FFG and Star Wars

[ninjillyParticipant 11673xp 0]

I was in my local GW yesterday buying some new paints for the Clone Wars starter box that’s arriving this week and got chatting to the manager (?). He said something along the lines of buy everything you can of that because FFG just lost the Star Wars license. He then went on to talk about how much GW have wanted to drop the LOTR license for years but were threatened by Weta for breach of contract and that the only reason they still do the game. That’s also apparently the reason that GW didn’t take the Star Wars license. I think it sounds like a lot of garbage (everyone has been doomsaying about FFG and Star Wars for years) but has anyone heard anything?

[sundancer 42596xp 3]

If FFG would have lost the licence they a) wouldn’t keep promoting stuff that isn’t out yet and b) Disney would sure as hell had a press release ready.

Sounds to me like someone is loosing customers and is trying to spread fear.

[ninjillyParticipant 11673xp 1]

Yeah, it sounded like someone just talking crap. What was funny was he opened with “people think we’ll be upset if they tell us they are painting other games” when I said I was working on Legion.

Just made me a little sad too though, I’ve sung the praises of that store as being a really nice bunch of people but this one interaction sounded more like things other people have told me over the last few months.

[divineauthority 528xp 2]

Sounds like somebody who has just heard rumblings after Destiny and Imperial Assault got dropped but probably isn’t interested enough in the game to actually check out what’s going on. Confused hearsay, to give them the benefit of the doubt.

[captainventanusParticipant 4776xp 0]

That’s not quite true about LOTR either. They didn’t support it much for years and nothing really happened. And now its getting far more support than just fulfilling contractual obligations.

Why would a GW shop worker know something that hasn’t spread like wildfire on the internet already? Never say never, but it seems a bit random.

[tacticalgenius 3815xp 0]

I heard that Amazon or Netflix or someone paid 250m USD$ for the license to make the next LOTR series.  Also was a commitment to spend 100m USD$ for 5 years.  It just may be that GW is getting ready for a surge that may soon be coming.

[fightcitymayorParticipant 2103xp 0]

Not to mention GW stand to make mountains of profit with their latest rebirth of the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game since all they’re really doing is re-releasing ~20 year old sprues.  It’s a great game, but 90% of what they sell for MESBG has already been released in past incarnations of the game, they’re just putting it back into steady availability with new boxes.

[slayerofworldsParticipant 3449xp 1]

Just go to the FFG site.   Half the stuff up there is currently Legion based articles.

This is just someone trying to start some bad rumors, or misunderstanding what games FFG has dropped lately.  That’s all.

[limburger 21535xp 2]

The rumours aren’t *that* weird when you consider (a) the delays of announced (legion)/Star wars products and (b) how the End of life for Destiny was announced … the rumour isn’t strange.

There’s stuff happening to Xwing that suggests they’re having a re-think at the least.

I doubt anyone at FFG is going to mention the loss of license, because that’d would kill the sale of existing stock (and I’m pretty sure they would rather sell than destroy … ).
Disney isn’t going to mention anything either, because that might interfere with marketing plans of any new licensee.

It is however fairly obvious that FFG/Asmodeus are restructuring and cutting costs where possible.

Whether or not this means they drop/cancel/lose the Star Wars license is unknown, because we don’t know the terms of that license and thus we don’t know if that is an option at all.

I suspect it also depends on how the Star Wars products are selling.
Negative rumours could create a death spiral (people stop buying based on rumours -> fewer profits -> fewer products made -> fewer customers -> …  -> the end) .

I’d argue that if they had lost the license and/or were dropping the license then they wouldn’t have announced new products after the recent delays.

 

[beccasParticipant 1146xp 0]

The only rumours I’ve seen on the internet with a grain of salt is Disney wants to buy the rights for X-Wing and Legion.

[horus500 11505xp 0]

I had heard that the RPG arm of FFG was finishing up and Star Wars is probably the biggest part of that. That was some time ago and I note they haven’t had much in the way on new releases for ages

[ninjillyParticipant 11673xp 0]

Yeah, that came up again recently with the layoffs at FFG. Looks like they have laid off all internal RPG development staff and will be using freelancers to finish existing projects. Given how awful their supply of the books has been and how few people seem to have gelled with the system, it’s not much of a surprise it wasn’t profitable.

[limburger 21535xp 0]

It doesn’t help that there have been several Star Wars RPG variants since the dawn of time.
I kind of hope that Modiphius gets the license, because the 2D20 system is made for the kind of space opera adventures that happen within the Star Wars universe.

As for using freelancers … it wouldn’t be the only RPG publisher doing that. It kind of makes sense, because once you’ve got the core rules there is no need for keeping a ton of writers on the payroll. All you really need is an editor/product owner who checks for consistency of the additional content created by freelancers.

[koraskiParticipant 1981xp 1]

Pick up the FFG reprint of the original SW RPG if you can. It’s still the best in my opinion. I liked the FFG starwars RPG books for the most part but the rules just didn’t work for me. If I ever go backa nd run another SW RPG I’ll certainly be using the classic rules and then just “borrow” the FFG source books and adventures and convert them as I go. The old system is super easy to improvise with so it isn’t a lot of book keeping to convert stuff.

[ninjillyParticipant 11673xp 0]

@koraski yeah, that’s pretty much how I feel about the line. The splat books were lovely but the system itself I’m not a fan of. Mirrors how I feel about quite a lot of FFG products, great quality but the system mechanics often don’t work to my tastes.

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