Ken Burnside on how screwed Asmodee is

[humble minion]

I can see when it goes bankrupt eventually Hasbro/WotC scooping up choice IP for cheap.

Settlers of Faerun, coming to a game store near you?

 

[Anon Adderlan]

Are you shaming Ken for sharing his expertise on Facebook? I’m not sure I’d blame him for the forum here not being able handle a copied link from a FB post.

Not exactly, but yes. #Facebook is where information goes to die.

Don't get me wrong. I appreciate they shared their expertise at all. But what use is it if it cannot be found without following the person directly on a specific social media platform that deliberately makes search difficult?

I can see when it goes bankrupt eventually Hasbro/WotC scooping up choice IP for cheap.

#Hasbro is far more likely to have their IP bought than buying more at this point, which likely means being bought outright.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What a difference a year makes: Asmodee becomes the exclusive tabletop games category manager to Middle-earth Enterprises, home to iconic The Lord of the Rings™ and The Hobbit™ IPs

I suspect the end of Free League's The One Ring and Middle Earth Roleplaying Game may be near.

 

[kronovan]

The moment I read that Asmodee acquired FFG, I had a gut feeling it was going to end in a cluster-f%$@. It was mostly their FFG and Days of Wonder games that I own. I'm not surprised by the news they witheld the republishing of some TTRPGs and board games. I'd noticed for a while that some of their big hitters that sold well in LGSs, like the Arkham Horror LCG and the Rune series of games were drying up. I mean at one time, the expansions for Arkham Horror LCG and Descent Journeys in the Dark were getting snatched up from LGS shelves almost as fast as they could be stocked.

So disappointing that financial mismanagement and shenanigans have killed the availability of some good game series. TBH it's a bit emotional for me - I remember many hours of enjoyment playing games like Battlelore, Catan, Elder Sign, Star Wars X-Wing , LotR the Confrontation & LotR Trivia with my kids when they were young. I'd wish for other families to have a chance to experience the same enjoyment. I'm guessing such sentimentalies are far from the conscience of the ass-hat Execs who now control the fate of those games.

 

[dbm]

What a difference a year makes: Asmodee becomes the exclusive tabletop games category manager to Middle-earth Enterprises, home to iconic The Lord of the Rings™ and The Hobbit™ IPs

I suspect the end of Free League's The One Ring and Middle Earth Roleplaying Game may be near.

To mis-quote Inigo Montoya - I don’t think that post means what you think it means.

I think it just means they are taking over brand management on behalf of MEE. The post states all the existing licenses remain in place.

Also - The One Ring isn’t Free League’s game, they just publish it. Same with Cubical 7. The game license belongs to Sophisticated Games. So a ‘worst case scenario‘ from this development would probably mean Asmodee taking on the publishing of the game; the game could still continue though the trade dress would probably change.

There is also a scenario where another TTRPG company takes over the license, but that was always true.

 

[dbm]

Also - this is probably a net-good for Asmodee as company. It sounds to me like they are leveraging their expertise on brand management, providing a service to MEE for some kind of service charge or commission. This would probably be a whole new revenue stream for Asmodee and help get them out of their financial hole, and it doesn’t pull on their resources for creating other board games.

The new expansion for TI4 is about to drop as well so that will be a cash injection too.

 

[Aldarc]

I don't think people are worried about whether this is good for Asmodee or not. But Asmodee doesn't exactly have a stellar reputation when it comes to TTRPGs.

 

[dbm]

I’m a board gamer too, so the overall health of the company is of interest to me.
[Edit for context - the post I was responding to is gone]

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Wow.


As in $2.1 billion? That's a lot of debt, investment, whatever to handle.
And the game company received all of the debt when that deal fell through?
It amazes me that it's legal to move debt around like that, but I'm not in that field.

I'll have to check the LFGS to see if there are Asmodee published games that I particularly want that I'm missing. Reprints probably aren't happening anytime soon.

I know this is a super old post, but the number was $2.1 million, not billion i.e. $2,100 million is not $2.1 billion. A pretty large chunk of the globe uses commas instead of periods as a decimal marker.

 

[mamba]

I know this is a super old post, but the number was $2.1 million, not billion i.e. $2,100 million is not $2.1 billion. A pretty large chunk of the globe uses commas instead of periods as a decimal marker.

um, no, it is 2.1 Billion, the Saudi Fund does not deal in single digit millions, and even if they did, that would be reported as 2.1 (or 2,1) million, not 2,100… Google also verifies that it were 2 Billion

Saudi group reportedly abandoned $2 billion deal with the Lord of the Rings game company

The Saudi government has been moving into gaming.

www.theverge.com

Embracer Group - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

“After a US$2 billion investment unexpectedly fell through, the company was more than $2 billion in debt”