Fantasy Flight Games Discontinuing RPGs?

Back in January, it emerged that FFG was laying off a lot of staff, including RPG staff. Now, GM Chris over at d20 Radio is reporting that the company is discontinuing all RPG development, including Star Wars, Legend of the Five Rings, and its relatively newer Genesys universal system.

He says that all currently announced products will be produced, but in the long-term the RPG production is ending. There's some speculation regarding sales of companies to each other (FFG's owner is Asmodee, which is owned by PAI Partners who bought it from Eurazeo), but it's only conjecture. More info at the link below!

Fantasy Flight Games Long Term Plan will Discontinue RPG Development - d20 Radio

This article is a follow-up to a prior article published on January 8, 2020. We at d20Radio are sad to announce that we have independently confirmed [...]

www.d20radio.com

FFG's Katrina Ostrander appears to have confirmed the news:


Back in January, FFG laid off over 14 staff, and shut down Fantasy Flight Interactive. Reports were that the tabletop RPG department had been "shuttered" -- reduced to a couple of full timers. It sounds now like the cut is more severe even than that.

 

[dragoner]

Eurazeo began searching for a potential buyer for Asmodée in early 2018, and announced by July 2018 that it was selling the company to another French private equity firm, PAI Partners at a price of about €1.2 billion.

Probably closing, or selling off subsidiary companies that don't meet the target profitability marks, in order to raise the portfolio/fund values.

 

[Undrave]

The license definitely would come with pre-set limits as to what time frames etc it could cover. The days of wide open West End Games style Star Wars RPG production, where they were able to invent tons of lore, are far behind us.

Yeah but even the SAGA system had Old Republic stuff and the Yuuzhan Vong. I wonder if a Disney RPG would even have Ewoks...

Most of Disney's auxiliary stuff has been pretty pedestrian and lacking in any sort of impactful stories, too afraid of upsetting the mighty canon of The Brand.

 

[Morrus]

There's no current Marvel RPG despite Marvel currently being the biggest IP in the world. I hope that's not a sign that Disney isn't interested in licensing stuff for RPGs.

 

[eyeheartawk]

Most of Disney's auxiliary stuff has been pretty pedestrian and lacking in any sort of impactful stories, too afraid of upsetting the mighty canon of The Brand.

Speaking of #Brands maybe Wendy's will pick up the RPG license for Star Wars? Let's embrace our corporate overlords and welcome the dystopic future of our own making.

 

[eyeheartawk]

There's no current Marvel RPG despite Marvel currently being the biggest IP in the world. I hope that's not a sign that Disney isn't interested in licensing stuff for RPGs.

I remember seeing Cam Banks talk about this on G+ back when the announcement of Marvel Heroic ceasing publication came out to most everyone's surprise.

Basically Marvel doesn't understand why they make so little money in RPG licensing. They don't understand the size of the market and what is considered a good amount of money to be worth their time. It's not impossible to to imagine a future where a $100,000 RPG license that's valid for 5 or 10 years plus royalties isn't worth their time. Not when you're a giant multi-billion dollar entity and can find other, better more profitable things to have your licensing teams spend their time on.

 

[Morrus]

I remember seeing Cam Banks talk about this on G+ back when the announcement of Marvel Heroic ceasing publication came out to most everyone's surprise.

Basically Marvel doesn't understand why they make so little money in RPG licensing. They don't understand the size of the market and what is considered a good amount of money to be worth their time. It's not impossible to to imagine a future where $100,000 RPG license that's valid for 5 or 10 years plus royalties isn't worth their time. Not when you're a giant multi-billion dollar entity and can find other, better more profitable things to have your licensing teams spend their time on.

Yeah. I imagine a lunchbox makes way more than an RPG.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

It would be interesting to see if Paizo might try for the Star Wars licence. The owners are HUGE Star Wars fans and actually tried for it years ago. Heck, they could move it over to the Star Finder rules set ...

This was the first thing I thought as well; they'd be one of the few companies with the resources to do it, and it would be easy enough to build it on top of a modified Starfinder ruleset (preferably with a d20 to StarWarsFinder conversion appendix) - I'd buy that for a dollar. Or $50. Or $79.99 with sales tax.

 

[Umbran]

Star Wars would get picked up (though it's an EXPENSIVE license).

As a property, yes. But not FFG's game, in specific. If this is true, that game is very probably going away.

 

[Morrus]

As a property, yes. But not FFG's game, in specific. If this is true, that game is very probably going away.

We’re talking about the license, not how much it costs to play the game. Paizo could afford it, and maybe Modiohius.

 

[eyeheartawk]

We’re talking about the license, not how much it costs to play the game. Paizo could afford it, and maybe Modiohius.

I have my doubts about the actual long-term fiscal health of Modiphius. Outside of some big Kickstarters I don't see their books selling much in the actual market. And given the scattershot approach to publishing anything (they have, what, a dozen lines in various stages of activity, plus mediocre board games.) I'm inclined to think they're not liquid enough to really be in the running for something like this. Unless running dragonmeet one day a year really is more profitable than I thought.