FFG Star Wars & Other Roleplaying Games Aren't Going Away After All

A couple of weeks ago rumours surfaced that Fantasy Flight Games‘ Star Wars and other RPGs were going away permanently (this followed earlier reports of layoffs at the company). It looks like this is quite not the case, however -- instead, according to a presentation they did at the GAMA trade show this week, they'll simply be moving to owner Asmodee's imprint Edge Entertainment. So, Star Wars, Genesys, and L5R are safe!

Asmodee, the owner of FFG, already owns the company called Edge Entertainment based in Europe. This company will continue to print the existing RPG books, and produce new ones. Asmodee acquired the Spanish company in January 2017, which is known for its translations of tabletop RPGs.

photo from I'm Board! Games & Family Fun Facebook page ​

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

Yay, Reprints.

 

[RSIxidor]

I don't want to see the (FFG SW RPG) system go, but I think the system is pretty tapped out on a supplement level. I also think Star Wars has orders of magnitude larger base of products that SW GM's can and do use, which impacts sales: The movies, the novels, the EU, the sourcebooks, the past RPGs, cartoons, etc. The bookshelves are filled at local stores- Walmart, Target, B&N, etc. Star Wars is everywhere and has been for a long time. Heck the D6 community is still pretty active online- so much so that FFG re-released the original game (competition to their own system). And the FFG system is pretty easy to re-skin and stat up all the tech and creatures.

I wouldn't get my hopes up much for many (if any) SW RPG products coming out until the license goes elsewhere.

As long as Disney keeps making new Star Wars content, there's more room to make supplements for. All the High Republic stuff coming this year, more TV series, eventual movies in a few years (there's still one on their slate for 2022 or 2023). We might not get anything for awhile but I could see something next year around the High Republic stuff.

Generally speaking, I'm really starting to dislike Asmodee.

 

[Cergorach]

Edge Entertainment has a long history with FFG, they have done many of the French/Spanish translations/publishing for FFG products, and in turn FFG did the English translations/publishing of the Anima games. So there already was a strong relationship before the buyouts by Asmodee.

EE does have experience in making their own RPG(s), but they are far and few between (Anima being the one that is most well known). EE is only 4 years younger then FFG. Imho translating RPGs is a lot closer to making your own RPGs then compared to say... Making boardgames is related to RPGs, FFGs origin... A lot of writing, art, and rules development is outsourced to freelancers by most, but the largest publishers. I suspect that this will happen here as well. Most of what we now call 'top' tier writers/developers started as freelancers one way or another. How consistent were the writers across the FFG SW books? I know that across the D20 books it wasn't.

As others have mentioned, I don't expect a lot of core products for these lines, unless FFG renews the SW license. Which I really doubt... X-wing 2E lost a LOT of players, the secondary market is full of great deals of 1E ships with 2E upgrades. Destiny and Imperial Assault were killed, the LCG, Rebellion and Outer RIm haven't had expansions in a long time. That pretty much leaves Legion, Armada, and X-wing 2E as product lines... FFG has a history of dropping IPs when they don't perform like they should. Moving the RPGs to EE does keep them on life support.

Genesys and Lot5R RPGs might suffer the same fate, life support, support... ;-)

Personally I think that liking or disliking companies is a foolish endeavor. They tend to change employees, owners, etc. Instead like or dislike individual products, because even if the previous ones were good, there is no guarantee the next ones will be as good...

 

[Von Ether]

See my post above. If they focused on new sourcebooks that combined a location, species, enemies, NPCs, creatures, gear, + a full adventure in said location, they would still have ideas for years to come, even if they only published 2-3 books per year. No rules bloat, just more content, and it would appeal to both players and GMs.

That sounds good at the start of it, but once you wrap up the famous planets, your future sales would taper off dramatically into a smaller but more hard core group. And the challenge will be trying to keep the "new but was always there" planets fresh. We would already have two jungle planets (Endor and Kashyyyk) and two desert planets (Tatooine and Jakku), coming up with the third and fourth ones will be a bit trickier without a call back.

OTH, doing the WotC thing of 3 books a year would draw that out for a time. The question is the famous "If you can keep 1,000 fans happy, can you make a profit?"

If the RPG company isn't a corporate sub-sub division, then the answer is closer to yes. Ask Catalyst Games how it's been working for them and Battletech. (Not a rhetorical question, this has been their strategy for a while.)

 

[RSIxidor]

As others have mentioned, I don't expect a lot of core products for these lines, unless FFG renews the SW license. Which I really doubt... X-wing 2E lost a LOT of players, the secondary market is full of great deals of 1E ships with 2E upgrades. Destiny and Imperial Assault were killed, the LCG, Rebellion and Outer RIm haven't had expansions in a long time. That pretty much leaves Legion, Armada, and X-wing 2E as product lines... FFG has a history of dropping IPs when they don't perform like they should. Moving the RPGs to EE does keep them on life support.

I don't think the Star Wars license will leave Asmodee as long as they can hold it. It's a license that can make money if the right product is put behind it.

While XWTMG2 isn't performing the same as XWTMG1 did (where it once was beating WH40K) it was still in the top 5 non-collectible mini games on ICV2 last fall. FFG currently pushing Legion quite a bit, and it was in the 4th spot of the top 5 ahead of XWTMG2. Armada seems to be on the backburner for now, assuming we ever see more of it.

I suppose I could see them only continuing the "miniature game" part of their license and letting the RPG and card game portions go. Or we might finally see a cooperative Star Wars LCG in a year or two following Marvel Champions.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Maybe there is SW by FFG for some years, but later it will be by WotC. Now Hasbro and Disney have got a good relation. WotC would like a d20 SW someday, but not yet, the new d20 isn't ready yet for the sci-fi with high-tech.

Maybe I am being too daredevil to say it, but I wouldn't be too surprised in Hasbro buys Asmodee someday.

 

[ActiveNick]

Maybe there is SW by FFG for some years, but later it will be by WotC. Now Hasbro and Disney have got a good relation. WotC would like a d20 SW someday, but not yet, the new d20 isn't ready yet for the sci-fi with high-tech.

Maybe I am being too daredevil to say it, but I wouldn't be too surprised in Hasbro buys Asmodee someday.

Ugh, I know you may be right, but I hope not. I'm so tired of seeing the super limited d20 system used everywhere, especially considering how shallow D&D 5E is. That said, buying Asmodee would do very little since the Star Wars license is bound to expire and require a renewal soon. And since WotC seems to prefer very few but lucrative product lines, I don't see Hasbro buying Asmodee.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Asmodee has got a lot of own franchises and board games. We aren't talking about only RPGs. It could be a serious rival for Hasbro, and remember this has bought some companies in the past, for example MB or Parker if my memory doesn't fail.

 

[Bluenose]

And then there's the matter of the relationship with the Star Wars IP owners at Disney/LFL. Star Wars is not an easy IP to manage. Do they still have the people who managed this relationship? Do they have the right credentials to get the IP license renewed when it expires?

The RPG was pretty incidental to FFG compared to the various miniatures games (X-wing in particular) and those are still with FFG. I expect the managers who arranged that have been kept on, though it's possible Asmodee have made some changes.

 

[smcc360]

Edge Enternaimet… has published some own titles, for example "Anima: Beyond Fantasy", or the corebook of a fantasy far west "Steam States".

Any word on an English translation of Steam States ? It looks really cool.