South Park Studios Attempts to Block THQ Sale of Stick of Truth

THQ is bankrupt, that much is known. It will be sold off in pieces at auction, property-by-property, with each game, studio, and franchise being hand-selected and adopted like orphans by other motherly-fatherly publishers. Within that pile of assets is Obsidian’s South Park RPG, South Park: The Stick of Truth, which South Park Digital Studios wants blocked off from sale.

Originally spotted by the folks at NeoGAF, the owners of South Park put in a filing at the United States Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, objecting to THQ’s sale of the game along with its other titles. THQ, conversely, claims it has every right to auction it off.

South Park Studios believes it should be able to buy back the rights to the game and shop it out to another publisher without the interfering of THQ, whereas THQ, as mentioned before, sees it as another one of its assets up for bidding.

In simplified legal terms, South Park Studios cites a portion of the original publisher contract with THQ from June 2011, which stated that “all elements of the game and related products” can be acquired on THQ’s dime in the event that the publisher breaches contract. They claim that it simply cannot be sold off to another publisher willy-nilly.

THQ, again, on the other side of the fence, cites a clause in the original contract that has since been removed from public documentation.

What does this mean for the game? Well, no one can really know for sure. But THQ says “it will continue to work toward a consensual resolution of the Objection prior to the Sale Hearing.”

Take that as you will, but it seems pretty clear that South Park: The Stick of Truth might not hit its March 5, 2013 release date.

[Source: NeoGAF via GameSpot]