THQ to close 5 studios, maybe more

A wildfire of reports have been released announcing that THQ will be closing up to five studios and will be making more cuts later this week, presumably today (November 5, 2008) during the company’s quarterly reports call.

Reasons for the giant blow are linked to dropping share values and internal problems, similar to that of Electronic Arts.

Gamasutra first reported THQ’s problems with the closing of Dallas based Paradigm Entertainment, developers of Stuntman: Ignition. Develop reported that UK based Juice Games, developers of the Juiced racing series, will lose a third of it’s staff but remain alive. Joystiq also noted that THQ will be going from 16 studios to 11 with Helixe Games, Locomotive Games, Mass Media, Sandblast Games, and Paradigm shutting down.

These are hard times for a lot of industries and it looks like the gaming industry is not as bulletproof as previously thought. Hopefully, Wednesday’s call will have better news than we are reporting, but our well wishes go out to those who do lose their jobs.

Read [Gamasutra] Also [Develop] Also [Joystiq] Also [GamerTell]