Andy Griffith Show” while his father directed episodes. Forty-five
years later, Bilson is still playing games in
As executive vice president of core games at
video game publisher has staked its future. Once known for lightweight
game adaptations of movies and TV shows such as “Cars” and “SpongeBob
SquarePants” and
smackdowns, THQ is responding to market trends and a flagging stock
price by transforming itself into a publisher of big-budget action
titles.
On Tuesday, it released “Homefront,” an ambitious
action game about America under North Korean occupation that’s the
first original project to be developed under Bilson. The game’s fate
will be a measure of the wisdom of THQ’s decision to spurn veteran game
industry marketers and product managers and put its fate in the hands
of an executive whose professional achievements include screenwriting
credits for “The Rocketeer” and the TV show “The Flash.”
“I’m bringing a totally new culture for this
company,” Bilson said. “We’re not making manifolds. We’re making
products to entertain people.”
But disappointing reviews spooked investors Tuesday, who pummeled the game publisher’s stock, pushing it down
The game garnered a relatively weak average score of
72 out of 100 from 28 reviews by Tuesday afternoon, according to
Metacritic, a site that aggregates reviews. A score of 80 is considered
the minimum required for a “shooter” game such as “Homefront” to be
commercially successful.
So far, players seem eager to see for themselves. On
Amazon, “Homefront” was the No. 1 selling game, trailed by “Pokemon
Black Version” and “Pokemon White Version,” two popular titles from
Strong preorders, or customers who paid in advance to have a copy of
the game sent to them on the day it is released, have put “Homefront”
on Amazon’s top 100 list for 28 days.
With production costs of
and tens of millions more to advertise, “Homefront” is the most
expensive video game THQ has produced. The company must sell 2 million
copies just to break even, a company executive said.
That won’t be easy. The video game market is flooded with similar “shooter” games from
all chasing the same young male gamers who spend their bottom dollar on
food, rent and video games — not necessarily in that order.
It’s a demographic Bilson knows well. When he wasn’t hanging out on set with his childhood friend
Bilson followed in the footsteps of his father,
and became a scriptwriter. Then a chance meeting on a plane in 1997
changed his trajectory. The man in the seat next to him was
“For me, getting to meet someone from EA was like someone at EA getting to meet someone from
Mattrick persuaded Bilson to become a consultant on
several EA titles, including the Sims. “He’s extremely insightful about
game design,” said Bing Gordon, who was Bilson’s boss at EA and is now
a venture capitalist.
Yet Bilson’s business acumen remains unproven. An
attempt to start his own game studio in 2004 failed, forcing him to
return to writing scripts and comic books. In 2007, he got a call from
THQ asking if he wanted to run the company’s “core” game business,
overseeing production and, soon, marketing as well.
Bilson appears to relish his outsider status. In an
industry where people rarely disparage rivals, Bilson isn’t reluctant
to offer blunt assessments. “I admire what Activision does, but where
is their new content? Why don’t they innovate?” he said of the nation’s
largest publisher.
Bilson notes that in an industry preoccupied with
“franchises,” half of the games in development at THQ are original
properties (a strategy made easier given THQ’s shortage of
sequel-worthy brands).
“In some ways I’m taking us back to
Since THQ’s founding in 1991, licenses from
well-known properties helped it become a mid-sized publisher. By 2008,
however, sales of licensed games began to decline as more-sophisticated
players demanded higher-quality titles.
By the end of that year, Chief Executive
Some early efforts, such as the “Grand Theft Auto”-like “
series, have been solid performers, and the company’s financial results
have improved, though it still expects to be in the red for the current
fiscal year.
“We have de-emphasized the kids’ business and had a
very dramatic turnaround, but what we haven’t done yet is broken out
with a 5-million-plus-unit seller,” Farrell said.
THQ is releasing seven “core” games between February
and June alone, compared with four in all of 2010. It’s widely
speculated that Farrell is seeking to position THQ to be sold. A
company reliant on licenses that will expire is not an attractive
acquisition target, but one with several popular titles with sequel
potential would be. Farrell dismissed talk of an acquisition as
“premature.”
“The only thing I care about is driving the value of the company,” he said. “We’re in the midst of a very dramatic turnaround.”
Markets, said, “If THQ can come up with a couple of franchises that
sell well, that’s a much clearer path to profitability and a higher
stock price.”
In “Homefront,” which has a story by “Red Dawn” screenwriter
players control a guerrilla fighter who combats the occupying forces in
a dystopian 2027. The online multi-player format, which many gamers
consider more important than the story, allows up to 32 people to do
battle as Americans and North Koreans.
In addition to advertising on Comedy Central, NCAA
basketball broadcasts and billboards blanketing big cities, THQ has
aggressively courted the video game press.
“In a short amount of time, they have done an
impressive job of reversing a brand that many gamers previously
considered poisonous,” he said.
And that, just as much as games flying off shelves, is what THQ expects from the former scriptwriter.
“I was very deliberate in asking Danny to take this
position,” Farrell said. “The perception of THQ is going to change from
a boring kids’ license company to an oh-my-(expletive)-God video game
company.”
Farrell said in an interview Tuesday that he was not concerned about the reviews of “Homefront.”
“The game seems to resonate with consumers,” Farrell
said, noting that “Homefront” received the most preorders for any title
in the company’s history. “It’s a mass-market title. Let’s see what
players think.”
Among professional game critics, however, there seems to be little consensus on the title.
Reviews ranged from a low of 50 to a high of 93.
Twelve of the 28 reviews gave the game scores of 80 or above, and many
gave the game’s multiplayer portion decent marks. The harshest review,
from Destructoid, said, “For all of the campaign’s missteps and missed
opportunities, there is a silver lining for ‘Homefront’: it’s
multiplayer.”
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