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http://kotaku.com/5978429/this-is-the-letter-that-thq-sent-to-employees-today

With THQ now dissolved and sold off, Relic Entertainment has been sold to Sega. Sega now holds the rights to both Warhammer 40K and Warhammer Fantasy Battle video games. Creative Assembly, the Total War developers and owned by Sega now have the rights to make Fantasy Battle games, while Relic still holds onto the 40K IP.

What do you think will happen to future 40K titles? Will Sega be willing to commit to another Space Marine title? Will we see Dawn of War 3 at last?

Sonic and friends is now hunted by the holy inquisition, who also investigate the mysterious 'ring' they crave so much

Ahh crap

Damn, that blows. I was really looking forward to SM2. I couldn't imagine this helping.

On a similar note, id hoped they could have used the graphics engine from SM & the voice actors to make another cgi SM movie. The game looked sooo much better than that sad sack of crap they called Thee Space Marine cinematic epic.

That is terrible news. I really can't see sega moving in a positive direction with this based on their track record.

Why are they spending this kind of money when they could be making Shenmue 3 damnit!

 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:
Sonic and friends is now hunted by the holy inquisition, who also investigate the mysterious 'ring' they crave so much

Surely they're not wondering what all this fuss about "Chaos Emeralds" is?

I couldn't see any mention of Dawn of War or the 40k licence. Are you sure that the licence has automatically gone with relic to sega?

Sega did, indeed, acquire the 40k license from their purchase of the Relic studio from THQ.

http://www.tssznews.com/2013/01/23/sega-buys-relic-entertainment-for-26-6-million/

CA is a phenomenal company. If they make any GW game, you should buy it.

so its captain sonic and the wood land guard?
remake alpha protocol with the inquisition?

Although Warhammer Total War would be freakin sweet

this is fantastic news. Sega are one of the few good publishers left.

 Mesphilhiem wrote:
so its captain sonic and the wood land guard?
remake alpha protocol with the inquisition?

Okay that second one sounds really awesome, but people need to remember that they acquired a developer, Relic isn't being fused into a ton of other companies they own under them.

While I love Creative Assembly, and I feel like a Fantasy themed Total War game would be awesome (it wouldn't work with 40k I feel, Fantasy keeps the "rank-and-file" soldiers and empire management thing a bit. 40k would need to be a bit too divergent), I'm scared what else Sega could dream up....

"Sega itself had just finished a major restructuring less than a year in which some 130 employees across the company, or more than a third of Sega’s workforce, lost their jobs. "

Typical mega-corporation bs. They're just going to strip relic down to the bare bones to make Company of Heroes and then wrest the 40k license from their grip and delegate the task to a bunch of sweatshop game developers making cheaply made licensed garbage. Dawn of War was a once in a blue moon thing and we should have known better.

By god, I hope Games Workshop for their own interests steps in and saves their baby from getting butchered by Sega.

 TedNugent wrote:
"Sega itself had just finished a major restructuring less than a year in which some 130 employees across the company, or more than a third of Sega’s workforce, lost their jobs. "

Typical mega-corporation bs. They're just going to strip relic down to the bare bones to make Company of Heroes and then wrest the 40k license from their grip and delegate the task to a bunch of sweatshop game developers making cheaply made licensed garbage. Dawn of War was a once in a blue moon thing and we should have known better.

By god, I hope Games Workshop for their own interests steps in and saves their baby from getting butchered by Sega.

Agreed. If GW had a bit of sense, they would. Dawn of War was personally what got me into 40k, and now im playing not just 40k but a ton of different historicals. Really, DoW got me into wargaming and miniatures. And surely, I can't be the only one hahaha.

I didnt see one thing in either of those sources that said Sega will own the rights to warhammer 40k, I think they had the rights to warhammer fantasy already, but I still think they are seperate entities. Im sure Games Workshop has something somewhere protecting their license in case anything like this happens.

I just skimmed the articles though so please dont burn me alive.

Rotgut wrote:
I didnt see one thing in either of those sources that said Sega will own the rights to warhammer 40k, I think they had the rights to warhammer fantasy already, but I still think they are seperate entities. Im sure Games Workshop has something somewhere protecting their license in case anything like this happens.

I just skimmed the articles though so please dont burn me alive.

THQ had rights to 40k in a game perspective. This is because THQ had Relic under it's control. THQ sold Relic to Sega. Sega now has the rights.

That basically sums it all up. THQ sold to a lot of different companies, and im kinda happy Sega got 40k. Sega has CA, and CA makes really good games

Who would everyone prefer it to have gone to, then?

Ubisoft? So everyone needs Uplay and can only install the game once every thousand years on a rainy tuesday morning at 10:33, and can only use it for 3 hours every day anywhere between 9am and 5pm, except for Wednesdays which you can't play on unless you perform the Ubi Ritual directly after sunrise, or some other stupid DRM?

EA? The Sims: Imperium Expansion Pack? Battlefield 40,000? Command & Conquer: Cadian Wars, Cadian Sun, Cadian Twilight?

Actiblizzard? Space Marine of Duty: Modern Ops 4-and-a-half (This time it's personal)? Tony Hawk Lords Pro Skater?

We got SEGA, they at least have TW, making a lot of the dreams of WHFB players one large step closer to being fulfilled. Yes, SEGA might not be the best for 40k, but what publisher would be best for both? And I mean best, not the publisher that is the best for both only because it makes average games for each, as opposed to one really good one and one really poor one.

Which publisher would have been good for 40k? EA, because of the Command & Conquers? But then how do they go about using WHFB?

Ubisoft? Just Dance Space Marine? Rayman Raving Rippers? Ghost Recon-style might be okay, but then what about WHFB? Or larger-scale 40k games? There's also the matter of Ubisoft software being absolutely painful to try and use.

What I'm really saying is that why not focus on what SEGA could seriously make the IPs into, as opposed to what crap they'll undoubtably spew out*, something which could be done to every publisher ever.

*Because that's what this thread current sounds like.

Rights dont automatically transfer with the sale of a company, most such licensing agreements come with a break clause that would stop that from occurring, my guess is the 40k license is no different.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Rights dont automatically transfer with the sale of a company, most such licensing agreements come with a break clause that would stop that from occurring, my guess is the 40k license is no different.

Thats exactly what I was thinking.

None of these articles mention warhammer 40k, they mention company of heroes, so Ill wait until Sega says they have the rights to it.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Rights dont automatically transfer with the sale of a company, most such licensing agreements come with a break clause that would stop that from occurring, my guess is the 40k license is no different.

So im just kinda curious, I'm no businessman, where would the rights lay right now? They belonged to THQ, but THQ is no longer a company since they have dissolved and sold all of their ownings. I know that THQ had kinda given the development of the 40k license to Relic, and since Relic was sold to SEGA for 26.2 million or something like that, would the license transfer with Relic like the Company of Heroes license?

 Psienesis wrote:
Sega did, indeed, acquire the 40k license from their purchase of the Relic studio from THQ.

http://www.tssznews.com/2013/01/23/sega-buys-relic-entertainment-for-26-6-million/

I hope they do something with it then.

 Melissia wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Sega did, indeed, acquire the 40k license from their purchase of the Relic studio from THQ.

http://www.tssznews.com/2013/01/23/sega-buys-relic-entertainment-for-26-6-million/

I hope they do something with it then.

Like make Dawn of War 3.

Actually speaking of Relic, is there any word on Dark Millennium?

 Avatar 720 wrote:
Tony Hawk Lords Pro Skater?

This. Oh god this. I want skating space marines dammit. GIVE ME SKATING SPACE MARINES.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Actually speaking of Relic, is there any word on Dark Millennium?

lol, you can stick a fork in it, it's done.

They were talking about how they had to change it from an MMO to a singleplayer game back in May I believe and that was literally the last we've heard of it. Add that to the fact that THQ is splintering and the 40k license is now in Sega's hands...

plus the developer (also the developer of Darksiders) sustained massive layoffs. I would assume it's dead until they have a blowout media expose. Which isn't going to happen.

Still sad for the loss of THQ, my favorite publisher gone. Company of heroes(the only RTS with multilayer i don't suck at), Dawn of War, Metro 2033, Space Marine. Good games, even if i only got to Khan with Metro 2033 before i gave up on the frame rate issues.
Cant complain about SEGA, while i don't like sonic, the Total War games were fun for me, even if i did suck at them.Only SEGA release i didn't like was alpha protocol. So, it could have been so much worse. We could have seen 40k go to EA, and we all see what they did to WHFB.

I haven't heard about DM since it was announced that it was no longer an MMO. I hope its on the production table.

 Avatar 720 wrote:
The Sims: Imperium Expansion Pack

Battlefield 40,000

Command & Conquer: Cadian Wars, Cadian Sun, Cadian Twilight

Tony Hawk Lords Pro Skater

Rayman Raving Rippers

I would play the heck out of every single one of those.

RegalPhantom wrote:

 Avatar 720 wrote:
The Sims: Imperium Expansion Pack

Battlefield 40,000

Command & Conquer: Cadian Wars, Cadian Sun, Cadian Twilight

Tony Hawk Lords Pro Skater

Rayman Raving Rippers

I would play the heck out of every single one of those.

Your sim leaves the house to go to a deadend job at the manufactorum, gets abducted on the way to work, gets set free, has a genestealer child.