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THQ Nordic acquires Kingdom Come Deliverance studio Warhorse and Australian distributor 18Point2

Date Type Companies involved Size
February 13th, 2019 acquisition THQ Nordic Not disclosed
THQ Nordic acquires Kingdom Come Deliverance studio Warhorse and Australian distributor 18Point2

Up-and-coming European games publisher THQ Nordic has made two further acquisitions.

First up, the firm has bought Warhorse Studios, the developer behind last year's Kingdom Come Deliverance. THQ Nordic shelled out €33.2m ($37.6m) for the Prague-based studio. To date, Kingdom Come Deliverance has sold two million copies.

This deal follows THQ Nordic's Koch Media subsidiary publishing the Kickstarter medieval title, a deal that was signed in 2016 - well before the German games firm became part of the THQ Nordic family.

”Warhorse Studios is one of the leading independent studios in Europe and I am proud to welcome them to the THQ Nordic group," CEO Lars Wingefors (pictured) said.

"Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which has now sold over two million copies, has been a great success since the release exactly one year ago. I look forward to continue working with the founders who will continue managing the studio under strong creative freedom for many years to come."

Warhorse chief Martin Frývalský added: “Becoming part of THQ Nordic family is an important milestone for our studio. We began as a small start-up with a handful of employees who were enthusiastic enough to join this challenging project. The skills of our team members, trust and support of our main investor and passion of our fans, who supported development of Kingdom Come: Deliverance through a Kickstarter campaign, helped us grow to an international level. We believe that backing by THQ Nordic will give us an extra push in our mission to bring exciting games to our customers and extend the frontiers of the gaming industry."

Secondly, Koch Media is set to acquire Australian distributor and publisher 18Point2. This is setting back the German firm €1.9m ($2.2m), plus an extra €410,000 ($464,000) based on performance.

The company - which operates in Australia and New Zealand - was set up in 2016 by Warner Bros vet Roger Clark and right now has the exclusive license to distribute games from that company in these regions.

While THQ Nordic already had distribution infrastructure of its own via Wingefors Game Outlet SE, the European firm has massively expanded this in the last year. The $196m acquisition of Koch Media gave the company a much greater distribution network. This deal provides a starting point for its business in the Oceania region, too.

”THQ Nordic and Koch Media will through the acquisition access an established platform on an exciting and growing market," Wingefors continued.

"We see great opportunities to establish us on a new market and through local engagement being able to offer the use of THQ Nordic’s global channels to Australian game developers. We look forward to working with Roger Clarke and his team."

19Point2 CEO Roger Clark commented: ”We look forward to, together with THQ Nordic and Koch Media, strengthen our position on the Australian and New Zealand markets. We believe that THQ Nordic’s and Koch Media’s experience will contribute to continued profitable growth for 18Point2 in the future."

These deals came as THQ Nordic reported its financial results for the last quarter. Wingefors said that 77 games in the works, 48 of which are yet to be announced. That's a considerable increase on the 20 unannounced projects revealed in August 2018

We caught up with Wingefors at Gamescom 2018 to discuss THQ Nordic's massive growth, what it is looking for in mergers and acquisitions and what the grand plan for the company was.

At the time, the company had around $316m in liquid cash to make such deals. Since then it has bought Goat Simulator firm Coffee Stain Studios, as well as Bugbear Studios, as well as IP including Kingdoms of Amalur, Alone in the Dark and Carmageddon. 


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.