature as well.

Fascinating things ahead for Relic! I hope they bring CoHO to North America!

So, three big changes for THQ - 1) a more competitive slate of titles 2) bring in new management talent to product development along with a four stage greenlight process that would not let games through until they met key competitive technological and gameplay feature benchmarks and 3) realigning its cost structure along four key elements, notably a company wide plan to reduce infrastructure.

I suspect Relic, being mentioned in this, has been feeling some of the changes already.

Looks like it’s a bit of a sad day (and several days after the fact). Relic’s first community manager, Allie “Buggo” Henze is no longer at Relic. Allie was Relic’s first “version” of a community manager. I think I can speak for all the fans when I say that we appreciate everything Allie did for the community and for us fans.

To the members of the Relic community, we have to tell you that Buggo is currently pursuing other opportunities. This has led to some speculation that Relic will no longer be supporting our loyal fans - nothing could be further from the truth. Soon we will be introducing you to new members of Relic who will carry forth the commitment we have to our fans. We are expanding our community support greatly over the coming months; better support for our modders, frequent updates about what’s going on in the studio, expanding our numbers, contests, content, and more.

And for those wondering, we are still hosting our upcoming community open house - you don’t want to miss it because you’ll be treated to some sneak previews of our work.

Thank you for your continued support!

Relic Entertainment

Official post here.

Buggo does still have an account on the forums, and hopefully will be able to pop in and say hi (I’d not expect her to be able to comment on Relic and all the cool stuff she worked on). The forum staff helped Relic out by modifying her account to be named “Relic” and then created a new account for Buggo. Any posts on the “Relic” account before April 24th were made by Allie, and anything after were from another Relic rep. I expect to hear more soon from Relic about their intentions, but it’s been made very clear to me that they’re not going to go without a community manager type position again. Also, as far as I know, the Relic Open House is still on, and judging on the biggest fan contest starts today at noon pacific.

Allie, you set the bar pretty high for any future community folks at Relic. I hope whoever gets the position next can meet the community’s expectations. Good luck in the future and we’ll see you around!

Relic’s biggest fan contest 2008 is accepting submissions until Friday.

Last year, Goldo_0 won with this entry (100 MB download). Not only did he get a free trip to Vancouver, he got a job at Relic!

Get your submissions in, and good luck to whoever wins!

A new video has showed up on Youtube last evening. I’ll say that it’s pretty darn impressive watching big angry giant robots slug it out against the horde of orcs.

Rickrolled

edit: 11/6/07, Elukka on IRC pointed out a link on Ars Technica where a THQ official confirms this. Check it out here!

A look at the US Patent Office reveals that Homeworld IP was transferred from Sierra to THQ a while ago. There was a change of attorneys as shown on the documents list found here . Click on “TEAS Revoke Appointed Attorney” to look the document.

A thread can be found here regarding this news.

Certainly a long time coming. Though it was unofficially hinted, we’re glad to see THQ officially acknowledges this.

It’s my duty as a Homeworld fan to send these three videos your way…

Video 1 - latest trailer.
Video 2 - shorter trailer.
Video 3 - Russian Trailer, much longer, shows lots of gameplay.

Looks to be a space type shooter, customizable fighters, PC only title that’s due out in September. Anyone know more about it?

It seems the environments, music and overall game style is very much inspired by Homeworld. Very cool!

Update: There’s a Demo here! (It’s entirely Russian though). Thanks to Delphy for the heads up.

Update from Elorran (a moderator on the Sierra forums). The Homeworld and Cataclysm WON servers are down and techs are working on them. No ETA on their return.

Edit 8/26/2007 - Looks like they’re back up!

There’s a thread running on the forums about people’s recollections of the Relic Open House. If you haven’t already, pop in and have a read. If you visited Relic for the open house, and haven’t posted your impressions yet, go for it!

Relic didn’t announce any new games, expansions or anything like that, but we did get to find out they have several teams working on various projects. Watch here for an article (once approved - NDA issues), about my recollections for the weekend.

Relic’s resident giant and General Manager, Ron Moravek, has been interviewed by Gamesindustry.biz.

Here’s a nice meaty quote to snag your interest (there’s a couple of these in there).

You mentioned World of Warcraft previously, which as you said has been hugely successful - is that an area you’re interested in? Could we see an MMO coming out of Relic?


I can’t really see us doing an MMO. What I can see us doing, and this comes back to what you were asking earlier - with Company of Heroes we’re launching Relic Online. And one of the things we want to do with Relic Online is bring a Dawn of War persistent campaign.


So it’s not what you’d traditionally see with an MMORPG, but we might bring a real time strategy game and do that in a massively multiplayer persistent campaign. It’s delivering a massively multiplayer experience, but maybe not in the same genre. So yes, I think there are opportunities there, but there are huge challenges with making an MMO.

A persistent campaign for Dawn of War! WOW! But read the article, there’s a bunch of other great tidbits in there.

Thanks to Pyros at Planet Company of Heroes for the heads up.

The Demo of Sword of the Stars is coming on July 25th.

In 2145 Human scientists discover the Node drive, an incredible technology allowing travel between star systems at the speed of light. But as mankind sits poised on the brink of a new era, tragedy strikes: the first interstellar colony is destroyed and Earth itself is ravaged by a mysterious alien race.

So begins a quest to colonize and conquer the stars in the classic 4X style of interstellar empire building. Explore mysterious new star systems, claim planets, exploit their resources, then design and build your own star ships to exterminate your enemies in 3D tactical battles.

More info here.