Farrell: THQ Cautious On Acquisition Route

A new interview with THQ CEO Brian Farrell, reveals that the company may not be seeking to emulate recent acquisition moves by Electronic Arts and others, as Farrell admits the company is looking at developers - but insists that the company can grow without them. Speaking to news agency Reuters, Farrell commented, "We are seeing some opportunities in the marketplace given the two transactions going on" (referring to Electronic Arts’ attempted hostile takeover over Take-Two Interactive, and the merger between Activision and Vivendi Games.) "It's going to create some opportunities because we are actively looking at every developer, every license out there and with our size now we can be more aggressive than larger, slower firms," said Farrell. The company recently announced the acquisition of casual games developers Elephant Entertainment, and acquired Rise of Nations developer Big Huge Games in January. Also in January, the company signaled a major realignment of its franchises, with the retirement of the Juiced and Stuntman brands and the closure of internal developer Concrete Games. However, when asked whether the company was looking to buy other smaller developers or larger publicly listed firms, Farrell indicated that “M&A [mergers and acquisitions] is not a required or necessary thing in order to grow”.