A company can only hid behind the "strategic restructuring" line for so long before the truth shines through. In the case of publisher THQ, who recently faced rumours of financial woes and a desire to be bought up by someone, somewhere, with lots of money, by denying there were any issues at all, has allegedly let go of some 170+ staff, globally, Australia notwithstanding (sorry to see you go, bro).

Obviously companies have every right to micro-manage staff and resources, but as MCV UK reported this week, the publisher has been threatened with a NASDAQ de-listing if their stock doesn't rise above $1 by July 23, and for more than 30 days THQ's stock has been below the required minimum $1 to maintain a listing.

All this news also follows the closure of two Australian-based development studios, and one US-based studio as the publisher reportedly decided to focus on a company-wide "realignment" that also included "shifts to reduce movie-based and licensed kids’ video games in our portfolio".

There's a lot riding internally though, from a creative point-of-view, on THQ's continued liveliness, including the recently AusGamers-visited Darksiders II, the next instalment in the Homefront franchise, as being developed by Crytek UK (formerly Free Radical), a South Park RPG being developed by Obsidian and headed up by South Park creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, an unannounced project from their upstart Montreal studio headed up by Assassin's Creed co-creator, Petrice Desilets, a new unannounced title from the original Left 4 Dead team, Turtle Rock, a Warhammer 40K-based MMO being helmed by Vigil Games, a sandbox horror game called InSane from film director, Guillermo del Toro working with Saints Row Developer Volition and Devil's Third from Ninja Gaiden legend Tomonobu Itagaiki and Dawn of War 3 at Relic. Not to mention the publisher's long-standing alignment with both the WWE and UFC...

What happens next is really anyone's guess. Stay tuned for more as we have it.