warhammer-40000-mmo posts

Game publishers don't like to talk much about how much a particular game costs to make. However, an executive for THQ made an exception this week during an investor briefing call. Gamasutra reports that during the call THQ's executive vice president and CFO Paul Pucino stated that at the moment the company is projecting that its long-in-development MMO Warhammer 40,000 Dark Millennium Online will cost somewhere in the $50 million range.

Pucino added that the publisher was looking for the game to generate revenues "over a long period of time -- five, six, seven, eight years" and that ultimately the game would become very profitable. He would not state how many subscribers THQ is expecting for the game which is being developed by Vigil Games and is currently slated for release during THQ's fiscal 2013 time frame.

While THQ finally gave its long-in-development Warhammer 40,000 MMO game an actual title (Warhammer 40,000 Dark Millennium Online) last June at E3, we thought that was going to be the single for lots of info about the game to be revealed. Sadley with the exception of a few screenshots and a couple of trailers, details about the game are still being kept close to the vest.

During today's THQ conference call to financial analysts, execs for the company said that the game is now due for release sometime in THQ's 2013 fiscal year. That year begins on April 1, 2012 and ends on March 31, 2013. That means we have well over a year at least before the game is launched, if then.

Yet another publicly traded publisher has revealed its financial results for the last quarter. THQ reported today that for the three month period that ended on June 30 it brought in $149.4 million in revenue. This is much lower than the $243.5 million that THQ brought in for the same period a year ago. Overall, the company recorded a loss of $30.1 million for the quarter compared to a profit of $6.4 million for the same period a year ago. THQ said these numbers were in line with its previous predictions.

THQ has a number of PC game projects due out in the coming months including Company of Heroes Online, Homefront, the PC port of Darksiders, Red Faction Armageddon, Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine and the long-in-development MMO Warhammer 40,000 Dark Millennium.

Years after THQ first announced that the publisher would be making an MMO based on Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 franchise, E3 2010 has finally revealed the actual title of the game: Warhammer 40,000 Dark Millennium. As previous announced the game is under development at Austin-based Vigil Games.

There's still not a lot of info about the game. THQ states that Dark Millennium will allow players to "select their race and enter a beautifully crafted world of intrigue, adventure and all-out war." It's also touting its "strong graphics engine" with claims that it is "one of the best looking MMORPGs ever seen." More info about the game will be revealed in about two months at Gamescom. In the meantime you can check out a trailer above this post.

Publisher THQ's earnings are now projected to be lower than expected for the company's current fiscal quarter. The publisher revealed today that their fiscal 2011 first quarter, which ends on June 30, 2010, will now bring in revenues of betweeen $155 million to $165 million. That's well below THQ's previous expectations of between $190 million to $200 million.

One of the reasons behind this revenue shortfall is the lower-than-expected sales of their console game UFC Undisputed 2010. While THQ said pre-orders for the game were 50 percent higher than the company's first UFC game last year, "total sell through to date has been below our expectations and prior-year results."

THQ has already promised that the long-in-developmen MMO based on the Warhammer 40,000 franchise will finally be shown to the public at E3 2010 this June. But will this game be successful in the already crowded MMO market? THQ CEO Brian Farrell believes so.

IGN reports that Farrell, speaking this past week at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference, stated, "World of Warcraft is a great game, but as you know in entertainment, there's always the juggernaut and that means there's opportunities out there for the right MMO." He believes the Warhammer 40,000 MMO, under development at Vigil Games, is different because of its sci-fi theme as opposed to the fantasy genre.

Once more, Farrell said that the game will have different price structures in different parts of the world. The Western territories could stick with a monthly pricing model but, "It's more challenging in Asia, so we're building it in a way that we can either use time-based sessions or microtransactions as the business model in different markets."

Announced way back in 2007, THQ's long-in-development MMO based on the sci-fi themed Warhammer 40,000 license is getting close to getting a proper reveal. During THQ's financial conference call on Wednesday it was announced that the game would finally be shown at E3 2010 in mid-June.

The game from developer Vigil Games (who just released the console game Darksiders for THQ) will have a lot to live up to. Mythic Entertainment's MMO based on the fantasy themed Warhammer franchise was finally released in 2008. However that game didn't live up to expectations in terms of reviews and subscribers. It should be interesting to see how Warhammer 40K MMO is received by the game media in a few months.

Last week we did an extensive look at all of the big PC game titles that are currently scheduled for release this year (at least that's the plan; release dates can and likely will change for many of those titles). But there are also many games that have already been announced are not on our 2010 list. The reason? We just don't think they will ship out before the year is over.

However that's no reason to at least hope against hope. We decided to pick 10 previously announced games that we don't think will be released in the next 12 months but we do wish would make it. Of course, one or two of the titles on this list may actually surprise us and come out by the end of 2010. But at the moment the odds don't look good. By the way, we picked 10 games that are all officially announced. We could add a ton of other games that we know are in development but are not yet ready to become public (Blizzard's next-gen MMO, the next Infinity Ward game, etc) but that's a much longer list that we will get to later.

Click on the image above to continue reading 10 PC Games We Wish Were Coming in 2010

It was first announced nearly three years ago but since then the mysterious Warhammer 40,000-based MMO has stayed mysterious with publisher THQ only revealing bits and pieces over the years. However, Kotaku has stepped up and posted up a few concept art pieces from the long-in-development game.

The artwork shows early concepts for vehicles and for what looks like the Space Marine character in the game. Developer Vigil Games has been very busy making another THQ title, the console-online action game Darksiders. However that game went gold recently and is scheduled for a January 2010 release. With Darksiders out of the way perhaps we will begin to learn more about their MMO project sooner rather than later.

After a really crappy year in terms of their finances, publisher THQ believes it needs to restructure its business and create three main divisions of their company. Today THQ announces that those divisions will be Core Games, Kids, Family and Casual Games and Online.

THQ exec Danny Bilson will be in charge of the Core Games division which will include titles like the upcoming Homefront first person shooter. Doug Clemmer is head of the new Kids, Family and Casual Games which includes titled like the recently announced World of Zoo. Finally Steve Dauterman is in charge of the Online division which includes the long awaited Warhammer 40,000 MMO project.