THQ - Doing Itself In

THQ, owner of two of the greatest RTS companies ever - Relic & Big Huge Games, is on its way to being the biggest upset of 2009. Here's why:

This year, the highly anticipated Dawn of War 2 was released. They chose to reboot the series, and try to redefine the genera. That's fine, what kills is the install. First you get a warning that the game is going to install crap that has nothing to do with the game. It installs Steam, presumably as the acting DRM. Next it installs Windows Live, to keep track of your profile, achievements, etc. Why in the world do we need two of the same thing? I've submitted already to being part of one service, now I need 2? How about we go back to zero, like in DoW 1, and I save $15 in production fees.

The next blow, was the Company of Heroes 2.4 patch. Without any mention in the patch notes, they install a P2P application called Relic DL. So now your hosting files for Relic, on your already bandwidth limited ISP. Great. Forums have suggested renaming the DL.exe file to disable this crap. Wasn't bad enough the CoH:Opposing Fronts expansion made us uninstall then reinstall CoH.

Third, THQ put Big Huge Games up for sale or will close it down. So, lets get this straight. They bought the company in 2008, possess the great Rise of Nations IP ... and threaten to shut it down. Lovley.

And of course, 2009 is still young. THQ, once considered the best RTS company around, has soiled itself with poor management. Congratulations THQ, you have joined the ranks of LucasArts and Microsoft. Do us all a favor, and sell you RTS IPs to Stardock.