Jon Rooke & Adam Roberts: Part Two

I think a lot of it is actually that the partners want to work with us. We've been doing this for so long - working with the likes of Nickelodeon, WWE, Disney Pixar... for years we were known as the Nick-Wrestling Company. That's kind of what we did.

But we are very good at working with people - we know how to create partnerships, how to get benefit for both THQ and back to the outside licensor as well. There aren't a lot of publishers out there that understand that symbiotic relationship. We do at THQ - and the reason why the likes of Dreamworks are willing to forge multi-year partnerships with us, even though we still have deal with one of their competitors in the form of Disney Pixar.

And looking across some of the others, we've got Warhammer 40,000 - which, looking into the future, that's going to be absolutely huge for us in terms of the stuff we've got coming out there. We're only just scratching the surface with the Dawn of War brand in the last four or five years - and we still sold 4 million units on that brand. Space Marine, the MMO and the other developments coming in that space... It's one of the top two or three sci-fi brands that are out there, alongside the likes of Star Wars. It's a massively engaged community as well.

But all these partnerships are also a part of the team that we have, both locally [in the UK] and globally - knowing how to integrate with the, and get the best out of the relationships. It's very different to working on your own IP, where you have complete freedom and can do what you want.

You have to be respectful - not only of the license, but also of the programmes and the way you approach that license. But there's a massive benefit from it, because those licensors are out there building the potential for you. What you then need to do is go and capitalise on that potential to go and sell the videogame.

In years gone by we've been heavily reliant on licenses, and I don't think we have that reliance any more - because licenses do go up, fluctuate and go down. Particularly theatrical licenses - once the movie is out, that's kind of it.

So we don't have that over-reliance - it's a much more balanced portfolio. We do have great IPs - but on that side we're now in the business of building franchise plans, and turn them into our brands as well as working with other people's brands as well.

We're not looking at Homefront 1, and then if it's successful we'll come back in a few years with Homefront 2. We're going into Homefront 1 knowing what's going to happen with that franchise for the next seven years.

Similarly with Red Faction, and WWE and all of our big core franchises.

We have to be careful - we're very confident about the brand, but we're not going out and saying that it's going to be bigger than Modern Warfare. We're not going to do what maybe some of competitors do, and set themselves up to fail on that stage.

We believe it's an absolutely fantastic product - it's going to be genre-competitive and actually stand out in a number of areas. But we're also very conscious that this is a new IP, and first time in a franchise.

Medal of Honor, Call of Duty... those guys have been building those brands for years. We're not going to do 15 million unit sales overnight with the first game - even if the market potential is there and we spent money on it, we just wouldn't do it. You have to take time to build fans, engage consumers, give them a reason to purchase - and then keep them with it as you go to sequel iterations.

So I wouldn't necessarily use myself the words "It's a world-beater" - because I think that conjures up the idea that we'll be the best-selling first-person shooter game next year. We won't - because there'll be another Call of Duty, which will do that.

But we'll absolutely deliver upon what THQ's goals are for the game - which is to put out that triple-A, high-Metacritic game, to engage consumers in the Homefront universe. I think that's the thing that I'm most focused on.

Because once you're in, you're engaged - once you're in that whole 'fallen America' scenario and you're part of the resistance fighting... it's very much like when you buy into Half-Life, and City 17. You get absorbed by that, and it's the same with Homefront - we want people to be a living and breathing part of that experience.

We know that once they've done that, they'll be ready for the next experience we give them afterwards.