Leading up to the March 15 release of THQ's Homefront, questions came all over the gaming realm of what the game was, and whether it could compete with the likes of Call of Duty. Touting a compelling multiplayer component, the game received the highest pre-order count in the history of THQ, over one million units sold. An impressive feat for a new franchise. Although review scores varied greatly, Homefront still managed to transcend the stigma of a new IP. Kaos' previous game, Frontline: Fuel of War was released under similar circumstances.

And now the studio is gone. THQ worked the developers to the bone, stressing Homefront be released before the end of the fiscal year. Six, often seven days a week these developers worked, barely given a personal life or time with family. The publisher has now re-purposed many of the developers, offering them a job at THQ Montreal (quite the distance from Kaos' New York headquarters) or find employment elsewhere. It's sad, but thus is the nature of game development these days; an unfortunate side effect of bigger budgets and stricter release dates.

What THQ has done is entirely reprehensible, seeing these people as pieces of meat rather than individuals. They give the publisher a record-breaking product and get shafted as compensation. I've never met any developers from Kaos personally, but I'm sure many of them would prefer to still be employed. Moving locations wouldn't be too bad if these poor people were moving anywhere else, but Quebec is a lot different from New York. Different language, different culture, different country, and a place where English-speaking folk are usually shunned. Not all communities in Quebec are like this, to be fair, but a percentage of Quebecois do feel this way, and the situation could get hairy for the developers' families.

With the release of Homefront, many anticipated THQ would become a top-tier publisher in the next five years. The first-person shooter market is overcrowded and innovation is often overshadowed by the mess of modern combat simulators. Before the closing, Homefront gave THQ the chance to penetrate the oversaturated genre with a unique and more heartfelt look at the brutalities of warfare. They have now lost that prime opportunity because gamers will refuse to buy any sequel out of protest.

This closing leads to a dilemma currently plaguing the industry: as publishers rush to get top titles out on the marketplace faster, studios full of hardworking people are tossed around like garbage. The displacement of the fine people at Kaos is over money. Even better, taxes. Quebec has always been buddy-buddy with the game development scene, and cities like Montreal have become hotbeds for business because of friendly tax codes. Aspiring game developers generally are unaware of the circumstances revolving around how vicious publishers can be, and they get caught off-guard. It's the nature of the business these days, something that won't be changing for a while, and this trend has partly led to prominent talent getting into social and mobile game development instead.

Many of the developers will move to Quebec because no other options present themselves. Another difficulty of gaming development: jobs are few. And while the industry gets even bigger, more publishers will continue this. Oh, profiteering; how doth we command you?