For Big Huge Games, it?s a big, huge day.
The Timonium-based video game development studio, creator of popular strategy title “Rise of Nations,” is set to be acquired by THQ, one of the industry?s leading game developers and publishers.
“We?re totally stoked about it,” Tim Train, president and COO of Big Huge Games, said Monday. “In the gaming industry, you run into great and not-so-great publishers. At every level, THQ has people who get what it takes to make a great game.”
Under the terms of the deal, Big Huge Games will become a subsidiary of THQ, but the studio?s 100 employees will continue to work out of Big Huge Games? local office. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Big Huge Games already has a relationship with THQ, as the studio is developing a yet-to-be-named role-playing title for THQ for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and the PC.
“We?ve been working with them for about a year, and we?ve known them on their reputation for quite a while,” said Jack Sorensen, executive vice president of worldwide studios for California-based THQ. “The kind of role-playing game that Big Huge Games is developing has been a hole for us.”
In the first two quarters of fiscal 2008, THQ reported net sales of almost $334 million.
Train and three other game developers, Brian Reynolds, Jason Coleman and Dave Inscore, founded Big Huge Games in 2000 after working for Firaxis Games, another well-known game studio based in Baltimore County.
The studio thinks big and designs big, as its name states, Train said. “It?s a little bit self-promoting, but it?s also a challenge to live up to our name.”
With the agreement, Train and his team know they have a publisher in place for future projects. Sorensen said most of the creativity will come from Big Huge Games, though there will be ongoing discussion about game development between THQ and Big Huge Games.
“It takes a lot of time to put a pitch together for publishers,” Train said. “This definitely allows us to focus more on the creative side of things.”
Video game sales
U.S. video game sales totaled an estimated $15.8 billion in 2007, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. Sales in 2008 are expected to increase about 13 percent to about $17.9 billion.
