THQ Partners' Tim Walsh
The head of the new publishing unit explains why today's business needs additional options
Last week publisher THQ announced that it was setting up a Partners business unit to offer "select" independent developers and other publishers access to its global retail and online distribution network.
To find out more about the thinking behind the move, how it will differ from the EA Partners business and why the revitalised publisher needs to offer additional deal options, we spoke to newly-installed VP of THQ Partners, Tim Walsh.
Well, I think you've nailed it - when you look at THQ, the reorganisation that's taken place has been very productive. THQ Partners fits into that organisation because I think the THQ Global Publishing Group, headed by Ian Curran, is something that I think everybody now realises is such a tremendous asset.
If you look at the market, there's only a handful of companies that have the kind of reach and quality of personnel on a global basis. So when we looked at how to maximise the output of that Group, a Partners programme made a lot of sense.
Frankly, there's going to be developers, studios, companies that aren't going to enter into the traditional publishing arrangement - and that's a market that we knew, with this Publishing Group, we could take advantage of.
I think there are a few key drivers - you mention the first one, studios wanting to keep their own IP. The business is so much more sophisticated than it has been over the past ten years or so - if you look at financing, in the movie business studio financing has been around for a long time, and you're starting to see that become more prevalent in the videogame world. So there's more access to financing for studios.
But also there are more revenue streams, so a developer can generate more income through digital sales, through online - so they're not 100 per cent reliant on retail, and that means they have the ability to find revenue on their own. Once they start to do that, and they start financing their own development and owning their own IP, it makes sense that they'd want to have a different relationship with the publisher.
I think that's exactly it - the videogames industry is now very mature, the retail model is mature, and the companies that have the global distribution like THQ does basically has a lot of experience.
To create a global publishing and distribution operation takes so many years, and so many people - and oftentimes these people are at very remote locations. So it takes trust and practice to get it right - but once you have it, you might as well look at it as premium access, and maximise your return from it.