Will there be any presence from Fantasy Flight Games at Games Day UK tomorrow?

Last year's presence - a lone person manning a single small table with very little to show off - was frankly disappointing compared to the usual turnout from Black Industries in years before that, or compared to the attendance of any other company producing products based on GW's IP (in past years, various computer games companies have brought down tens of thousands of pounds of computer equipment to show off their games - and in THQ's case last year, a life-size Rhino APC - a few demo tables or similar doesn't seem like too much to ask by comparison). Given the impending release of Rogue Trader and the build-up to WFRP 3rd edition, not to mention board and card games, it seems frankly strange that FFG wouldn't put in an effort to attend a UK Games Day in at least some capacity.

I was pretty sad that there was zero FFG presence at GD Baltimore this year. Hell, BOOM! was there. Though, I was pretty disappointed by most of GD Baltimore this year. I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't much to speak of at GD UK. Here's hoping I'm wrong.

I dont care much for FFGs Con focus. At Origins, there was nothing for DH or RT, just board games.

Phooey.

Your not actually expecting a response from these guys... are you?

FFG did indeed have a stand at Games Day, just off the main trading hall. Unfortunately they didn't actually have anything for sale !?!

They had two copies of Rogue Trader for people to look at (but not buy) and a locked glass case which contained a sealed Radical's Handbook and Dead Cities (plus the new Warhammer board game/rpg thing and Talisman).

I'm afraid I lost interest after the guy running the stand told me I couldn't actually buy anything and wandered off to get a sandwich...

InfinityDoctor said:

I'm afraid I lost interest after the guy running the stand told me I couldn't actually buy anything and wandered off to get a sandwich...

Obviously I meant I wandered off to get a sandwich, not the FFG guy...

they sold RT at gencon and the forums were full of whining, so I can't really blame them for not having books available early at cons.

monkyman said:

Apparently they weren't allowed to sell anything, or so I was told. Which strikes me as frankly bizarre, really, given that they were showing off products already released (like Chaos in the Old World, Talisman and Dark Heresy) alongside ones yet to be released.

Even so, not even a demo game of RT or WFRP3...

Maybe GW were scared that if Rogue Trader was for sale it would overshadow the Space Wolf codex they weren't selling.

Most companies have a long history of bizarre and baseless non-competition arrangements, and GW is no different. Maybe it's because FFG also has products that are considered competition to GW stuff? I have no idea.

Almost as strange as New Line's insistence that GW make the LOTR models a different scale than their regular line...which in turn meant that no one I know bought any of the models, since you couldn't use the parts for anything.

Ripper.McGuirl said:

That actually sounds reasonable. Consider that other companies like THQ aren't competing in the same market space as GW. FFG, however, is, which might be why FFG's presence is so small. Just a guess, of course.

Charax said:

Yeah. speaking of that...

I don't mean to be that guy, I really don't.

But why do the New space wolves have such silly hair? I know this isn't a GW forum, and I hate to be a nay-sayer, as much of the new space wolves stuff is kind of cool. But how many norse warriors really had their heads half-shaved, with the other half of their skulls sporting a three-foot tall peacock fan of bright red hair? I mean, when do they even have time to do their hair up like that? Don't they have all kinds of pre-battle praying and feasting and stuff to do. Perhaps they do all that stuff while reclining in a salon chair up on the orbiting battlebarge, whilst wenches tease their hair out to fantastic proportions and then secure it in place with some of his Majesty's Holy Hair Gel.

Just got the new White Dwarf, and I had to get that off my chest...Sorry for the thread-jacking...

Yea it was just a couple of tables of things you couldn't buy and glass cabinets. The guy was very excited about it and was like yea out in a few weeks gonna be £40 etc. I do confess to standing hugging the Rogue Trader book for a while though...

Peacekeeper_b said:

Their presence at GenCon this year was nothing short of spectacular. They were by far the largest vendor at GenCon.

It might be a matter of priorities.

Being in the UK might have something to do with no giant piles of merchandise for people to purchase, since FFG is based in America.

Charax said:

Yep, that was actually equally bizarre - the Space Wolves were launched at Games Day (sort of) but you couldn't buy the Codex or any of the blisters - just the three box sets.

On the plus side, I did get to chat to Dan Abnett (mostly about his Marvel stuff) and Graham McNeill (mostly about Thousand Sons), who were both very friendly and very cool. I've been to get stuff signed before by other people and its been "Paid your tenner? Name? Here's your book. Next person?". You didn't even have to pay to see these guys, and they were ace!

jasonmichael said:

THQ (nor any of the other computer games companies - EA Mythic for Warhammer Online, or Cyanide Studios for Blood Bowl) weren't selling anything either. They had promotional stuff present (but much, much less than last year), but weren't selling. Only Black Library, Forgeworld and GW itself had any sales stands...

It was a slightly watered down games day this year, a lot less participation tables and less presence by the games companies etc. I was talking to some guys though and it seems they had less room than normal cause the usual halls where getting renivated.

Oh and InfinityDoctor if you've been to previous games days you should know the new thing on sale is always a pre-release of something officially not out for a few weeks. I didn't expect the codex though as they very rarely release new codexs at games day, still only a few days till the stuff is out.

Still though, if they could manage bringing a handful of copies to gencon (is that right? I can never mind the names of all these conventions) I thought they might of done the same over here in blighty. The UK has nowhere near the number of game conventions as the US has plus the Games Workshop magazine White Dwarf mentioned Rogue Trader last month and the new issue talks about the GM Screen coming out this month, of course White Dwarf is done 3 months early so I guess they can't be blamed for delays of other companies.

Darkshroud said:

This was my first Games Day, I've never been to one before, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I've been to GenCon UK once about ten years ago, but I generally don't do gaming conventions, I was just surprised that I couldn't actually buy much there - although admittedly I mostly went to pick up Blood Pact and get it signed.

InfinityDoctor said:

Don't compare this year's GD to the others...GD is generally quite good, plenty of free stuff being given out, good deals, all the latest news etc etc, but GW have been under a media black-out for the past year or so, so GD was rather constricted this year.

Peacekeeper_b said:

FFG didn't have a booth at Origins this year (or for quite a while), they just do the UFS National Championships there, so they didn't even have boardgames.

I asked a rep at Gencon about it once and he said it's really hard for them to do one big convention a year, and they choose Gencon. They basically shut down the office for a week and bring EVERYBODY that works there to work their Gencon booth. And when there are two big shows about a month apart in the same part of the country, it doesn't make sense to go to both. They've gone to Penny Arcade eXpo in Seattle the last couple years (gotta get out to that some day) and San Diego Comiccon this year.

And they did like 10 RPG seminars over the course of the weekend with the designers, and had people there talking about thier RPGs. The only thing they weren't doing was RPG demos, which I imagine are pretty hard to do for a lot of people, especially compared to boardgame demos.