# Lay-offs at Fantasy Flight Games?



## darjr (Jan 7, 2020)

Oh no! I hope folks land on their feet!


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## vpuigdoller (Jan 7, 2020)

Morrus said:


> Rumours have been posted over on Reddit that layoffs are taking place at FFG, which produces the Star Wars and Genesys RPGs, amongst many other things, most totally a ton of board games.



I saw the news in linkedin it even said confirmed.  Let me try to fetch it up.


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## vpuigdoller (Jan 7, 2020)

This what I saw at Linkedin.


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## Ulfgeir (Jan 7, 2020)

That's not good. I hope the people involved quickly find some new employments, and I hope it doesn't affect their current rpg's too much


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## innerdude (Jan 7, 2020)

Much more worried that they'll cancel reprints of the LOTR Living Card Game than I am about their RPG properties. 

I'm guessing, though, that the total shutdown of FFI means that the Steam version of the LOTR LCG never really took off for them. 

Really a shame.


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## Zaukrie (Jan 8, 2020)

Good luck to everyone that is losing their job, and good mental health to those keeping theirs. Survival guilt is real....take care of yourself. I used to run a website for people that got laid off. I make no money there....it still temporarily exists. If anyone wants some content about looking for work, handling the stress, etc, let me know.


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## Henry (Jan 8, 2020)

Hell of a thing to happen at the end of a year. 

I hope the best outcome for all the staff involved.


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## M.T. Black (Jan 8, 2020)

This is a good summary and assessment of the situation:









						Fantasy Flight Games RPG Products Still in the Pipeline
					

Reviews and discussions about Dungeons and Dragons, roleplaying games, and wider geek culture.




					knighterrantjr.blogspot.com
				




Bottom line - it is unlikely there will be any more RPG books from FFG after the currently scheduled books are released.


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## aramis erak (Jan 8, 2020)

Sad, but not unexpected.

I'm surprised Asmodee didn't trim more than they did.  Time to buy the Star Wars books I'm missing.


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## GreyLord (Jan 8, 2020)

Interesting and unexpected.

So, with their more recent pushes lately where boardgames require apps to run them (which would seem to go hand in hand with any other app creation and integration) what does this say about that end of their business.

I would imagine that it would be easier on some fronts to fold the FFI end into the boardgame portion and pick and choose the best programmers of both sections to be involved with the app update and creation for their boardgames.

If they did not do that...I'm wondering why not and what's up with that.  Would that mean something in regards to their boardgame interactive app design...and if so...does that also mean that they may stop supporting some of their boardgame apps (with the exception of perhaps their more recent Journeys/Middle Earth game and perhaps MoM)? 

They keep one or two programmers max for updates, and let the rest go?

It seems to be an interesting move as far as their apps are concerned and what it APPEARS (meaning appearances may be deceiving) they did in regards to FFI.

RPGs seems to be a trimming.  It could be they saw some of what WotC has done in the past few years and are keeping a smaller core staff with freelancers being utilized for work beyond what the core staff does.  Basically the core staff coordinates and works issues while using freelancers for some of the other lifting.

This could also reduce their RPG staff tremendously while at the same time improving quality (depending on who they kept) and focusing more on certain elements of their RPGs.

Or, it could be something entirely different.


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## evilgaz (Jan 8, 2020)

Be interesting to see how the RPGs go. It's entirely possible they could reduce down to one or two line developers or other role and freelance stuff. Depends on the people in charge of the purse strings of course, tabletop RPGs are frequently unattractive uses of resources in pure profit and loss terms. May also depend on licencing arrangements - e.g. what period of licence is still valid for Star Wars? Can't imagine it was cheap and a new film is just out, so there's opportunity there (depending on the shape of the contract signed).

It'd be a shame to see the FFG game lines go altogether.


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## Morrus (Jan 8, 2020)

aramis erak said:


> Sad, but not unexpected.





GreyLord said:


> Interesting and unexpected.




Apropos of nothing, it's weird seeing those two posts right next to each other!


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## David Anderson (Jan 8, 2020)

I guess this means Modiphius will do Star Wars now.  They do everything else.


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## OldGeezer69 (Jan 8, 2020)

David Anderson said:


> I guess this means Modiphius will do Star Wars now.  They do everything else.



Let's hope not.


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## JeffB (Jan 8, 2020)

The only way I'd pick up a Modiphius Star Wars is if Jay Little somehow gets to keep his rights to the  FFG dice system and replaces the 2d20 system he designed for Modiphius.

This sucks. Best for the former employees. Guess I better pick up the EotE book now to go with my AoR book and box. And some dice.


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## GreyLord (Jan 8, 2020)

evilgaz said:


> Be interesting to see how the RPGs go. It's entirely possible they could reduce down to one or two line developers or other role and freelance stuff. Depends on the people in charge of the purse strings of course, tabletop RPGs are frequently unattractive uses of resources in pure profit and loss terms. May also depend on licencing arrangements - e.g. what period of licence is still valid for Star Wars? Can't imagine it was cheap and a new film is just out, so there's opportunity there (depending on the shape of the contract signed).
> 
> It'd be a shame to see the FFG game lines go altogether.




I'm not sure.  I believe they still have the license until 2021 when negotiations will be done.

Interestingly enough, I think they have a minimum number of RPG books they HAVE to publish (unsure of how many, if it is merely 1, they have it in the bag for the rest of the year) as it is also connected to the rest of the license they currently hold.

With how they took the Star Wars license, I'd imagine they may be looking at possibly dropping it in the future anyways considering how much they probably paid for it (can't be helping their bottom line, and as these layoffs seem to me to be more about streamlining the money...expensive licenses can really drag that down at times) over other companies that were thinking about lesser amounts for it.

On the otherhand, with their Legion and other games they are putting out, I'm not sure what they'd have to replace it.

OR, they could be looking to fold FFG main into Asmodee for the most part and keep FFG more as a warehouse with Asmodee being the main company at this point.  The interactive and apps/games were already doubled with the Asmodee portion doing more and being more successful than the FFI portion, so cutting down and folding much of FFG exercises into the Asmodee main would not be surprising.

No involvement with their company on my part, so these are all wild tosses of the darts in the dark on what may be happening with them and their licenses though.  I really have no idea...

Sorry for those that lost their jobs in the streamline/downsize.  Hope they have luck finding other jobs.  I know the former FFI head released something on linkedin (I think that was it) where I think he says he is going to try to help those that were with him relocate into other areas or find jobs and such, and that he also is looking for work at this point.


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## evilgaz (Jan 8, 2020)

GreyLord said:


> With how they took the Star Wars license, I'd imagine they may be looking at possibly dropping it in the future anyways considering how much they probably paid for it



Yeah, I'm similarly speculating. I would imagine it was an upfront cost and then percentage on every product. Having swallowed the initial purchase price, producing more seems good, but only if the books are generating enough sales to be worth it, given economies of scale.


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## Morrus (Jan 8, 2020)

evilgaz said:


> Yeah, I'm similarly speculating. I would imagine it was an upfront cost and then percentage on every product. Having swallowed the initial purchase price, producing more seems good, but only if the books are generating enough sales to be worth it, given economies of scale.




Going off memory, so I could be off a bit. You don’t ‘purchase’ a license as such, but there is usually an advance on guaranteed royalties.

For something like Trek it’s in the region of a $20K advance and 10% royalties last I looked into it (long before Modiphius took it on). For Wars I’ve heard it’s more in the $100K range, with a similar percentage. There will be a yearly guaranteed minimum royalty payment.

I recall when FFG first started producing the SW RPG they were required to bring out a product within a year. That was too tight a timeline from start to finish, so they squeezed in some cards or something like that at the end of the first year in order to fulfil the obligation. I can’t for the life of me remember exactly what that product was now.


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## innerdude (Jan 8, 2020)

Doubtful the Star Wars license is going anywhere, with Armada / X-Wing / the Destiny card game / Imperial Assault / the Star Wars LCG.

But for the RPG line, what little content we see will be for Genesys, and it will only be from existing IP or new IP of their own creation.


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## darjr (Jan 8, 2020)

Somebody posted something somewhere that it will impact digital and ttrpg products.... I’ll find it in a bit.


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## evilgaz (Jan 8, 2020)

Morrus said:


> Going off memory, so I could be off a bit. You don’t ‘purchase’ a license as such, but there is usually an advance on guaranteed royalties.



You could well be right. Going off memory (again, could be wrong) I seem to recall GW or a similar company requiring a fixed price for the IP plus points on the product. A guaranteed annual return sounds right.

Whichever way it's been done, the financials around that are more likely to drive the product schedule than anything else I'd guess - which might be what powers the RPG line for a while longer.


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## RSIxidor (Jan 8, 2020)

darjr said:


> Somebody posted something somewhere that it will impact digital and ttrpg products.... I’ll find it in a bit.




Needs some clarity on whether this only impacted FFI and RPG or also impacted the internal group that works on companion apps for games like Mansions of Madness, Journeys in Middle Earth, Imperial Assault, etc. My understanding is the group working on the companion apps is not affected.

So far FFI has only one game/app publicly said to be there's, The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Card Game, which released last August. Certainly makes sense that it might affect RPG and TLOR:ACG and any potential games that FFI was working on but hadn't announced but I _think_ the companion apps are untouched by this. I guess time will tell.


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## timbannock (Jan 8, 2020)

For the RPG side alone, I simply can't imagine a model that continues to be cost effective for them with the likely exorbitant prices they must be paying for a SW license, and the fact that they pretty much dried up their release schedule by launching three big game books (with a lot of duplicated content) early in the life cycle.

Here's hoping all the folks laid off land on their feet. FFG has always been consistently high quality in their output regardless of other factors, so that at least bodes well for the folks behind its titles.


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## GreyLord (Jan 8, 2020)

RSIxidor said:


> Needs some clarity on whether this only impacted FFI and RPG or also impacted the internal group that works on companion apps for games like Mansions of Madness, Journeys in Middle Earth, Imperial Assault, etc. My understanding is the group working on the companion apps is not affected.
> 
> So far FFI has only one game/app publicly said to be there's, The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Card Game, which released last August. Certainly makes sense that it might affect RPG and TLOR:ACG and any potential games that FFI was working on but hadn't announced but I _think_ the companion apps are untouched by this. I guess time will tell.




From the little I've looked into it (I'm not one of the ones in the know on this subject), the actual departments would be the FFI which ONLY worked on one app/game. 

The other apps which are for their games are not affected per se.  That is, they are developed on the Boardgame side rather than the Interactive side.  Now, some of it was based via other companies (aka...Mansions of Madness).  In that sense, it should not be affected.

On the otherhand, when closing down that deparment, unless everyone was simply useless, you'd want to consolidate and keep the best programmers from both.  Not doing that...can raise questions.  At this point, I'd say the most recent games are safe in either case (Journeys for example). 

Other departments supposedly affected are the RPG and marketing departments.  PR and customer service may have also been affected.

14 were confirmed lay offs from the thread people seem to get the information from, but that's just FFG.

The layoffs apparently also extended to Asmodee itself and the numbers are thought to be at least 20 when including them as well.

Imperial Assault is supposedly done.  I'm not sure what that means for future updates in regards to that app (no updates on an app can mean it ceases to work within a few iterations of updates for the OS's).

Mansions had the company with it stop back in June/July, though I think FFG may have been keeping it updated thus far.  Journeys I think is safe no matter what at this point.

However, with the information that's come out, the only thing for certain is that FFI, which worked on ONE app, is out.  The boardgame portion that worked on the apps for the boardgames is still up and running.

Edit: Also note, that Asmodee ALSO had it's own app/interactive group.  This could simply be them seeing that there was no need for two groups working at the same time and consolidating the work to their primary Asmodee group, in which case no idea how that would affect the boardgame apps side of thing.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Jan 8, 2020)

It is the end of the videogame studio, but this isn't too rare in the industry... and this doesn't mean a crisis for the rest of the company. Asmodee is a big fish in the market. In the worst case it could be bought by Hasbro, and the licences would continue in the almost same hands.


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## Maggan (Jan 8, 2020)

That thing I find most interesting is that not even FFG having at least one rpg line in the top 5 of the ICv2 ranking for 28 straight quarters saved the rpg group. I'd give someone's right arm to know the numbers behind those rankings.

/M


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## billd91 (Jan 8, 2020)

Maggan said:


> That thing I find most interesting is that not even FFG having at least one rpg line in the top 5 of the ICv2 ranking for 28 straight quarters saved the rpg group. I'd give someone's right arm to know the numbers behind those rankings.
> 
> /M




Depends on who's making the decisions. Are they paying attentions to metrics like the ICv2 rankings or just some bottom line calculations? If the cuts are in response to PAI Partners's analysis, it's probably bottom-line heavy and not taking much account of market position according to ICv2.


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## pemerton (Jan 9, 2020)

Maggan said:


> That thing I find most interesting is that not even FFG having at least one rpg line in the top 5 of the ICv2 ranking for 28 straight quarters saved the rpg group. I'd give someone's right arm to know the numbers behind those rankings.





billd91 said:


> Depends on who's making the decisions. Are they paying attentions to metrics like the ICv2 rankings or just some bottom line calculations? If the cuts are in response to PAI Partners's analysis, it's probably bottom-line heavy and not taking much account of market position according to ICv2.



I thought that was Maggan's point - that you can have a strong and stable position in the RPG market _and yet _be highly vulnerable to being cut on rational financial grounds. So there is at least a hint here about the nature of the RPG market (ie not super-viable for most commercial players).


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## MerricB (Jan 9, 2020)

FFG have had cuts to Customer Service, Roleplaying and Interactive; people at Asmodee North America have also lost their jobs.

A short timeline (via Wikipedia):
1995: Asmodee founded
2007: Asmodee gets a 40% cash injecton from Montefiore Investment.
2010: Asmodee takes over Esdevium, the largest hobby games distributor in the UK
2013: French private equity firm Eurazeo acquires Asmodee for €143 million 
2014: Asmodee merges (takes over) Fantasy Flight Games and Days of Wonder
2015-8: lots more mergers/take-overs
2016: Asmodee takes over Z-Man, Plaid Hat and Filosophia
2018: PAI Partners, another private equity firm, acquires Asmodee for about  €1.2 billion.

Asmodee, at this point, are the second-largest board game publisher behind Hasbro.

FFG and Z-Man (in particular) haven't been the same since their acquisitions.

Cheers!


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## Jacob Lewis (Jan 9, 2020)

Unfortunate news, but not unheard of in this industry, especially these days with never-ending cycles of buyouts, acquisitions, and turnarounds. It's a shame to think what we might miss going forward, but I think it is too early to say what real impact this will have on our tables.

As for the fate of the Star Wars RPG, I`m good. Thank you, FFG. The Force will be with us, always. (As well as "Edge" and "Age"!)


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## Highland Raider (Jan 9, 2020)

David Anderson said:


> I guess this means Modiphius will do Star Wars now.  They do everything else.



Only if they manage to finally fulfill Siege of the Citadel the board game.


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## Umbran (Jan 9, 2020)

MerricB said:


> 2013: French private equity firm Eurazeo acquires Asmodee for €143 million




Ugh.  If I were a mechanic in overalls looking under the hood of a car, I'd say, "Well, that's your trouble right there!"

Private equity firms, in general, are not driven by the continued health of a company the way a simple stock shareholder is.


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## aramis erak (Jan 10, 2020)

Morrus said:


> Apropos of nothing, it's weird seeing those two posts right next to each other!




I am a pessimist, and saw hints of it in various posts and Q&A's...

The end result of a multi-national merger generally are to move IPs worth anything to the central office, and anything else gets sold off, often cheap... I would expect that the entire FFG catalogue is likely to be moved to "No reprint, PDF when legal, extract all value until sales stop, then take any reasonable offer."


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## Wolfram stout (Jan 14, 2020)

I just saw where the collectible dice/card game for star wars is being "completed" is ending. Wonder if that i signs of more bad things to come for them and Star Wars. .


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## LuisCarlos17f (Jan 15, 2020)

Now Star Wars is a golden egg goose to stop the production, a serious mistake of management. I start to wonder about the future of Asmodee will be sold to Hasbro.


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## Morrus (Jan 15, 2020)

Star Wars: Destiny is being closed down.









						The Saga Concludes
					

Announcing the End of Star Wars: Destiny




					www.fantasyflightgames.com


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## Zardnaar (Jan 19, 2020)

More or less called this months ago. Said something like I doubt they will renew the RPG license. 

 Then people pulled the top 5 RPG line u suspect the top RPG matters the rest not so much. 

 I suspect Disney will want more money and a Star Wars RPG fees are going to make it hard.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Jan 19, 2020)

This is sad because Asmodee could become the second Hasbro, a big fish in the board-game industry but now PAI Partners are _pruning the branches_. Not allowing to growing up, because they don't understand how really this industry works. 

Our hope all those franchises and IPs to be sold to other company to be in better hands, for example L5R by Chaosium or WotC. 

If Fantasy Flight Games finally loses the SW franchise, I guess it will be again in Hasbro/WotC's hands because this would be the best bidder. In case this happens, I hope a sourcebook set in Legends/Expanded Universe to be published.


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## aramis erak (Jan 19, 2020)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> This is sad because Asmodee could become the second Hasbro, a big fish in the board-game industry but now PAI Partners are _pruning the branches_. Not allowing to growing up, because they don't understand how really this industry works.
> 
> Our hope all those franchises and IPs to be sold to other company to be in better hands, for example L5R by Chaosium or WotC.
> 
> If Fantasy Flight Games finally loses the SW franchise, I guess it will be again in Hasbro/WotC's hands because this would be the best bidder. In case this happens, I hope a sourcebook set in Legends/Expanded Universe to be published.



I doubt that Hasbro will let Wizards spend that much on a license they previously gave up. 

As for the Destiny line, it's been a flop overall in my local area, and despite the fact that I love it, it's not gotten a strong enough base for sustainability. I know I quit buying over a year ago...  because no one wanted to play. X-Wing and Armada, and the other boardgames seem to be doing quite well - the FLGS rack has about 10-20% turnover monthly for X-wing, and 5-10% for Armada and one of the ground ones.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Jan 19, 2020)

Remember Hasbro has the rights for toys of Disney/Marvel/Star Wars. But I notice WotC would need a lot of time and work for the ultimate d20 SW.


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## Ulfgeir (Jan 19, 2020)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> Remember Hasbro has the rights for toys of Disney/Marvel/Star Wars. But I notice WotC would need a lot of time and work for the ultimate d20 SW.




Well, that would depend I think on how much they would like to deviate from the system in D&D 5e, and their previous stuff. I mean they could just reissue Saga edition like that if they wanted to.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Jan 19, 2020)

The fact is there are (free) homebred versions of SW for D&D. But how to explain it? If you can use a remote-control battle drone to kill a rancor or another kaiju alien with only a shot.... how should be the XP reward? Or your mission has failed, lost all the rest of the squad, and you are only your PCs and a low-level/primitive tribemen, ewoks, for example, as help against empire stronghold.


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