THQ's Digital Business Is Growing, But There's A Lot Of Work To Be Done

THQ's digital revenues were up substantially during its recently-concluded Q2, but with the bulk coming from just one game, the company still has a long way to go. That's according to company CEO Brian Farrell, who told investors in a Gamasutra-attended conference call on Wednesday that growing its digital business is a key motivator for the company at present. "We're not where we need to be yet, but it is a major focus of the team," he said. "We're pleased with the growth, but we still have a lot of work to do." While the company does not disclose the particulars of its digital business, it did say that digital revenues were up 68 percent year-on-year for the quarter ending September 30. Farrell revealed during a Q&A session that a "fair amount" of those revenues came from digital sales Warhammer 40K: Space Marine, and that social and mobile games "were probably less than a few million in the quarter." In addition to its upcoming social game initiative Margaritaville, the company also plans a long line of downloadable content for the upcoming Saints Row The Third and titles on both the Xbox Live and PlayStation Network platforms. As for creating its own digital platform, along the lines of EA's Origin, Farrell says that's not in the cards. "We have no current intentions to build out a distribution platform," he said, saying that the company is happy to distribute its games across whatever platforms its players might be, even if that platform is run by the competition. "Our point of view is wherever our consumer is, we want to get to them," he said.