Bidding War on the Horizon between EA and THQ?

Six months ago the MMA videogame wars were heating up to a boil. Zuffa officials promised to permanently ban any fighter involved with the Electronic Arts game from the UFC. Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta also took verbal shots at EA saying that the company had previously snubbed the UFC while EA Sports' Peter Moore responded in a cool professional manner.

Fast forwarded a few months and what was looking like a full on declaration of war has cooled down to a simple border conflict. UFC officials haven't taken any recent shots at EA for some time. Then there is the fact that THQ's second iteration of UFC Undisputed is set to release in May of 2010 while EA's first MMA game won't be out until September 2010. All is quiet of the videogame front.

But Dave Meltzer brings us some potential game changing news (via MMA Payout)

What will become interesting is that the THQ license for UFC expires next year and EA MMA will not sell close to UFC numbers, and EA hates to be second place in any genre. Even though Dana White has dissed EA in the past because people running the company at one point told White they had no interest in MMA, those in the industry believe EA, if the new game doesn’t do well, will make a big offer for the UFC license.

WKR wrote about a similar scenario back when White and Fertitta were lobbing verbal grenades at EA.

Whatever one thinks of the ethics or legitimacy of the UFC's response to a rival video game it is particularly strange considering THQ, the publisher with the UFC license, was on the verge of bankruptcy six months ago. While THQ has rebounded nicely it doesn't mean that the company is out of financial trouble. It is more than likely that in the future EA could offer an extremely lucrative deal to the UFC, akin to what they did with the NFL license. Why is the UFC making enemies with a video game publisher who could be a potential business partner in the future?

THQ simply doesn't have the resources to compete with Electronic Arts if they offer a max bid for the UFC license (think of it like Fox competing with ESPN over the rights to the BCS). If EA Sports wants the UFC license they will over bid for it and THQ will be left in the lurch.

Nine months ago THQ was facing a 50% chance of bankruptcy but after cutting 24% of their work force, $240 million in operating costs and the well timed hit of UFC Undisputed, THQ emerged from the abyss. But they still lost $431 million in the 2009 fiscal year. So even if THQ won a potential bidding war they may not be the most stable videogame publisher out there. It isn't hard to imagine a scenario where the UFC license is up for sale again in the near future, which was the whole reason why WKR thought it was a horrible idea for Zuffa officials to attempt to drag EA through the mud.