MGP19 MotoGP Developers Milestone Aquired by THQ Nordic/Koch Media

[Paul Jeffrey]

Italian racing game developers Milestone have been acquired by the ever expanding THQ Nordic / Koch Media group.

Announced earlier today, the acquisition of Milestone s.r.l by THQ Nordic / Koch Media is a major boost for the long standing Italian development team, adding welcome funds and resources to the studio as they look to build upon their expanding officially licenced racing game franchises - including such titles as the official MotoGP championship game, MXGP and of course their own RIDE series of releases.

“Becoming a part of the Koch Media Family is an important step for our studio. Being run as a family business, which is built on the enthusiasm of its team members and centred around racing games, we are delighted to bring our expertise and knowledge into the company group and strive from the experience and knowledge outside of our core DNA. We are sure that the combination of our experiences will strengthen our position in our market segment and help us to bring more exciting games to our fans and extend the frontiers of racing within the gaming industry,“ says Luisa Bixio, Vice President Milestone s.r.l.
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Primarily known for their bike racing titles in recent years, Milestone have progressively brought bigger and better games to the marketplace since forming under their previous name of Grafitti, back in 1994. Earlier this year their latest release, MotoGP 19, is widely regarded as one of their best racing games to-date, featuring some impressive graphics and a first introduction of Neural AI in a publicly available racing game on home PC and console.

Of course MotoGP 19 isn't without its own issues, but the progressive improvements shown by the franchise continue in an upward trend, something that should be accelerated in future years by the new arrangement with THQ Nordic and Koch Media.

With the studio now in the same family group as Wreckfest, it will be interesting to see what new IP and projects are developed in the coming years...

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[RKip455]

I'd say this is bad for us Bike gamers... They've totally screwed up the other games they've been associated with.

 

[Burke Wells]

I'd say this is bad for us Bike gamers... They've totally screwed up the other games they've been associated with.

I'd say this might be great for bike gamers... Because THQ Nordic also acquired Bugbear and now Wreckfest is a freakin' awesome game.

 

[Jugulador]

I'd say this is bad for us Bike gamers... They've totally screwed up the other games they've been associated with.

Milestone was a total mess. They can't go worst, but some organization may serve them well.

 

[rosgillies]

Whoops, did I get something wrong here?

Yep, you had an opinion. Like throwing gas on a fire.

 

[Andy_J]

Yep, you had an opinion. Like throwing gas on a fire.

So him stating "who cares" is an opinion? Nope he acted like a troll. And he got zapped.

 

[TylerDurden4321]

Koch Media are amoral scum or at least they used to be... can't have changed that much in one decade though, so I'll stick to "are scum" for now. Already hated that Codemasters deals with them.

 

[turbo86]

As long as they don't interfere too much with development,it's great news. I'm enjoying quite a lot of their games. I think it's one of the few publishers who actually cares about the quality of the product. Just my opinion based on my gaming experience.Milestone was rather messy on the product finish quality so THQ might improve things.

 

[Troy Barman]

Milestone to me has a reputation of half assed efforts after release not fixing bugs and just releasing as is. Hopefully this might put them on a better path.

 

[Rob Every]

Is that not the same with pretty much any dev though, they are under so much pressure most games get released with massive bugs and issues.

Milestone have released scored of games over the years, and most of them are arcadey style series tie ups, some good some awful, none are sims but most console players don't care.

 

[MarkR]

On the upside THQ nordic did wonders in getting Wreckfest improved and in a releasable state.

On the downside, we used to play a lot of Moto GP06 back in the day and it included a fun commentator mode - way ahead of its time and the sort of thing that has only recently come good over the past few years. I sent them a nice feedback email saying we were enjoying the game and was there any chance of including lap times on the commentator's screen. The sort of comments that can be found in many forms and steam threads today. To my surprise, I received a letter from their legal department telling me not to send them unsolicited ideas, they would not pay me if they included the idea in future and reminding me I could face a legal claim if I now used the idea myself - why they thought I had any ability to use the idea is beyond me!

 

[AyrtJ97]

I used to hate their games (well, hate may be a little enough, let's say I didn't enjoy them). But since the first Ride, I think they have been improving a lot in game development (it could be better, of course). I hope the extra money THQ can put into it means even better games. If something like what happened to Wreckfest is anything to look for, it's good news I think.

 

[Helmut Skrdla]

Milestone to me has a reputation of half assed efforts after release not fixing bugs and just releasing as is. Hopefully this might put them on a better path.

For the most recent MotoGP title they released about four updates/patches. It's true that their quality is not perfectly Triple-A, but MotoGP19 really includes a ton of content (current season, feeder series and historic riders/tracks), a few nifty features that some other games don't actually have, and an all-around satisfying simcade-race experience. IMHO they are currently where Codemasters was with the early iterations of their F1 series, so they are not longer in the "budget title meh" category.

Let's see if THQ brings them to GOG.com.

 

[MattyH1812]

Wait so, the company that used to publish MotoGP games, has purchased the company that currently publishes MotoGP games? Erm, what?

 

[AyrtJ97]

Wait so, the company that used to publish MotoGP games, has purchased the company that currently publishes MotoGP games? Erm, what?

Maybe cheaper than buying the MotoGP license itself

 

[Troy Barman]

For the most recent MotoGP title they released about four updates/patches. It's true that their quality is not perfectly Triple-A, but MotoGP19 really includes a ton of content (current season, feeder series and historic riders/tracks), a few nifty features that some other games don't actually have, and an all-around satisfying simcade-race experience. IMHO they are currently where Codemasters was with the early iterations of their F1 series, so they are not longer in the "budget title meh" category.

Let's see if THQ brings them to GOG.com.

I played 13, 17, and 18 and I thought 17 was actually one of the better ones but I had a garage bug that ruined my career mode which really sucked.

I know milestone is not AAA and they do release niche market games but they couple be so much better with some more polish on the AI for instance. I really liked V8 Superstars, just a shame the AI sucked.