State of LCGs

By Sildric, in Living Card Games

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2018/6/8/state-of-the-lcg/

I mean, I've played almost every LCG... I'm starting to get sick of them getting killed off. I think FFG needs to focus on their IPs moving forward. Backing a 3rd party fueled LCG seems like a hazard now. Also more frequent rotations and limited card pools should really become a thing. I know X-Wing 2.0 is launching using a digital aspect to control ship prices. Would be nice for some first party apps that define the card pools / have deck builders with formats. I've played a lot of digital card games and it's great having pools of cards that change more frequently and incorporate older cards more often. I'd love to see them institute this with some of the LCGs co-op and competitive. It could really keep things interesting.

Well LCGs have one major business hurdle, and that is the profit cap. If you take a look at MTG or heck just take a look at video games the past year. On mobile they are all free2play with very predatory pay2win microtransactions. Just about every mainstream AAA videogame has some sort of in-game motorization that is designed to create smaller but more frequent revenue instead of the large chunks of content that might be half the retail value of the game. When you are dealing with Randomized packs the profit is uncapped therefore unrestricted only to the budget of the individual player. When you release them in sets your profit is capped generally to 1 product per player.

Star Wars LCG was no longer a success, Star Wars Destiney is. <_<

I don't like it but I can't control the market. :(

So, that’s 2 LCGs down in a years time. What’s next? It makes me worry for L5R

I think co-op is a perfect fit for the model.

I’m not sure the model as it was is a good fit for a full on lifestyle game.

I do not understand why they fracture their cardpools and thus products into so many different factions. 4 is all you need and most of their games nearly double that.

Fortunately that was the last LCG they have where they have a licensing vulnerability. Pox on WotC for acting like babies here.

37 minutes ago, Joelist said:

Fortunately that was the last LCG they have where they have a licensing vulnerability. Pox on WotC for acting like babies here.

Well Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings are also licensed, but they aren' licensed by rival game companies. As long as they don't screw the property FFG should be fine for renewals.

Yep. Those licenses are in much more secure places (Tolkien estate and the company representing George RR Martin). And in both cases FFG owns the game system.

On ‎6‎/‎9‎/‎2018 at 6:42 AM, Hafdan said:

So, that’s 2 LCGs down in a years time. What’s next? It makes me worry for L5R

You don't need to worry about that one. They bought all of the rights before starting on the game. The only thing that will tank L5R is if the community dies. They have as much external risks on it as they do on Terrinoth, Arkham, or any other Android game.

This is why FFG should make a TI LCG.

Ti Lcg just would not be very popular... It is like making Lcg based on.... well it is hard to say any other fransise that is as Little known... even carcassone, or catan Are big names compared to ti. Robinson Crusoe or Treasure island Are better known by general public. Unless there is a movie or tv series about TI it is very hard to see it become very popular. It is not impossible though! But fransise has a big impact! Cthulhu is well known fransise as is games of thrones and LotR and Star wars. L5r not so but manga and japan have some love on their own.

interesting to see what comes. Ti is very good candidate for Lcg because it has backround and history, but it is possible that it will remain quite small and not so popular as other candidates. Netrunner did have strong history and the game system was allready quite good even thoug it was not known by big public. So it is possible to have big and popular Lcg even without well known fransise.

16 hours ago, Hannibal_pjv said:

L5r not so but manga and japan have some love on their own.

There is 0 relationship between manga and L5R. The IP is from the US. I think you have no idea what history this IP has. The previous L5R CCG put together a rather unique community. People don't like it because "it's Japan" (it's not japan at all actually, it's heroic fantasy based on a far eastern setting). Many people enjoyed this setting because of the depth of the universe, the character and the awesome pen and paper RPG that was published alongside. This was a brutal setting where important and loved characters could get killed at any moment, long before Game of Thrones was a thing.

Sorry for going on a tangent here but I had to mention it :)

13 minutes ago, Hellvlad said:

There is 0 relationship between manga and L5R. The IP is from the US. I think you have no idea what history this IP has. The previous L5R CCG put together a rather unique community. People don't like it because "it's Japan" (it's not japan at all actually, it's heroic fantasy based on a far eastern setting). Many people enjoyed this setting because  of the depth of the universe, the character and the awesome pen and paper RPG that was published alongside. This was a brutal setting where important and loved characters could get killed at any moment,  long before Game of Thrones was a thing.

Sorry for going on a tangent here but I had to mention it :)

There is a certain amount of crossover appeal as there are plenty of anime fans in the L5R community.

2 hours ago, Hellvlad said:

There is 0 relationship between manga and L5R. The IP is from the US. I think you have no idea what history this IP has. The previous L5R CCG put together a rather unique community. People don't like it because "it's Japan" (it's not japan at all actually, it's heroic fantasy based on a far eastern setting). Many people enjoyed this setting because of the depth of the universe, the character and the awesome pen and paper RPG that was published alongside. This was a brutal setting where important and loved characters could get killed at any moment, long before Game of Thrones was a thing.

Sorry for going on a tangent here but I had to mention it :)

I Have played the original ccg and RPG so I know what you Are talking, but to people who does not have that backround, Japan and Anime is what comes to maind ;)

So I was talkin about fransise appearance to completely new player. And there Are not so Many that Are not films or books that got recognition!

Well, Japan is definitely an inspiration for Rokugan. Anime, not so much.

2 hours ago, Khudzlin said:

Well, Japan is definitely an inspiration for Rokugan. Anime, not so much.

Perhaps, but I recall showing the game to a friend of mine and the first words out of his mouth where "What is this Japanese Anime ****". I totally get it, at a glance, it is an Anime game, I think fans of L5R hate it when anyone makes that connection, which is why there is a kind of rejection of the notion that the two are related, but if you live in Japan and I show you L5R, your first play will be a comparison to every other Anime game you have ever played.

5 hours ago, BigKahuna said:

Perhaps, but I recall showing the game to a friend of mine and the first words out of his mouth where "What is this Japanese Anime ****". I totally get it, at a glance, it is an Anime game, I think fans of L5R hate it when anyone makes that connection, which is why there is a kind of rejection of the notion that the two are related, but if you live in Japan and I show you L5R, your first play will be a comparison to every other Anime game you have ever played.

Yeah, but that is akin to calling the Tau the anime characters in Warhammer 40k. That's just the way humans associate to quickly make sense of new information.

In fairness to this, anime is an medium not a cookie cutter. L5R actually is similar to Inuyasha and Samurai Champloo. It's also similar to the classic Japanese movies The Hidden Fortress (what Star Wars is based on), Yojimbo, and Samurai Seven - which now that I write that I remember there is also an anime retelling of it (in addition to the American retellings of The Magnificent Seven).

All of the names, with the exception of Unicorn, are Japanese. Words and their meanings like Bushi and Bushido are Japanese. The Tao, on the other hand, is Chinese. I think the essence of the game is Mythical Asian, but that Japan had the most romanticized-able pool of stories and hierarchy to pull from.

I suppose that my feelings on the comparison to anime feels sloppy. My first question would probably be something like, "How do you mean. Do you feel it's more like Gundam or Case Closed?" On that note of Gundam, does anyone know if BattleTech gets the same comparisons? Or do they call it, "That Power Rangers video game"?

On 6/9/2018 at 4:42 AM, Hafdan said:

So, that’s 2 LCGs down in a years time. What’s next? It makes me worry for L5R

3 LCGs in 2 years.

  1. Star Wars the Card Game
  2. Warhammer Conquest
  3. Android: Netrunner

There are others but were already defunct such as Warhammer Invasion and other have a spiritual successor LCG such as Call of Cthulhu and GoT 1st:ed was just moved over into non-compatible 2nd edition. You could say that SW: Destiny is the spiritual successor for SW:LCG but obviously not in a LCG format.

Lets recap my own experience with LCGs :

1) Warhammer Invasion got a proper ending as a finished set. Still a fun kitchen table game to play.

2) Warhammer Conquest got a botched finish due to license termination. For someone like me who typically waits for a "whole cycle" avaibility, getting that last one was impossible, unless you chased Ebay @ inflated prices for something that in reality has no value once the game is discontinued ....

Still a great kitchen table card game, but in my case I wish I'd had the chance to scoop that last cycle for my own enjoyment. I never did ...

3) Star Wars LCG. Super fun game to play casual games. Got a proper "ending" with it's full 6 cycles & expansion boxes. Everyone who collected this one had ample time to grab whatever pack they wanted & finish their collection.

4) Netrunner. Gets yet another botched & rushed finish a la Conquest due to license termination. I think what's worse here is it also happened one year after rotation. Should have just ended after the Mars Cycle with its full 7 cycles card pool & maybe a proper (and bigger) list of restrictions to address meta cards. Fans would still have cried out loud, but the concept of having a game rotate out its early expansions, reboot a Core 2.0 set, sell another full cycle, then get permanently shut down right after ... that's messed up :(

5) AGOT 2.0. Great game, great mechanics but a constant rehash of multiple versions of the game characters. This game can't go on forever as it will be eventually run out of gas or yet suffer another end-of-license termination ?

Conclusion: LCG is a model that can't sustain itself indefinately, but remains a fun , affordable model for card games that give you significant enjoyment at lesser cost than CCGs. However, if you do buy-in a LCG just do so knowing that it will likely wont go on forever ;) Plus, seeing as ultimately they all suffer cancellation, LCGs are kind of nice if you grow alongside them (by buying packs as they get released). If you are the kind of person who's a late adopter that likes "buying them all" when the game has a sizeable pool already, well, you most certainly are at risk of getting disappointed sooner rather than later.

The exception I would say is the Co-op LCGs, which seem very well suited to the format. LotR has been going for like 7 years now and shows no signs of stopping. Arkham Horror can easily go for 10 years before they run out of previous investigators.

L5R already shows a lot of pains of the LCG, but they seem to be innovating with the clan packs and 6 in 6, plus rumors of something new on the horizon.

We will see how Keyforge takes off, that could influence further LCGs.
I think we still have room for an Android LCG of some kind.

On 10/1/2018 at 9:27 AM, Kallel00 said:

Lets recap my own experience with LCGs :

1) Warhammer Invasion got a proper ending as a finished set. Still a fun kitchen table game to play.

Cancelled due to poor sales.

Quote

2) Warhammer Conquest got a botched finish due to license termination. For someone like me who typically waits for a "whole cycle" avaibility, getting that last one was impossible, unless you chased Ebay @ inflated prices for something that in reality has no value once the game is discontinued ....

Still a great kitchen table card game, but in my case I wish I'd had the chance to scoop that last cycle for my own enjoyment. I never did ...

"Botched" = the license was pulled by the license owner.

Quote

3) Star Wars LCG. Super fun game to play casual games. Got a proper "ending" with it's full 6 cycles & expansion boxes. Everyone who collected this one had ample time to grab whatever pack they wanted & finish their collection.

Cancelled due to poor sales. Also was cancelled after Destiny came out, so arguably the poor sales were the result of cannibalizing its own player base.

Quote

4) Netrunner. Gets yet another botched & rushed finish a la Conquest due to license termination. I think what's worse here is it also happened one year after rotation. Should have just ended after the Mars Cycle with its full 7 cycles card pool & maybe a proper (and bigger) list of restrictions to address meta cards. Fans would still have cried out loud, but the concept of having a game rotate out its early expansions, reboot a Core 2.0 set, sell another full cycle, then get permanently shut down right after ... that's messed up :(

Again, "botched" = the license was pulled by the license owner.

You're being tremendously unfair. When the license isn't being renewed, everyone gets blindsided, and there simply isn't time to tie everything off with a neat little bow, especially when they have been taking steps to revamp the game for the long haul. These things are in the pipeline for at least 18 months in advance, and for the Revised Core Set it was essentially two years in advance, and so when they get word that the end is nigh with less than a year to go and a bunch of product already in the pipeline, there's really nothing anyone can do except stop developing subsequent products and and let the clock run out, and wherever it ends, it ends. That's not a "botched" job. Sometimes you just get dealt a losing hand and it's a bad beat. It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose, that's not unfair, that's life.

When game sales are not justifying continuation such as with WHI, SWLCG, or Call of Cthulhu, then sure, you can make the call, and know in advance that the last product in development will be the final release, and you can make sure it balances the whole. They at least tried to do that with Reign & Reverie for Netrunner.

On 10/1/2018 at 4:27 PM, Kallel00 said:

5) AGOT 2.0. Great game, great mechanics but a constant rehash of multiple versions of the game characters. This game can't go on forever as it will be eventually run out of gas or yet suffer another end-of-license termination ?

A lot of packs for this one are on the current holidays sale. Latest announcement for something new for this line was done on July, 30th, so, almost 3 months ago. Doesn't look like a healthy game

On 10/27/2018 at 1:46 AM, Julia said:

A lot of packs for this one are on the current holidays sale. Latest announcement for something new for this line was done on July, 30th, so, almost 3 months ago. Doesn't look like a healthy game

FFG announced a new box on October, 9th, so about 3 weeks ago. The lack of announcement for the next cycle is still worrying, though.

Maybe if they started releasing Novellas for Game of Thrones like they do for L5R, Android & Arkham. Really flesh out the backgrounds of some of these characters - it's like they have a rich backdrop in their minds that they're trying to tell with the game. It could get people interested in the card game and offer some reason for why the houses are at war.

4 minutes ago, Duciris said:

Maybe if they started releasing Novellas for Game of Thrones like they do for L5R, Android & Arkham. Really flesh out the backgrounds of some of these characters - it's like they have a rich backdrop in their minds that they're trying to tell with the game. It could get people interested in the card game and offer some reason for why the houses are at war.

I agree. A Game of Thrones could definitely use a book series. It's a shame that it's purely game based at this point.

I don’t want to read . It’s enough of a pain having to read the cards if I’m honest.

Make a TV show.