THQ is joining forces with Random House Publishing to create new IPs and expand existing videogame franchises with “world bibles.”
THQ and Random House Publishing (one of the largest English language publishers in the world) have announced that they’re joining forces to work on bringing new intellectual properties to several forms of media, including both books and videogames. The deal isn’t really all that surprising, seeing as how the two groups have worked together in the past, but now it sounds like they’ll be stuck with each other for quite some time.
At first glance, it sounds like the deal is based around expanding the shelf life of IPs by porting them to new markets, much like Random House did for the Homefront brand with the recently-released prequel novel, Homefront: The Voice of Freedom. However, the release cites how THQ plans to use Random House to create “world bibles” for its upcoming properties:
In addition, THQ plans to increase Random House’s involvement in the creation of world bibles for prospective THQ properties through the Random House Publishing Group’s IP creation and development group, Random House Worlds.
What will be interesting to see is what universes the companies plan to expand. I’d imagine that Homefront will probably receive more franchise expansions, as well as Darksiders (a sequel is due out in 2013, and the universe is ripe for storytelling expansions), and the Warhammer 40,000 games … Though that last series will undoubtedly feature Games Workshop’s involvement, too. What other games do you think Random House might help THQ expand?
Source: THQ
