There's no denying it's been a tough year for THQ. Job losses, poor performances and scaled back titles has shown nothing but a downward scope for a publisher whose only goal is to focus on core gaming.

Recently we reported that friend of the site, Danny Bilson, was let go from the firm as their core games boss, replaced with Naughty Dog co-Founder, Jason Rubin. However, Rubin's entry has already rocked the boat a little, with comments made recently to Polygon that he not only wants to grow THQ's flagship title, Saints Row, up, but that he's embarrassed by its potty humour and over-the-top adult themes.

"Why couldn't [Saints Row] be a Red Dead Redemption or a Skyrim?" Rubin asked said. "I look at that title and I say "who cares what it is and why it got to be what it is?" From that team we can make something that isn't embarrassing.

"It works for South Park, but I'm not sure it does elsewhere," he added. "I don't think [Volition] chose to do what they did because they had all of the options available to them. It was the environment at the time. I know I can change that."

Ironically, recent comments by THQ head, Brian Farrell, talks about how digital sales of content for Saints Row: The Third is part of the reason they're rebounding from "rock bottom".

"We're starting to pull out a little bit," he said of THQ's renewed focus. "Don't take my word for it, but if you look at our Q4 financial results, we look at that as a template for our future.

"We have high-quality games," he continued. "A lot of the upside came from the digital downloads coming from Saints Row: The Third. So you ship a successful game, and the follow-on digital revenue is really strong. We had great cash flow as the result of those two things."

It'll be interesting to see how Rubin's focus on the company maintains against its traditional, and clearly proven strides with a game like Saints Row: The Third, but one thing's for sure, they definitely need some form of shake-up, and perhaps the Naughty Dog co-founder is the man to do it.

"Getting Jason Rubin was a huge win," Farrell said. "He is a smart, creative, but disciplined guy who has a vision to do even better on the core side. We also share a vision for where the industry is going and where the core business is going on a digital level. I'm personally re-energised. I think a lot of the company is too."