Nordic Games Acquired THQ Trademark, Will Publish Games Under THQ Name
THQ is making somewhat of a return now that Nordic Games has acquired its trademark and intends to publish games under its name.
Polygon reports that the Austria-based publisher, Nordic Games, has acquired the right to publish titles with the THQ branding. Nordic Games is a small-time publishing company whose core library includes products and series that it acquired from JoWooD Entertainment, DreamCatcher Interactive and THQ. In 2013, Nordic purchased the rights to many IPs that THQ owned. THQ went bankrupt in December of 2012.
Nordic Games' general manager Klemens Kruezer claims that his company recently closed a separate deal for the right to use the THQ name.
"It was kind of surprise to some industry veterans and players that we were the winner of the auction of the THQ titles," Kruezer said. "The challenging fact is nobody has ever heard about Nordic Games before [the THQ auction]. There were so many articles with the headlines ‘Who the f--- is Nordic Games?’ We said, okay they were right.
"We have seen an uplift in the name of Nordic Games, and what we have also done is we have made a second deal with THQ where we bought the THQ trademark."
Kruezer notes that some of its THQ-acquired IPs have some drastically high expectations. Unfortunately, many fans have been vocal about asking what Nordic intends to do with some of their favorite THQ IPs.
"The expectations from outside regarding the IPs of THQ are really high." Kruezer said. "We see it everyday on our Facebook sites. If we post something new to a project the first comments are, ‘Oh, nice. But what about Darksiders 3?’"