Hey allihopa! THQ Nordic übernimmt Koch Media

THQ Nordic's acquisition of Koch Media, announced in February 2018, is the central news item: the Swedish publisher is taking over the South German-Austrian games, film, and software distributor in a transaction valued at 121 million euros. The article, published by Gamecity Hamburg, frames the deal through its relevance to the Hamburg games industry rather than as a purely financial story.

No negative changes are expected for the parties involved in the near term. The principal locations are to remain in place: Vienna for THQ Nordic GmbH, and Planegg near Munich for Koch Media and its games subsidiary Deep Silver.

The Hamburg connection is Deep Silver Fishlabs, the mobile developer behind Galaxy on Fire, which has belonged to Koch Media since late 2013 and now falls under THQ Nordic. THQ Nordic is itself a Swedish company, formed in 2016 from the publisher Nordic Games of Karlstad in western Sweden. Fishlabs thus gains Swedish parent ownership.

The piece places this in a wider pattern of Scandinavian investment in Hamburg studios. Modern Times Group, operator of Dreamhack and majority owner of ESL, holds a 35 percent stake in InnoGames (Forge of Empires). Goodgame Studios (Goodgame Empire) belongs to the Stockholm-based Stillfront Group, which also owns Hamburg's Bytro Labs (Call of War). The article closes with a light remark that Swedish investors may yet discover how many other attractive studios Hamburg offers.

Coverage is limited to Germany, Austria, and Sweden, with a focus on the 2013 to 2018 period. The article is a short news commentary and does not describe methodology or provide data beyond the deal value and ownership stake.