THQ nearly signed Respawn, but IP ownership was a deal-breaker
THQ vice president Danny Bilson recently told Wired about a potentially powerful, but ultimately thwarted partnership the company sought early last year, with ex-Infinity Ward heads Vince Zampella and Jason West's new ensemble, Respawn Entertainment. According to Bilson, the deal almost went through, though one point in the THQ contract was a deal-breaker for the young developer: Respawn wanted ownership of any IP it created while in the publisher's employ.
"My responsibility to our stockholders and to my CEO and the company is to build an IP library," Bilson explained, adding that granting their request would "open the doors for everyone else to say, 'I wanna own it too.'". Zampella corroborated Bilson's story, explaining, "As for the IP ownership, frankly, after what we'd just been through with Activision, owning the IP we were going to create was important to us." We can't possibly imagine why.
