IMHO this can't be the end of a miniature based Star Wars games. I think we will see this come back in some form. If you think about it Disney is just about to release a slew of new content including:

• Season 7 of the Clone Wars
• The Mandalorian
• Episode 9
• Resistance Season 2
• Casian Andor TV Show
• Game of Thrones Trilogy
• Rian Johnson Trilogy

There is so much on the horizon it would be silly to simply walk away as the brand is about to take a huge leap forward. As a product manager myself you only pause a product for a few reasons

• FFG is going through a re-organization behind the scenes
  • Once the business and HR stuff is out of the way they may start supporting it again
• Product sales have flat lined and there is no pivot which allows the product to grow in it's market or increase it's market share
  • This means the product is in a sustain pattern of 2-3 years before official cancellation
    • Minimal investment to keep current customers active and reduce customer abandonment
• They are innovating on the product; meaning the IA team generated an idea during development and market analysis indicated that idea would be better as a stand alone product to build a new product (game) from
  • I am assuming new game development takes a few years so this is why they aren't saying IA is canceled, they want to sustain their current customer base while building it's replacement

I think it's the last one and they are working on something new that may be a year or two out. Only FFG really knows but that's my best Product Manager guess.

What do you guys think?

14 hours ago, starman1014 said:

IMHO this can't be the end of a miniature based Star Wars games. I think we will see this come back in some form. If you think about it Disney is just about to release a slew of new content including:

• Season 7 of the Clone Wars
• The Mandalorian
• Episode 9
• Resistance Season 2
• Casian Andor TV Show
• Game of Thrones Trilogy
• Rian Johnson Trilogy

There is so much on the horizon it would be silly to simply walk away as the brand is about to take a huge leap forward. As a product manager myself you only pause a product for a few reasons

• FFG is going through a re-organization behind the scenes
  • Once the business and HR stuff is out of the way they may start supporting it again
• Product sales have flat lined and there is no pivot which allows the product to grow in it's market or increase it's market share
  • This means the product is in a sustain pattern of 2-3 years before official cancellation
    • Minimal investment to keep current customers active and reduce customer abandonment
• They are innovating on the product; meaning the IA team generated an idea during development and market analysis indicated that idea would be better as a stand alone product to build a new product (game) from
  • I am assuming new game development takes a few years so this is why they aren't saying IA is canceled, they want to sustain their current customer base while building it's replacement

I think it's the last one and they are working on something new that may be a year or two out. Only FFG really knows but that's my best Product Manager guess.

What do you guys think?

See the problem is: you are using logic, reasoning, business experience, and a customer service oriented focus. FFG doesn't believe in all that unnecessary business acumen stuff.

14 hours ago, starman1014 said:

• They are innovating on the product; meaning the IA team generated an idea during development and market analysis indicated that idea would be better as a stand alone product to build a new product (game) from

There are always ideas and development going on. The IA team (just like any team) is/was not only working on their game, but whatever needs help, e.g. internal playtesting. Also see the design credits of Outer Rim.

Well Star Wars miniature games certainly haven't been abandoned by FFG or Disney. Exactly the opposite given the huge release rate of Legion expansions. And therein lies part of the problem. Despite the validity of the argument that IA nd Legion are "different games" from a potential customer's point of view they both occupy the space of Star Wars miniature games and inevitably cannibalise of one-another's sales.

As for your three reasons:

Quote

FFG is going through a re-organization behind the scenes

• Once the business and HR stuff is out of the way they may start supporting it again

FFG is in full development production flow give the output in other (Star Wars) product lines.

Quote

Product sales have flat lined and there is no pivot which allows the product to grow in it's market or increase it's market share

• This means the product is in a sustain pattern of 2-3 years before official cancellation
  • Minimal investment to keep cur  rent customers active and reduce customer abandonm  ent

Mostly likely IMO but I think you time frame is actually over-optimistic. IA needs active support to stay alive in retail for two reasons

1. FFG don't sell it directly so product availability depends on stock being pushed from printing to retailers so it can be assumed that they do not keep a large stockpile. They cannot clear warehoused stock if retailers don't want to restock it (the game is perceived to be dying and sitting in bargain bins) and on the other hand if FFG's stock runs out there is no more supply as they have ceased printing.
2. IA, although it can be played standalone really depends for much of its appeal on an ecosystem of expansions so when the core set runs out of stock or the expansions begin to dry up the game as a whole loses a lot of value for customer purchases, which in turn leads to lack of retailer interest in restocking (see 1)).

The most important thing to understand is not the "no development" statement made recently but the fact that reprinting of IA ceased some time ago and this is a game that actually does need active life support.

Also consider that IA (large boxes especially) are quite varied and complicated products to manufacture and assemble. When production stops for a while the combination of specific production processes, knowledge and skills will dwindle - and these are external businesses whose personal and processes FFG cannot directly control. On top of this it may well be that some of the components that IA product has been built on over the last five years (soft plastic figures, clam shell blister packs) are now seen as past technologies and are being replaced and suppliers dropped; FFG may be trying to reduce these elements at least where they can. All in all resuming production of an old product line like IA after several years is likely to be very expensive. The longer the more so.

Quote

They are innovating on the product; meaning the IA team generated an idea during development and market analysis indicated that idea would be better as a stand alone product to build a new product (game) from

• I am assuming new game development takes a few years so this is why they aren't saying IA is canceled, they want to sustain their current customer base while building it's replacement

FFG do not have a dedicated IA team as such. They move developers from one product to another as far as we can tell. Teams may stay together for some time, even the entire duration of a product life, but they are still "FFG employees" not "IA developers". There may occasionally be product ideas pitched speculatively at high levels but when they say there is "nothing in development" I think we can only take it to mean that there or no developers involved in IA at the moment. The IA team has been disbanded and reassigned.

15 hours ago, starman1014 said:

If you think      about it Disney is just about to release a slew of new content including:

•  Season 7 of the Clone Wars
• The Mandalorian
• Episode 9
• Resistance Season 2
• Casian Andor TV Show 
• Game of Thrones Trilogy 
• Rian Johnson Trilogy      

 There is so much on the horizon i  t would be silly to simply walk away as the brand is about to take a huge leap forward  . 

They just put all Star Wars projects on hold. I think it’s only affecting the bottom three items on your list, though. Anything currently running (Resistance) or through dev (Mandalorian) should be unaffected.