1 minute ago, Jetfire said:

Except WOTC, they win big getting a big competitor off the market. ANR blew up and attracted plenty of MTG players like me. I pretty much stopped buying several grand in MTG cards a year to play ANR.

Several GRAND!? Please tell my wife not to worry about me spending $200 on X-wing stuff.

This is sad news indeed. This was one solid and well polished game.

imho, even if another gaming company grabs the wheel and release it's own version of the card game, i don't think it'll be near as good (or good looking) as FFG's. System was solid, the art was stellar and the game was drooling theme. I saw the cards from the original game and they look bland, generic and uninspired compared to FFG's Netrunner. I seriously couldn't play this (and perhaps not even a future iteration of that game)

Think i'll get a few more expansions before it leaves the printer for good. Show it to some friends and keep enjoying the amazing game that was FFG's Netrunner.

The end of an era.

It's unfortunate FFG gets itself tied up in licensing deals they aren't able to renegotiate. I hope they are learning from these agreements they get themselves into with expiration dates and clearly no 'right to renew' terms in their contracts. I feel bad for the gaming community.

I give FFG credit for trying to keep on top of a hobby that has grown exponentially over the past few years. I mean it's more than tripled in the time they negotiated the Netrunner contract 6 or 7 years ago. But going forward, they really need to lock those licenses down. And if that isn't possible, only look into licenses that will allow for more control on their part to renew or not. Or go back to creating their own content.

Sucks.

5 hours ago, BDrafty said:

Several GRAND!? Please tell my wife not to worry about me spending $200 on X-wing stuff.

haha, yeah no wife and no kids while trying to play competitively meant a pretty big cost. I now play ANR, X-wing, Armada and more and still save money.

One of the more prevalent theories about this in the Magic community is that Hasbro, in the face of the large revenue drop Magic has suffered recently, may be looking to go strong with a new IP. Many see taking back the rights to publish an Android card game as part of that plan.

Sure, it could be Hasbro just wanted to kill a competing game that was clearly taking away players from Magic. But I think a Hasbro-produced card game is the more likely outcome. I fully expect them to release a new Android CCG in the next year or two.

I find the idea that FFG decided not to renew the license to be absurd. (Unless we're talking about a case were Hasbro demanded a rediculously high sum, which I could see.)

I know it might look different to an exec but is Netrunner really cutting into Magic? I know if anyone has passing interest in Magic, they will play it, regardless of other games they might have. Destiny, most likely, and I'd believe that Wotc is doing this in retaliation.

Any motive is speculation. While saying it comes down to money is as best a gross oversimplification and at worst just hopelessly naïve, the fact is we don’t know. Some people think it’s related to Cyberpunk 2077 coming back.

Remember when Conquest was pulled?That conversation went something like this:

GDW: your contract says you can’t make miniatures!*

ANA/FFG: Lucasfilm likes miniatures.

GDW: We’re done here.

ANA/FFG: Don’t let the doorknob hit ya where the good lord split ya.

Theoretically there is some possible world in which FFG could bribe GDW into maintaining a business relationship with another company about to embark on a competing business venture backed by one of the biggest corporations in the world and one of the most historically popular franchises of all time, but let’s be real here. Casting that as “FFG just didn’t want to pay the money” or “actually FFG decided to end the game” are both dishonest. I think FFG would have happily allowed GDW to have “half of something rather than all of nothing” if they would waive the business restriction that dated back to when FFG was much smaller than GDW and didn’t have negotiating power.

* True story. Go find a copy of Chaos In The Old World: it has “plastic playing pieces.”

People here seem quick to assume the fault lies with GW, with WoTC,...
It can just as easily be FFG's who on one end went in overdrive with a variety of IP's and eventually ended up with Star Wars which they are clearly pushing as their main cashcow.
The IP probably costs and arm and a leg but the 'easy money' appeal is a proven factor there.

Can they keep up with all their projects? Are they willing to pay for the IP's worth? Do they wish to avoid being their own (semi limited) competition -> something they are starting to really do with their overly extensive mini's lines that dabble in the same pool. Etc etc.

I don't buy this automatic 'Good guy FFG' as a baseline. We simply do not have the information to be sure of what happened and why.

Everything about their product line and hiring indicates that they expected Netrunner to continue, and the articles they’ve put out indicate that this was not their decision.

I’m always skeptical of arguments that involve the premise “assume everything we think we know are lies.”

2 hours ago, Darthvegeta800 said:

People here seem quick to assume the fault lies with GW, with WoTC,...
It can just as easily be FFG's who on one end went in overdrive with a variety of IP's and eventually ended up with Star Wars which they are clearly pushing as their main cashcow.
The IP probably costs and arm and a leg but the 'easy money' appeal is a proven factor there.

Can they keep up with all their projects? Are they willing to pay for the IP's worth? Do they wish to avoid being their own (semi limited) competition -> something they are starting to really do with their overly extensive mini's lines that dabble in the same pool. Etc etc.

I don't buy this automatic 'Good guy FFG' as a baseline. We simply do not have the information to be sure of what happened and why.

It's a bit hard to believe FFG would intentionally kill one of their best sellers and flagship games.

That GW license was all about money. FFG could make a lot of money making their own miniature games or they could make less money making a few GW games. They made a business decision. A similar decision was made here. We just don't know the specifics of what FFG next plans are to move Android forward.

What we do know is that Wizards is bad at making cards games not named Magic. They already failed once with Netrunner and have given up making any card game not named Magic. It would be shocking if they decided to go fail at it a second time. Also it is board games and miniature games that are cutting into Magic, not Netrunner. There is no money in it for Wizards to kill Netrunner.

WotC didn't stop producing Netrunner and Battletech because they were failures. They expanded too quickly and didn't have the resources for all of the games. They had to take a realistic look at what they had to work with, and decided to go with Magic, which was clearly the right decision. Battletech required an IP license, and Garfield said Netrunner doesn't work well as a CCG. If he were to rerelease it, he would have done it as a boxed game like Legendary.

The time when Wizards printed Netrunner was also the time Wizards was trying to maximize the profits of Magic. Wizards had other ccgs, including L5R for a time, but then they dropped everything to focus on the Magic product and increase its profit.

1 minute ago, C2K said:

The time when Wizards printed Netrunner was also the time Wizards was trying to maximize the profits of Magic. Wizards had other ccgs, including L5R for a time, but then they dropped everything to focus on the Magic product and increase its profit.

Yes, they specifically wanted to concentrate their CCG player-base under one game... as a business decision it worked, the CCG scene for Wizards became even more expensive to play, profitable, and cheaper to develop (by reducing development and playtesting requirements).

As for now, I would guess that WoTC decided that they wanted to kick FFG for siphoning players in a way that would hurt the overall reputation/interest in LCGs.

Thaddok

On 6/12/2018 at 1:00 PM, Darthvegeta800 said:

I don't buy this automatic 'Good guy FFG' as a baseline. We simply do not have the information to be sure of what happened and why. 

Yes. And just because the netrunner designers got blindsided doesn't mean that someone higher up at Flight/Asmodee isn't at the core of this decision and just kept the team in the dark until the last minute.

On 6/11/2018 at 1:37 PM, groden1h said:

It's unfortunate FFG gets itself tied up in licensing deals they aren't able to renegotiate. I hope they are learning from these agreements they get themselves into with expiration dates and clearly no 'right to renew' terms in their contracts. I feel bad for the gaming community.

I give FFG credit for trying to keep on top of a hobby that has grown exponentially over the past few years. I mean it's more than tripled in the time they negotiated the Netrunner contract 6 or 7 years ago. But going forward, they really need to lock those licenses down. And if that isn't possible, only look into licenses that will allow for more control on their part to renew or not. Or go back to creating their own content.

Sucks.

I'm not an expert, but I don't think it's generally possible to 'lock a license down' in perpetuity. (I know Alderac had such a deal with regards to Doomtown, but that was a rare exception to common practices) You'd have to do what they did with L5R and buy the whole thing outright.

But it's harder to sell customers on entirely new content. Especially after how the original board game was received, an Android card game wouldn't have been a success without something behind it -- in this case, reviving a well-loved card game from 20 years ago.

On 6/11/2018 at 11:45 PM, JohnGarrison1870 said:

One of the more prevalent theories about this in the Magic community is that Hasbro, in the face of the large revenue drop Magic has suffered recently, may be looking to go strong with a new IP. Many see taking back the rights to publish an Android card game as part of that plan.

Sure, it could be Hasbro just wanted to kill a competing game that was clearly taking away players from Magic. But I think a Hasbro-produced card game is the more likely outcome. I fully expect them to release a new Android CCG in the next year or two.

I find the idea that FFG decided not to renew the license to be absurd. (Unless we're talking about a case were Hasbro demanded a rediculously high sum, which I could see.)

FFG owns the Android property. WotC couldn't produce an Android game without entering into a licensing agreement of their own.

If WotC wanted to bring Netrunner back in-house, they'd likely be doing it with the original Cyberpunk licensing that the CCG came with. It's also possible, if unlikely, that with the Cyberpunk property about to be a big deal via the CDProjektRed game, someone else made WotC an offer that FFG couldn't match.

15 hours ago, MythicFox said:

FFG owns the Android property. WotC couldn't produce an Android game without entering into a licensing agreement of their own.

If WotC wanted to bring Netrunner back in-house, they'd likely be doing it with the original Cyberpunk licensing that the CCG came with. It's also possible, if unlikely, that with the Cyberpunk property about to be a big deal via the CDProjektRed game, someone else made WotC an offer that FFG couldn't match.

WotC doesn't own the Cyberpunk IP, right? According to this , R. Talsorian Games owns that IP.

I think it's very unlikely WoTC will make another CCG.

If Wizards was doing something with this, Lukas would at least been brought into a meeting and had his brain picked. He claims to know nothing about all this, so it isn't likely that Wizards all of a sudden, for the first time this decade, will make a card game not called Magic and not even ask a few questions from the lead designer of the old version of netrunner they have on staff currently. We can put that speculation to bed.

Whatever sized check Wizards was wanting for the license FFG wasn't willing to write it. I am sure FFG has other plans for Android at this point. Lets hope it is good.

On 6/8/2018 at 7:21 PM, Causty said:

Technically not, digital and analogue rights can be farmed out seperately (and make more money that way) Look at Hair Brained, Piranha and Catalyst's ownership of the Battletech/Mechwarrior licenses for instance and 2 of those are developing digital platforms of the same I.P. (HairBrained and Catalyst also share concurrent Shadowrun licenses too )

Good point in general, bad example in particular as ownerships of the rights to Shadowrun and Battletech were permanently split between digital games (Microsoft, whom Harebrained Schemes (nothing to do with hair, by the way) and Piranha Games acquired their licenses from) and physical games (WizKids, who've been licensing them to Catalyst Game Labs) when FASA sold off its video game division, which isn't entirely unique a case, but still unusual. A Song of Ice and Fire, The Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter would be way more typical examples akin to Star Wars of a single rights-owner farming out licenses within specific parameters to different interested parties (who may then farm them out further).

I still think the decision was made through MBA and/or bean counter reasoning, and will believe this until evidence is provided that suggests otherwise.

17 hours ago, Hordeoverseer said:

I think it's very unlikely WoTC will make another CCG.

I agree. Why would they? There'd have to come a zombie apocalypse or judgement day before they'd consider to stop releasing M:tG. And from a business standpoint there's absolutely no reason to release a second CCG since that would just cut into their M:tG sales.

On 6/12/2018 at 8:23 PM, Mep said:

That GW license was all about money. FFG could make a lot of money making their own miniature games or they could make less money making a few GW games. They made a business decision. A similar decision was made here. We just don't know the specifics of what FFG next plans are to move Android forward.

What we do know is that Wizards is bad at making cards games not named Magic. They already failed once with Netrunner and have given up making any card game not named Magic. It would be shocking if they decided to go fail at it a second time. Also it is board games and miniature games that are cutting into Magic, not Netrunner. There is no money in it for Wizards to kill Netrunner.

This reasoning looks a bit upside down to me. You maintain that FFG is at fault because they wanted money. I am pretty much convinced that if FFG could go on with their development of miniature games AND keep the GW license l along and do both they would have been happy to do so. GW were the ones who disagreed and issued the ultimatum you either stop developing this or we withdraw the license. It is not FFG's fault to pursue in these circumstances the solution that would be the most profitable for them.

We don't know exactly why the agreement FFG-WOTC was not renewed, and the details of this meeting will never get public anyway, but it's logical to imagine that FFG would have opted to let down ANR only if the alternative, given there was one, was unacceptable.

Totally bummed. Just discovered Android: Netrunner (bc of a character on HBO's tv show Billions was playing it.) I've loved cyberpunk since the first time I read SnowCrash, so I was so excited to meet others that loved that "world" through organized play. *Just* got the revised core through my local store, days before the announcement......

Besides having a beautiful game, is there a silver lining? Maybe limited number of existing sets means our game value will go up??

On 6/14/2018 at 10:01 AM, Swordbreaker said:

WotC doesn't own the Cyberpunk IP, right? According to this , R. Talsorian Games owns that IP.

They don't, but I don't know enough to rule out the possibility they might still have a Netrunner-related licensing deal on the books. I was more talking hypothetically, on the extremely unlikely circumstance they had the inclination to take another run at it themselves.