ChaplainOrion said:
Since Thq is now getting sued by Adidas, they're going further down the path to going under, sure they could get out of it, but this is about if they don't. If we were to go do a worst case scenario what would happen to Dawn of War, the upcoming DMO, and Space Marine 2 (I've heard rumors about it in development)? What would happen if Relic ends up in the hands of an evil publisher like [insert least favorite here]?
I'd imagine Warhammer 40k would return to Games Workshop, and the big question at that point would be if anyone else wanted to buy the rights to the liscence to develop games, or if Games Workshop wanted to get into some kind of more direct liscencing deal themselves.
Given that the Warhammer 40k video games have been generally successful, I'd imagine the liscence wouldn't remain in limbo for too long. What would happen to it under the more evil publishers would largely depend on which of their developers were working on it. Truthfully with all the DLC attached to the last few Warhammer 40k games, I have my doubts that we'd notice much of a differance with an official "evil publisher" like EA or Activision at the helm.
To be entirely honest, I'm not sure that a change of publisher/developer would be entirely bad, I felt "Dawn Of War II: Retribution" was lacking, with all of the differant factions sharing the same basic maps and scenarios and having to do the same gimmick fights with only slight variation. I think the series kind of ceased to progress after "Soulstorm" to be honest.
Having read things like the "Eisenhorn" and "Ravenor" series I think there is a lot of potential for the franchise as an actual RPG if someone wanted to go in that direction. I've also wondered what a company like Bethesda could do with a Warhammer 40k themed open sandbox Action/RPG hybrid if someone was to say mix up "Space Marine" with a lot of customization, multiple character types, and most importantly an open world to explore and mixed quest structure.
While unrelated I'll also say I've been hoping someone would pick up the Necromunda liscence, years ago they were releasing some Necromunda novels which I hoped would lead to
it spreading to other kinds of media, but it never really happened, although you do hear that paticular hive world and some of the gangs being mentioned once in a while in various 40k novels.
