It's like a black hole. Eventually it'll be two major publishers whose sheer size will force each other to collapse. Then rinse and repeat.

Sorry geeks! *mass

*sniff* the circle of life.

well that was graphic. what an awesome post, it's like watching the discovery channel!

I could totally visualise David Attenborough narrating that.

@okenny :): In the future, Taco Bell will be the only survivor of the fast food wars.

@J-Fro: ...or hear?

@ceilingFANBOY: sponsor me for PBP, link in profile:
OH GOD THE DEMOLISION MAN FLASH BACKS YOU ANIMAL!

@Raziel3333: Aw come on, Demolition Man and Over the Top are gems of the movie world. Actually, I liked Demolition Man...

@ceilingFANBOY: sponsor me for PolarBearPlunge, link in prof...: lol demolition man was actually a funny movie expeccialy how they were like woah arnold was president?!

So will there be any indie studios left by the end of 2008?

Not surprising, considering THQ is publishing Big Huge's next project, that RPG from the head designer of Morrowind and Oblivion. Also, outside of Relic, THQ doesn't have a lot of 'core' game development studios, so this fills a space in their lineup.

@ceilingFANBOY: sponsor me for PolarBearPlunge, link in prof...: My favorite part in Demolition Man is when Wesley Snipes enters the hall of firearms and slams the guys head against the wall.

Had they tried to take the movie seriously, maybe it wouldn't have been good. Considering it was purposely funny, though, it was a good movie.

Haha, love the picture. Fitting.

I love how this has turned into a Demolition Man discussion.

@Dp.: Sorry, that's my fault.

@ceilingFANBOY: sponsor me for PolarBearPlunge, link in prof...: Sorry? I genuinely love that movie, if anything this story became instantly better when said movie was mentioned.

I guess us nerds are the only ones who liked that movie. A little surprising for a Sylvester Stallone movie.

THQ seems to be a pretty good publisher with respect to letting devs actually finish their games, so I was actually sort of happy to see this. THQ has put out what I believe to be the 2 best strategy games in recent memory, Company of Heroes and Supreme Commander, so another strategy dev added to the picture is probably not a bad thing,

I don't mind this. I like Big Huge a lot and hopefully this will help them be a bit more prolific, if they keep the team intact.

@RabidWombat:

Don't forget the Dawn of War games.

And damnit I want the latest DoW expansion already!

@Pezdispenser:

Exactly. Between DoW and RoL, there's going to be some serious RTS publishing coming out of THQ. And considering I loved both of those games, I can't wait.

I hope this will give birth to something beautiful.

@Raziel3333: Demolition man is great :)

As for the story, is this a good thing? I have been out of tuch on how THQ deals with their prey.

While I did not care at all for the actual game, I saw lots of wonderful creative art designs put into Rise of Nations and I hope the devs continue to make such interesting pieces.

Great, entertaining post. This is why I read Kotaku.

Great post, great news for BHG, great news for THQ. What could possibly go wrong?

Now maybe we'll see a patch for Catan that fixes the multiplayer?

Catan expansion please!

I hope that Big Huge Games have their own QA staff to check their games. If it gets to THQ's QA department it will be full of bugs. Most of the people there test World of Warcraft instead of games.