Two of Europe's largest gaming companies join forces. With Koch's 100% takeover, THQ Nordic is expanding its gaming portfolio with brands such as Saints Row and Homefront.
Just in time for Valentine's Day, we witness the unification of two European game behemoths.
In a Post on its own website, THQ Nordic announced the complete takeover of the Munich-based publisher Koch Media, which has recently published Kingdom Come: Deliverance. The second mainstay of Koch alongside classic publishing is the distribution.
For example, Koch distributes the games of Sega (Total War: Warhammer 2), Codemasters (Dirt 4) and Kalypso (Railway Empire) in Germany. Deep Silver is part of the deal For about 121 million euros, THQ secures 100 percent of the shares in Koch and thus the subsidiary Deep Silver and the rights to brands such as Metro, Saints Row, Homefront and Risen.
The package also includes the three developer studios Deep Silver Voilition (Saints Row, Agents of Mayhem), Deep Silver Fishlabs (Galaxy on Fire) and Deep Silver Dambuster Studios (Homefront: The Revolution). The deal was released just one day after the release of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which is likely to be one of the most important games of the year for the publisher Koch and is already sold out as a boxed version at many retailers.
Even after the fusion, both parties should act as independent companies. Koch should not be restructured or renamed. 33 unannounced games in development Exciting for us players: As part of the purchase, both companies have revealed how many projects they are currently working on.
According to this, THQ Nordic has in addition to twelve known, even 24 unannounced titles in the making. Koch has five projects and nine are still secret, including one AAA game from the Saints Row creator Voilition and the homefront developer Dambuster.
The CEO of THQ Nordic, Lars Wingefors, said:
"Koch Media has a long, profitable history, despite some losses from less successful games THQ Nordic believes that Deep Silver's development studios, as part of THQ Nordic, will successfully produce at least four AAA titles, including Metro Exodus, the next AAA Release of Voilition, an upcoming Dambuster Studios AAA game and more games. "
With the acquisition, THQ Nordic has more than tripled its size and is suddenly becoming one of the largest European gaming companies with over 1,600 employees, 36 internal and external development studios and the rights to 106 game brands.