THQ cancels Insane, gives rights back to Guillermo Del Toro
Also no longer pursuing casual Facebook or mobile games.
THQ has shuttered development on Guillermo Del Toro's Insane and returned the IP rights to the Mexican director, the publisher announced during a recent quarterly financial call.
New president of THQ Jason Rubin also noted that the publisher has decided not to develop any more casual Facebook or mobile games in order to focus on the types of games THQ is known for, by which we assume he means diverse mid-tier titles.
"By canceling these explorations outside of our core business, we feel we can improve focus on our core game portfolio, which remains unchanged," he explained.
Rubin has high hopes for Darksiders 2, which he said he's played for 30 hours without doing any sidequests and he's still on his first playthrough. Evidently pre-orders are strong with Vigil's sequel.
Also noted was that the Saint's Row 3 expansion-cum-full sequel Enter the Dominatrix is expected to exceed sales of Saint's Row 3. "I think it will be a Saint's Row 4. I think it will have as good sales, if not better sales than the last one."
Elsewhere the company is doing better than expected with a net income of $15.4 million over last year's loss of $38.4 million. Net sales were $38.5 million, which exceeded expectations of $25-$30 million. That being said, it fell way short of last year's $141.2 million.
Of course, this isn't quite a fair comparison as last year's second quarter had Red Faction: Armageddon and MX Vs. ATV Alive coming out in Q2, whereas this year's Q2 saw no major releases.
Also, the Q1 fiscal 2013 non-GAAP share has gone down to $3.41 from last year's $9.42. This follows THQ recently nearly getting delisted from NASDAQ until a reverse stock split ex machina saved the day.
THQ is looking forward to a handful of major releases such as Darksiders 2 due next week, as well as Company of Heroes 2, Metro: Last Light, South Park: The Stick of Truth and Saint's Row: Enter the Dominatrix due next year.