THQ Wins Juiced Bidding War

THQ has won the rights to publish highly anticipated racing game Juiced, with a federal judge approving a tentative agreement to allow the bankrupt Acclaim Entertainment to sell the rights. The same judge turned down a request to make a bid from Electronic Arts, telling them that they had missed the stated deadline to do so. The deal made by THQ is reputed to be worth up to $10.5 million. This is $500,000 more than the company originally intended, after rival publisher Take-Two bid placed an earlier bid for $10 million. Under the THQ deal, $4.5 million will go to Scottish-based Fund4Games, which part-financed the development of the game, and the rest to Acclaim’s other creditors. However, officials from Fund4Games claim that since the organization never previously received any payment from Acclaim, they should be entitled to the game’s royalties as well. The objection was also made that other companies should be given more time to review the game and make competing bids. THQ officials have indicated that they will not release the game before Christmas, claiming that they will continue to develop the game in an effort to eliminate some unnamed “technical problems”.