Home Gaming Gearbox now owns the Homeworld franchise

Gearbox now owns the Homeworld franchise

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Gearbox

Well, that’s it for the lingering remains of THQ, a corpse of a developer that I used to show to kids because I wanted to be cool. The last remaining properties have been auctioned off, and one cult favourite franchise is now going to be calling Borderlands developer Gearbox their home now.

It’s a weird fit for the developer, to be honest. Gearbox is known primarily for their work on the shoot ‘n loot Borderlands series, and their sterling dedication to preserving nostalgia with games such as Duke Nukem Forever and Aliens: Colonial Marines.

Gearbox is more than likely going to be putting out a new Homeworld game then, but this will be their very first strategy title, a genre that is already infamous for having the pickiest of fans.

According to a post on the company website via VG247, Gearbox says that they’re also planning on re-releasing Homeworld 1 and 2, “with the intent of making them accessible on today’s leading digital platforms”.

So how much did it cost Gearbox to acquire that franchise then? A cool $1.35 million. It’s also a muay thai knee to the gut for developer TeamPixel, an indie studio that had plans to bring the franchise to mobile devices as well. I was kind of rooting for them, but unfortunately, money talks.

How do you feel about Gearbox getting their hands on this revered RTS franchise? Excited or apprehensive? On the one hand, it means that Homeworld won’t be gathering dust anymore, but on the other hand as Geoff pointed out this morning, the only way that this game will get the necessary love that it needs to sparkle, is for it to be renamed Borderlands 3.

Last Updated: April 23, 2013

40 Comments

  1. Gearbox now owns Homeworld rights? RIP to a great series, Gearbox is going to make a disaster out of you now…

    Reply

  2. Rincethis: Spellalicious

    April 23, 2013 at 09:04

    “and their sterling dedication to preserving nostalgia with games such as Duke Nukem Forever and Aliens: Colonial Marines.” I just spat coffee over my laptop, you bastard!

    Reply

  3. DieJason

    April 23, 2013 at 09:05

    Who grabbed all the other IPs?

    Reply

    • Exalted Overlord Geoffrey Tim

      April 23, 2013 at 09:11

      coming up next! 😛

      Reply

      • Rincethis: Spellalicious

        April 23, 2013 at 09:20

        Why is OVG always hijacking your articles? LOL @af23fe20f1a86820194ae79199032fcd:disqus

        Reply

        • Admiral Chief Erwin

          April 23, 2013 at 09:45

          Speaking of hijacking…..

          Reply

          • Sageville

            April 23, 2013 at 10:03

            Made in china, Do not wash, iron or tumbledry.

          • Admiral Chief Erwin

            April 23, 2013 at 10:24

            Muahahahahaha (waits for @rincethis:disqus head to explode)

          • Rincethis: Spellalicious

            April 23, 2013 at 11:06

            Me too 🙁

          • Rincethis: Spellalicious

            April 23, 2013 at 11:05

            I hate you so much right now!

          • Admiral Chief Erwin

            April 23, 2013 at 11:11

            Hugs? I’ll wear it so that you can be in close proximity of it

          • Rincethis: Spellalicious

            April 23, 2013 at 11:13

            You total bastard,I am going to have my own one made up, only in mine I’ll have a picture of Darryn/Brenda riding a my little pony that is shitting a rainbow!

          • Admiral Chief Erwin

            April 23, 2013 at 11:16

            *makes note of second hijack plan*

          • Rincethis: Spellalicious

            April 23, 2013 at 11:16

            You wouldn’t DARE 0-o

          • Admiral Chief Erwin

            April 23, 2013 at 11:18

            Oh really?

          • Rincethis: Spellalicious

            April 23, 2013 at 11:21

            Gahhhh! I’ll set the wrath of OVG on you! I mean it, I’m not kidding around!

          • Admiral Chief Erwin

            April 23, 2013 at 11:25

            XDXDXD

            That will make #HiJack2 SO much more attractive!

          • Rincethis: Spellalicious

            April 23, 2013 at 11:28

            You are made of ICE!

          • Rincethis: Spellalicious

            April 23, 2013 at 11:06

            I mean you don’t deserve this! Thievery!

          • Admiral Chief Erwin

            April 23, 2013 at 11:09

            I wear it, I rub it, I cuddle it, I sleep with it, I roll with it, YOU CAN’T HAVE IT

            😛

          • Rincethis: Spellalicious

            April 23, 2013 at 11:12

            RAAAAAAAGE!

    • Sir Oldfart

      April 23, 2013 at 09:13

      I bought Vigil Games for R1.99 🙂

      Reply

  4. Rincethis: Spellalicious

    April 23, 2013 at 09:07

    I must say I am happy to hear it has been bought. I loved the first two Homewolrds, spent hour listening to the Barbers adagio for strings (epic). I just hope Gearbox learns from their mistakes. It’s one thing to ROYALLY fuck up Aliens: Colonial Marines, but that is a movie IP… We all kindda expect them to turn into shit. This is a game. Hopefully they can emulate, and reinvigorate this into something new and awesome. And to be honest, if I get to play Homeworold 1 and 2 on my Xbox, shit, I’ll be happy…

    Reply

  5. Slade Boender

    April 23, 2013 at 09:15

    I’d just really like them not to muck it up, why not get Team Pixels gents to handle the coding and GB can just deal with publishing. Im slightly apprehensive either way. Homeworld was the bombjiggidy /:

    Reply

  6. Slade Boender

    April 23, 2013 at 09:15

    I’d just really like them not to muck it up, why not get Team Pixels gents to handle the coding and GB can just deal with publishing. Im slightly apprehensive either way. Homeworld was the bombjiggidy /:

    Reply

  7. Anon A Mouse

    April 23, 2013 at 09:32

    Why do I feel Rockstar would have been a better fit with this? But let’s wait and see. They can’t do worse than Duke Nukem and as far as I know there hasn’t been a Homeworld 3 in development for ten years. That might give it some hope to succeed.

    Reply

    • Willem Swanepoel

      April 23, 2013 at 16:49

      If Rockstar took over it would have been a console exclusive 😉 no thanks.

      Reply

      • Elwyn Chow

        April 24, 2013 at 08:12

        A console timed-exclusive perhaps but otherwise, you’re wrong.

        Reply

        • Willem Swanepoel

          April 24, 2013 at 16:27

          I do not see a direct port as a game for PC. It remains exclusive in my eyes …

          Reply

          • Elwyn Chow

            May 19, 2013 at 15:00

            You kidding? You paid full price for it and played it, right? If it has all the characteristics of the game, it’s a non-exclusive game.

  8. Gareth Lagesse

    April 23, 2013 at 09:36

    Regardless of Gearbox’s recent turkeys, the big concern here is their lack of experience in RTS games. Homeworld is one of the finest strategy games ever made, in fact I recall a review of the original stating that it takes on chess for the title, and comes really close to taking it.

    By all means, bring the existing Homeworld games to consoles, as long as it doesn’t compromise the quality of future PC titles.

    Reply

    • Twakkie

      April 23, 2013 at 11:17

      Chest… bha!! I just build the biggest and baddest ships and hyper-spaced it into their base! Then again I played against super duper easy AI with unlimited resources.

      Reply

  9. Sargon

    April 23, 2013 at 09:51

    It’s good to read intelligent comments to this article. I heard this news last night on some of the American gaming sites and the comments section quickly became a Gearbox hatefest. Their Facebook page has always been bombarded with negativity. I sometimes wonder why the gaming community feels the need to slam everything in the market. Is it symptomatic of the general unrest that abounds in the gaming community at the moment? Probably. As Tyler Durden would put it:

    “Man, I see in [the gaming community] the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping [bullets out of the same guns with each new Call of Duty], waiting tables [in the Sims]; slaves with white collars [to unimaginative developers]. Advertising [and theatrical trailers] has us chasing [the best graphics] and [repetitive yearly repeats of the same industry ‘greats’], working jobs we hate so we can buy shit [games without any plot that] we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d [play an original game like Half Life again in our lives or] all [see the end of secretive RNG practices, always online, and excessive game price tags]. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”

    In any respect. I would like to hear what ideas Gearbox have for this franchise before I give them grief. They’re not EA. They have such good support systems in place and they do really care about their public image. I’ve also never seen a big company give out so much free loyalty nonsense (Borderlands Golden Keys, special event constumes, etc). Yes – they made some mistakes. But did anyone even expect Duke Nukem or the Colonial Marines disaster to actually work? Duke Nukem was cheesy when I was a kid. It wasn’t suddenly going to develop a real story and appealing game play. Homeworld has depth already. It’s already established. I put my money on Gearbox on this one. Now if EA had scooped up Homeworld… this would be a different rant altogether.

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief Erwin

      April 23, 2013 at 09:53

      Dude, your comment level is over 1000000, well said.

      Have an upvote from me, to you, for this

      Reply

      • Sargon

        April 23, 2013 at 10:07

        Thank you, messire Erwin. 🙂

        Reply

        • Admiral Chief Erwin

          April 23, 2013 at 10:23

          Gazie

          Reply

    • Elwyn Chow

      April 24, 2013 at 08:14

      It would have been nice if they cared about their customers enough to simply apologize before they spoke about their continued commitment to A:CM.

      I predict that continued commitment will soon expire as it’s not going to bring in revenue.

      Reply

  10. Willem Swanepoel

    April 23, 2013 at 16:51

    I am really sad that Relic Entertainment didnt scoop this one up. They were the perfect development company to take this game to the next level …

    I am sad that Gearbox took this, I am not very happy with them after the Aliens screw up…but I wont judge ….

    Reply

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