GW and FFG Breaking Up?

Michael Barnes wrote: GW makes all of their stuff in the UK. Paints are all non-toxic. I am willing to pay a premium for NOT made in China. The difference is unmistakable.

Most of the GW bile comes from people who never played a GW game and just see the prices...without bothering to notice that GW is the Cadillac dealership, all these Kickstarter outfits are the Hyundai dealership.

I like my Hyundai ....

So GW can publish new versions Talisman because it owned that bit of intellectual property all along, but GW wouldn't be able to come out with new versions of Relic, Forbidden Stars, WHQAC right? Because those were FFG creations?

metalface13 wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: GW makes all of their stuff in the UK. Paints are all non-toxic. I am willing to pay a premium for NOT made in China. The difference is unmistakable.

Most of the GW bile comes from people who never played a GW game and just see the prices...without bothering to notice that GW is the Cadillac dealership, all these Kickstarter outfits are the Hyundai dealership.

I like my Hyundai ....

I drive a 4x4 truck.

I think san hit on a key point---this sure seems like it was least a little surprising. I doubt FFG would have released recent GW product if they had known the license was likely to expire or be pulled back.

What was their most recent GW product? Whatever it was, development had to have begun long before release, so it could have been sometime ago.

I think WHQ:ACG and the new FoD where the last two titles, no? WHQ was last year and FoD was some months ago.

WHQ fans had been wondering why there were so few print runs and where were the expansions for a long time. Seems FFG knew it was coming so didn't move forward with any real expansions but these PODs were low hanging and easy to wrap up and print a few off before the deal broke.

FoD was likely in development a while ago too and they may a have known it would be their last title. It would be a good one as the earlier FFG edition was going for decent cash on the second hand market.

I don't know all total speculation.

Giving Casey something to read while he snacks...

Yeah I think those were the most recent GW games by FFG, excluding expansions for 40k: Conquest. I guess we'll have to homebrew some stuff for WHQAC or hope our certain F:ATtie friends slip up some unplublished content

metalface13 wrote: So GW can publish new versions Talisman because it owned that bit of intellectual property all along, but GW wouldn't be able to come out with new versions of Relic, Forbidden Stars, WHQAC right? Because those were FFG creations?

From a purely legal perspective it was recently ruled that game mechanisms are not able to be copyrighted. I think the lawsuit concerned Bang! and a Japanese game that completely ripped it off, even copying sections of the rules. It was basically a reskin.

So technically I think they could with very minimal changes. Realistically, they won't because they'd have to re-do the sculpts, commission new art, source components etc. They wouldn't have the print files or anything.

So I don't think we'll see a re-release of FS or Conquest or anything like that. We should eventually see a new FoD or Talisman if they successfully sell those rights.

Should I pick up Forbidden Stars?

That is really what this runs down to. I have played more or less every other FFG GW game that interests me.

Mr. White wrote: What was their most recent GW product? Whatever it was, development had to have begun long before release, so it could have been sometime ago.

I think WHQ:ACG and the new FoD where the last two titles, no? WHQ was last year and FoD was some months ago.

WHQ fans had been wondering why there were so few print runs and where were the expansions for a long time. Seems FFG knew it was coming so didn't move forward with any real expansions but these PODs were low hanging and easy to wrap up and print a few off before the deal broke.

FoD was likely in development a while ago too and they may a have known it would be their last title. It would be a good one as the earlier FFG edition was going for decent cash on the second hand market.

I don't know all total speculation.

Giving Casey something to read while he snacks...

I think the exact moment is somewhere post WHQ ACG release and before those PoD expansions. The WHQACG rules I believe imply expansions but a full fledged one never came. I agree that it looks like they pushed out those PoD expansions to gain some revenue on work they could quickly wrap up.

Yeah, good point. I bought the chaos in the old world expansion because of the suspicious stock problems of GW products, and that was ages ago.

Incidentally, the star crossed Starcraft game system, eh?

True you can copy the game mechanics all you want. GW should have a wealth of art through wouldn't be too hart to get some graphic designers to mock something up.

metalface13 wrote: True you can copy the game mechanics all you want. GW should have a wealth of art through wouldn't be too hart to get some graphic designers to mock something up.

One major issue though is how many remaining sales of Forbidden Stars were left. How many people hadn't already bought it that would want to down the line? Enough for a large enough print run to justify the mold costs?

Also, I don't see GW getting into board games without 28mm sized minis.

@Duke - I love Forbidden Stars. One of my top games last year and we still play it. It's long but it's better than StarCraft in some ways (and inferior in others). Overall, the objective system is such an improvement that I would rather play it than StarCraft. I just grabbed an extra copy in case mine ever gets damaged or pieces lost.

charlest wrote:

Mr. White wrote: What was their most recent GW product? Whatever it was, development had to have begun long before release, so it could have been sometime ago.

I think WHQ:ACG and the new FoD where the last two titles, no? WHQ was last year and FoD was some months ago.

WHQ fans had been wondering why there were so few print runs and where were the expansions for a long time. Seems FFG knew it was coming so didn't move forward with any real expansions but these PODs were low hanging and easy to wrap up and print a few off before the deal broke.

FoD was likely in development a while ago too and they may a have known it would be their last title. It would be a good one as the earlier FFG edition was going for decent cash on the second hand market.

I don't know all total speculation.

Giving Casey something to read while he snacks...

I think the exact moment is somewhere post WHQ ACG release and before those PoD expansions. The WHQACG rules I believe imply expansions but a full fledged one never came. I agree that it looks like they pushed out those PoD expansions to gain some revenue on work they could quickly wrap up.

That's my guess as well.

Likely the new FoD was far enough along in production it made sense to go ahead and release it. It also helps that FoD never had expansions so fans wouldn't be disappointed that none would follow.

JEM wrote: I was there when they stopped selling 40K Rhinos three for twenty quid, and reboxed them individually for 15. For the same sprues. It was a conscious strategy on their part to find their customers' pain threshold for pricing and edge it as far as possible. That's where the long-standing GW "hate" comes from.

This.

Regardless of whether there's any merit in the discussion of current prices, GW has a long and ignoble history of crapping on consumers because it thought they were largely kids and obsessives who didn't know any better. It started with the management buyout, went on through the litigious crackdown on fan material, then price hikes, then deliberate power creep to sell figures, the laughable "limited edition" Space Hulk and most recently the clueless dismissal of WFB in favour of AoS.

GW have to try and turn a profit, but they've earned a lot of the cynicism down the years.

DukeofChutney wrote: Should I pick up Forbidden Stars?

That is really what this runs down to. I have played more or less every other FFG GW game that interests me.

Yeah, who has played this one? It was on the clearance table at my FLGS a while back, should have snagged it. I could be down with a 40k DoaM game.