Gearbox wins bidding for Homeworld IP

After learning late last week that teamPixel did not get the Homeworld franchise in the THQ bankruptcy auction, we learn today that Gearbox Software was the winning bidder.

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After learning late last week that teamPixel did not get the Homeworld franchise in the THQ bankruptcy auction, we learn today that Gearbox Software was the winning bidder, with the company's chief creative officer Brian Martel spearheading the acquisition.

"Brian intends as first priority to direct Gearbox's interest to preserve and assemble the purest form of the original acclaimed and beloved games, Homeworld and Homeworld 2, with the intent of making them accessible on today's leading digital platforms," the company said on its website.

The company has already opened up forums for fans to discuss a Homeworld 3 and what they want to see done with the franchise. One thing is for certain is that fans will want to see the series brought up to date for today's computers and made available on sites like GOG.com, given the recently invigorated desire for old school games.

The bid won't become official until approved by the court on May 13, but a rejection appears unlikely. According to a release, Gearbox paid $1.35 million for the IP.

Contributing Editor
From The Chatty
  • reply
    April 22, 2013 12:09 PM

    John Keefer posted a new article, Gearbox wins bidding for Homeworld IP.

    After learning late last week that teamPixel did not get the Homeworld franchise in the THQ bankruptcy auction, we learn today that Gearbox Software was the winning bidder.

    • reply
      April 22, 2013 12:15 PM

      Great! Just the news I DIDNT want to hear. So who's it being outsourced to?

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      April 22, 2013 12:21 PM

      Goddamit. Here comes Homeworld 3: Rushed Out The Door (featuring a season of DLC!)

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      April 22, 2013 12:24 PM

      1. Buy HomeWorld
      2. Take source code and modify so it works on modern computers
      3. Release HW1 and HW2 on digital platforms as separate and a discount package together.
      4. Profit. Collect money for basically nothing.
      5. ?????????????
      6. Release new HW3 game........ just kidding!

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        April 22, 2013 12:29 PM

        Honestly THQ should have put HW1 & HW2 on GOG in the first place. Failing to do simple shit like that is probably part of why they went down the tubes.

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          April 22, 2013 12:54 PM

          That would have been great but stuff like that is a drop in the bucket compared to uDraw

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            April 22, 2013 1:34 PM

            Yep but at the same time it does show how far their heads were planted when they couldn't even get the no brainer stuff done.

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      April 22, 2013 12:25 PM

      well there goes all interest

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      April 22, 2013 12:26 PM

      I can't wait to play HomewardLands Couch Coop with my bros shooting up spaceships!

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      April 22, 2013 12:28 PM

      If they would have bought it before Borderlands 2 and Aliens CM and Duke Nuke'Em.
      I would have been happy.
      Now, I'm just going to write it off as a series that could have been great...

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        April 22, 2013 12:37 PM

        what do you could have been? The 2 games + expansions released in the past are great.

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          April 23, 2013 6:37 AM

          Didn't like Borderlands 2. Neither did my regular troop. Its a hot mess. Aliens, well I don't have to go into that.

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      April 22, 2013 12:29 PM

      There goes any chance that any future Homeworld game will ever have mod tools :(

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      April 22, 2013 12:38 PM

      Well, FUCK. 2nd worst thing it could have happened after EA.

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        April 22, 2013 12:42 PM

        I dunno. EA could likely make a good game with it, with an online requirement. Certainly I enjoy a lot of their original IPs such as Dead Space and such. Gearbox will just turn it into a shitty game.

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      April 22, 2013 12:41 PM

      hahahahahahahahaa

    • reply
      April 22, 2013 12:43 PM

      [deleted]

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        April 22, 2013 12:46 PM

        Well, since sega funded the extended development of the borderlands series, that's not hard to understand. Will they do the same for homeland? Or will they half ass it and outsource it to someone else as they did with numerous other games? I highly suspect that they will not do the series justice.

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        April 22, 2013 12:48 PM

        GB literally has two decent games under it's belt and that's it.

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          April 22, 2013 12:57 PM

          And neither of them are that great IMO. They get a lot of love around here but I found them both pretty shallow. I finished the first one, got about 10 hours into the second and never went back.

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            April 22, 2013 1:15 PM

            BL2 was an improvement, which is rare. A lot of sequels just get fucked up. IMO they got a lot of street cred from BL1 and then BL2. It's good fun shooty gun swappy blow shit uppy game. And it had great campaign co-op, which is a weighted score in my book!! :)

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            April 22, 2013 1:53 PM

            [deleted]

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              April 22, 2013 2:09 PM

              I don't get the love for the coop either. It's not like there are any cool mechanics that come into play with more people, just just the same shit with someone else there. I tried it for a while but it didn't improve my enjoyment of the game.

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            April 22, 2013 2:13 PM

            For games built around the guns, the gunplay in both BL's was terrible.

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              April 22, 2013 2:53 PM

              I agree. I think part of it might be the loot aspect. In order to get you to lust after better guns they have to saddle you with utter garbage at least for the early partof the game.

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            April 22, 2013 3:56 PM

            ,,,Wait, the first one here is Half-Life, Opposing Force, right?

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              April 22, 2013 7:43 PM

              Ssssshhh...don't make them think that far back, it might break their minds.

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          April 22, 2013 5:00 PM

          LOL, "literally". Gamers' attention spans are so short. Let's see, Opposing Force, Halo PC, Brothers in Arms 1/2/3, Borderlands 1/2, yeah that's like 6 or 7 right there off the top of my head. All of which, your personal opinions aside, were considered by critical and user consensus to be at least "decent".

          It's just the in thing to despise Gearbox now because of Duke and Colonial Marines. Yeah, those games sucked (apparently - I don't buy games that the reviews say suck so I wouldn't know firsthand). But this pretending they're the worst studio ever with almost nothing but a record of failure is just revisionism, not to mention that a lot of the work on those two games wasn't even done by Gearbox.

          No, they haven't produced a classic on par with BioShock, or (fill in your favorite game here). So what. Very few studios have.

          FWIW I think Gearbox is a really awkward fit for the Homeworld franchise and that the series should be with Relic where it belongs. But this Gearbox hysteria is getting a bit much these days.

          • reply
            April 23, 2013 5:13 AM

            [deleted]

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            April 23, 2013 5:26 AM

            Halo pc was as bad a port as A:CM is a bad game.

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            April 23, 2013 5:29 AM

            Also borderlands 1 was not a good game. BL2 might be, but BL1 left such a mediocre bland taste in my mouth it killed any interest in later installments

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        April 22, 2013 1:04 PM

        I, too, think BL2 should be the metric for what GBX can do and not A:CM, but to be fair there's nothing preventing that from happening again (GBX outsources the work to someone sub-par and releases the result anyway)

        I'm a big Gearbox defender on here but even I'll admit they fucked themselves there - they released something awesome with BL2 and completely flushed that goodwill down the drain with A:CM

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        April 22, 2013 1:59 PM

        'Well gearbox made a mediocre FPS game, then followed with an ok update, yeah, they released horrid shit before both of those games but thats alright they can do wonders with this RTS classic'.

        Excite.

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        April 22, 2013 3:13 PM

        [deleted]

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        April 22, 2013 3:35 PM

        Clueless much?

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          April 22, 2013 3:43 PM

          [deleted]

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            April 23, 2013 3:39 AM

            Certainly no better than yours - how anyone could take one good game BL2 as an example and assume that this company wouldn't eff up a famous PC game is beyond me. And you wonder why you received a negative reply??

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        April 22, 2013 5:03 PM

        They have proved over and over again that they don't give a shit about any IP that isn't their own.

      • reply
        April 22, 2013 6:09 PM

        [deleted]

    • reply
      April 22, 2013 12:47 PM

      [vader] noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo [/vader]

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      April 22, 2013 12:54 PM

      Someone take "BULLSHIT!" guy from the Angry Joe review of Aliens: Colonial Marines, and put it on infinite loop.

      If they're serious about this, Gearbox has a lot of work to do to heal their public reputation. Your move, sTeve, Maarten, and Faylor.

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      April 22, 2013 1:01 PM

      whoa. well this is not what i would call good news. the most i want to see from HW now is perhaps a graphically and technically updated remake targetted towards compatibility to be released on DD. after that, I hope and pray that GB just lets the IP rot, because oh my fucking god there is no developer i would have less faith in to make a new HW game.

      maybe if they remake them they wont sell well enough to encourage a new game, and they will sit on it a few more years and someone competent can buy the IP. its a catch 22 for HW fans though. if we buy a re-release it encourage the suits to crank out a HW3 with Randy bleating on about how its a true and honest passion project for Homeworld fans blah blah, or just not buy it and keep waxing them old disks.

    • reply
      April 22, 2013 1:06 PM

      no no no no no no NOOOOOOOOOO

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      April 22, 2013 1:10 PM

      fucking lol.

    • reply
      April 22, 2013 1:12 PM

      claptrap will be apologizing to us in no time

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      April 22, 2013 1:23 PM

      I'm suddenly reminded of Theon's last scene in Game of Thrones last night.

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      April 22, 2013 1:25 PM

      I don't think Gearbox does a bad job with the games they've actually done in-house, but there's definitely not a lot of evidence to support the idea that they can produce a game of this nature.

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      April 22, 2013 1:28 PM

      Maarten's got this shit under control y'all. Just chill out and wait for the wolf to arrive shortly.

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        April 22, 2013 2:31 PM

        they're sending the wolf?! well shit... that's all you had to say

      • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
        reply
        April 22, 2013 8:40 PM

        So, I'm guessing bamb got himself banned?

        No posts in 4 days and he's just leaning on the wtf and ugh buttons.

    • reply
      April 22, 2013 1:37 PM

      I will just quote what I said in the GBX forums thread suggesting Linux(and Mac) versions of the games:

      "Why not? Don't ask me! I am all for it and think it makes a lot of sense but Gearbox as a company probably won't do it. They are one of the most "corporate" companies in the industry. No mod tools, no free DLC, no Linux versions, no source code releases for old games(but to be fair they probably don't have the right to do that for any of their old games). They don't do any of those things.

      They may as well be one of those big, publicly listed publishers when it comes to those sort of things. You won't see a Linux version of a Gearbox game just as you won't see a Linux version of a Activision game or an EA game.

      If Gearbox were to be acquired by Activision nothing would change, all the changes people would usually be worried about already apply to Gearbox as a company. They already operate in that manner."

    • reply
      April 22, 2013 1:38 PM

      well shit, that's not good news.

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      April 22, 2013 1:58 PM

      Well, there goes my hopes for a good game.

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      April 22, 2013 2:15 PM

      Condolences to all Homeworld fans.

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      April 22, 2013 2:18 PM

      Homeworld RIP

    • reply
      April 22, 2013 2:31 PM

      Duke Nukem in Space

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      April 22, 2013 2:45 PM

      [deleted]

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        April 22, 2013 3:29 PM

        they should hire you as a HW3 creative consultant

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      April 22, 2013 3:34 PM

      Oh gawd. What a nightmare. Total disaster.

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      April 22, 2013 3:37 PM

      Here are the results for the rest of THQ's IPs:
      http://www.shacknews.com/article/78852/nordic-games-picks-up-darksiders-red-faction-and-more-from

      Short summary: Nordic Games picks up pretty much everything.

    • reply
      April 22, 2013 4:04 PM

      better than going to that company that did a kickstarter to fund homeworld for mobile devices

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      April 22, 2013 4:41 PM

      NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! YOU BETTER NOT FUCK THIS UP! I SWEAR TO FUCK I WILL MAKE YOU ALL WISH BURCH'S SISTER WAS TINA TINA PLAYING WITH WET DYNAMITE SLOWLY DANGLING AND DRIPPING OVER YOU AND YOURS! UPDATE THEM FOR DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION AND THEN KEEP YOUR FILTHY DUKE NUKEM FOREVER ALIEN COLONIAL MARINES STAINED NEVER TOUCHED AN RTS HANDS OFF HIIGARA!!!!!!!!! YOU FUCKING HEAR ME PICHFORD!????
      /mace

      • reply
        April 22, 2013 4:51 PM

        But seriously, it's disappointing. They won't, but I hope they just pop'em on Steam and GOG and then leave it be like responsible custodians.

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          April 22, 2013 6:51 PM

          Custodians? They didn't spend $1.3whatever million to be custodians of the property.

          They're going to make a new Homeworld game. And hey, maybe it'll be good, like the new XCOM was good.

          • reply
            April 22, 2013 8:33 PM

            I said "like responsible custodians," prefacing it with my acknowledgment that they are not. Also, regarding XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Firaxis has years of experience making successful strategy games. Gearbox has had occasional hits and some extreme misses over their entire history, and only make first person shooters.

            Every single one of their games, success or failure, are FPS games. On occasion they introduce a little genre blending, but are all still FPS games.

            Homeworld is an RTS with one of the best resonating scripts and ludonarratives I've seen in any game.

            On a personal note, I feel people need to be more accepting of letting things go. Preserve them, yes, but infinitely grind out more? No. Casablanca didn't need a TV series. Firefly didn't need a movie. Homeworld doesn't need a 3.

    • reply
      April 22, 2013 4:58 PM

      LOL might as well write this series off. After Gearbox does their usual work (take a shit in a box and put a sticker on it), the fans will be wishing the IP had just been lost for eternity.

    • reply
      April 22, 2013 5:40 PM

      FUCK!

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      April 22, 2013 5:47 PM

      <sperg>

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      April 22, 2013 6:27 PM

      Jeez did Gearbox kill everyone's dog? Sure Duke Nukem was a pile of crap but it wasn't them that really made the game, and A:CM was utter shit but that again was not solely Gearbox's fault, too many cooks. This guy sounds like a HW fan and wants to bring it in its purest form to GOG, and is asking fans about what they'd like to see for HW3. Sounds like the right sort of thing to do for me.

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        April 22, 2013 6:45 PM

        Well, they definitely have a long way to go to win gamers back. If they are smart, they will take any HW game they make VERY seriously and try to knock it out of the park. If they did that (and surprise everybody) then... maybe they will earn back some love.

        I personally like Gearbox simply for Borderlands 1 and 2 which I really enjoyed playing with friends. I give them points for those games. I'm also one of the 5 people who found some joy in playing Duke Nukem Forever and while I think it's obvious that it's a heavily flawed game... I was thankful to Gearbox for finally getting it out the door (which is more than 10 or whatever other companies were able to do).

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        April 22, 2013 9:05 PM

        'too many cooks' on A:CMwas their fault. They made the call to outsource so they are bad at their own development or make bad decisions about who else should do it. Either way they fucked up.

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        April 23, 2013 3:43 AM

        A:CM sucking was entirely Gearbox's fault.

      • reply
        April 23, 2013 5:15 AM

        [deleted]

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      April 22, 2013 8:38 PM

      [deleted]

      • reply
        April 23, 2013 3:40 AM

        Please just no. That's an awful, awful idea. It needs to AT THE VERY LEAST be a good RTS. Nothing else is necessary if someone can do it right.

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      April 22, 2013 8:39 PM

      Keep in mind, the first thing they are going to do is make the original games available on steam. That should garner some good will.

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      April 22, 2013 9:07 PM

      Cue the shills coming in to proclaim it's quality.

      NO THANKS

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      April 23, 2013 2:05 AM

      Not super confident with these guys especially after what they have done with Duke and Aliens..

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      April 23, 2013 2:15 AM

      Guess it could have ended in the hands of someone with a better track record, but honestly, BL2 is a good game and surprises can happen anyway. I don't get the whole doom and gloom about a game no-one has seen a picture of, or knows anything about. For all we know it will be handled by the same team / people that BL2 was, and if that's not good enough, I think your standards need a bit of a tweaking.

    • reply
      April 23, 2013 3:42 AM

      Bring on the shacksperg.

    • reply
      April 23, 2013 5:11 AM

      [deleted]

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      April 23, 2013 5:13 AM

      Don't worry. They'll outsource it to someone else. ... Wait..

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      April 23, 2013 5:28 AM

      I just keep thinking if HW3 ever comes out it's going to be a console game with a crappy pc port ...

    • reply
      April 23, 2013 5:38 AM

      [deleted]

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      April 23, 2013 8:03 AM

      I just want Homeworld 1 with the Sacrifice of Angels mod for my iPad....that is all I want in life. Everything else is gravy

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      April 25, 2013 2:57 AM

      Faithful remake of Homeworld 1 please. That will be better than anything GB can create themselves.

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