One of the sadder aspects of THQ’s collapse, at least from a local perspective, was the shuttering of Melbourne-based Blue Tongue Entertainment, best known for developing the rather awesome de Blob and de Blob 2. While Blue Tongue is no longer, its legacy, in the form of the de Blob IP, has been picked up by Nordic Games.
As VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi notes, Nordic has been one of the more prolific purchasers of THQ’s intellectual property, having loaded up with Titan Quest, Darksiders and Red Faction in April last year. It may have taken a little longer, but it turns out it was also interested in acquiring de Blob.
Nordic didn’t really have much to say about the purchase, other than this information-light nugget:
“de Blob is just a great and truly unique franchise”, comments Reinhard Pollice, Business & Product Development Director at Nordic Games. “We are excited about what the future holds for this polychromatic extravaganza as the newest addition to our portfolio. We will evaluate opportunities with the existing games, as well as potential sequels.”
There’s no guarantee the publisher will ever commission another game under the franchise, but it’s good to know the IP isn’t sitting on a shelf somewhere with no home. That said, if we see a third title made to shovelware quality… it might have been better where it was.
Nordic Games acquires “de Blob” IP from THQ [Nordic Games, via VentureBeat]
Comments
6 responses to “Aussie-Made De Blob Franchise Rescued From THQ’s Demise”
Shuttering of Blue Tongue?
Yeah, they were closed down in 2011 when THQ restructured and shed a lot of their less profitable studios in a desperate attempt to avoid going bust.
hehe I know they closed down.. I was more questioning the use of the word shuttering.. doesn’t seem like proper english to me!
I think it’s a weird Australian English thing, because yeah, technically shuttering is temporary structures made from planks, but I’ve seen the word used that way to describe a company shutting down forever many times so I guess it’s okay? Language is weird.
Huh, I thought this had already happened.
This is good stuff. De Blob was a really cute and fun game, so I’m happy it’ll be coming back again.
Still a shame about Blue Tongue, but at least this is a positive outcome.