FFG/Asmodee Merger

By Ghostofman, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=5212

For those of you that haven't seen, the maker of our favorite Star Wars games is merging into the Asmodee group.

Doesn't look like we can expect any serious changes on the ground for now, but the greater leverage of the larger company means it's more likely we'll see the license stick around here for a while.

Can but hope!

Asmodee is owned by Eurazeo, a French private equity firm, and they seem pretty consistent in market performance. Doubtful they would allow a purchase of a company by one of their holdings they think is about to lose the license for Star Wars.

Asmodee is owned by Eurazeo, a French private equity firm, and they seem pretty consistent in market performance. Doubtful they would allow a purchase of a company by one of their holdings they think is about to lose the license for Star Wars.

I don't think they're about to lose it, but I've seen a few others around here that seem to think they might.

FFG doesn't strike me as the kind of operation like WEG got toward the end though, and WotC seemed to rapidly lose interest after RotS, preferring to focus on IPs it didn't have to give a cut to a third party.

Their loss though, FFG is doing a pretty solid job, and with the new films starting about this time next year along and supposedly coming out every year after (combined with the disaster of D&D4e) I bet Hasbro is kicking itself for letting that go...

Not that I mind. WotC did an ok job, but I vastly prefer the feel of the narrative dice to D20, just felt too much like D&D with lightsabers sometimes.

I seem to recall something about FFG holding the SW license through 2015, although I could be mistaken. Once it expires they'll have to submit a new bid if they want to stay in the game; seems to me that a merger with another financially strong company would only increase their chances of getting the winning bid for a renewal of the license.

Asmodee is owned by Eurazeo, a French private equity firm, and they seem pretty consistent in market performance. Doubtful they would allow a purchase of a company by one of their holdings they think is about to lose the license for Star Wars.

I don't think they're about to lose it, but I've seen a few others around here that seem to think they might.

FFG doesn't strike me as the kind of operation like WEG got toward the end though, and WotC seemed to rapidly lose interest after RotS, preferring to focus on IPs it didn't have to give a cut to a third party.

Their loss though, FFG is doing a pretty solid job, and with the new films starting about this time next year along and supposedly coming out every year after (combined with the disaster of D&D4e) I bet Hasbro is kicking itself for letting that go...

Not that I mind. WotC did an ok job, but I vastly prefer the feel of the narrative dice to D20, just felt too much like D&D with lightsabers sometimes.

Pretty sure someone who runs a $5 billion private equity fund probably knows Bob Iger's phone number or someone to call at Disney before they greenlight a multimillion dollar acquisition and ask some questions about licensing.

I seem to recall something about FFG holding the SW license through 2015, although I could be mistaken. Once it expires they'll have to submit a new bid if they want to stay in the game; seems to me that a merger with another financially strong company would only increase their chances of getting the winning bid for a renewal of the license.

With the way FFG is selling out of its star wars products and increasing output and still selling out. i think the license is pretty safe where is right now. If the license was actually stagnating things would be different.

"The sky is fallling!!!!!"

Marcy Samophlange :)

Actually no, personally I think we'll be okay. There's a Star Wars version of Descent 2 in the pipeline, I think the licence will be okay for a while. I have high hopes the career books will actually all get finished, at least.

Edited by Maelora

I like that :) Probably this will improve distibution in the Euro zone and maybe translations to other languages.

Not that I mind. WotC did an ok job, but I vastly prefer the feel of the narrative dice to D20, just felt too much like D&D with lightsabers sometimes.

OH YES INDEED! Some of the material was OK but the effort of squeezing Star Wars into the corset of a fantasy game left so many scratch marks. The narrow definition of the different classes was always artificial - now it's much more about the archetype of a career but it doesn't stop you from doing anything. And then half a bazillion prestige classes didn't actually help either.

Sorry to the people who liked it, I was just never much of a D&D fan (in any of its versions).

No, I'll stick with FFG Star Wars and if and when, at some distant point in the future they lose the license and someone else picks it up, I'll take a good long look at it. And I'll only buy it if I like it, because I still have the FFG version, just like I still had WEG when WotC came out.

Who's Marcy?

As noted in the other threads, I don't expect anything to change. I did post about this in a sky is falling, trollish manner, but if asmodee did anything to lose the lisence it would be monumentally stupid.

Not that I mind. WotC did an ok job, but I vastly prefer the feel of the narrative dice to D20, just felt too much like D&D with lightsabers sometimes.

OH YES INDEED! Some of the material was OK but the effort of squeezing Star Wars into the corset of a fantasy game left so many scratch marks. The narrow definition of the different classes was always artificial - now it's much more about the archetype of a career but it doesn't stop you from doing anything. And then half a bazillion prestige classes didn't actually help either.

Sorry to the people who liked it, I was just never much of a D&D fan (in any of its versions).

No, I'll stick with FFG Star Wars and if and when, at some distant point in the future they lose the license and someone else picks it up, I'll take a good long look at it. And I'll only buy it if I like it, because I still have the FFG version, just like I still had WEG when WotC came out.

I didn't like the level system that much but preferred the combat system since it was designed to be used on a map rather then having to convert it to a map system.

Not that I mind. WotC did an ok job, but I vastly prefer the feel of the narrative dice to D20, just felt too much like D&D with lightsabers sometimes.

OH YES INDEED! Some of the material was OK but the effort of squeezing Star Wars into the corset of a fantasy game left so many scratch marks. The narrow definition of the different classes was always artificial - now it's much more about the archetype of a career but it doesn't stop you from doing anything. And then half a bazillion prestige classes didn't actually help either.

Sorry to the people who liked it, I was just never much of a D&D fan (in any of its versions).

No, I'll stick with FFG Star Wars and if and when, at some distant point in the future they lose the license and someone else picks it up, I'll take a good long look at it. And I'll only buy it if I like it, because I still have the FFG version, just like I still had WEG when WotC came out.

I didn't like the level system that much but preferred the combat system since it was designed to be used on a map rather then having to convert it to a map system.

I didn't have to convert anything to use this system with maps. Just don't use squares and don't obsess with specific distances.