On 9/6/2019 at 10:56 PM, Radioactivepanda said:

Descent and Runebound should have been interchangeable. Imperial Assault and Legion should have been interchangeable.

I can assure you that if I can get established as a game designer/publisher, this kind of thing is exactly my intent; independent games that stand alone strongly, but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts within the IP. Cross-compatibility is such a potent thing that so few tabletop designers have had the guts to play with, and it's one of my deepest personal ambitions.

If Hasbro owes a stake in IA revenues then including IA material in Legion might very well be extremely bad for business for FFG. An argument could be made that such a move would entitle Hasbro to take whatever percentage they took off of IA from Legion as well. Do not assume that the game designers and business people are stupid. There's always a reason...

FFG sunsetted Descent long before Legion came out. FFG probably decided the plug was getting pulled on IA before Legion came out as well. Trying to cross the two games over is messy, the figures aren't even the same scale, and it probably wasn't going to be beneficial even if they had. So clearly, they didn't bother although they were asked about it often enough that thought was there.

On 10/16/2019 at 5:38 PM, Mep said:

FFG sunsetted Descent long before Legion came out. FFG probably decided the plug was getting pulled on IA before Legion came out as well. Trying to cross the two games over is messy, the figures aren't even the same scale, and it probably wasn't going to be beneficial even if they had. So clearly, they didn't bother although they were asked about it often enough that thought was there.

That's my problem with it. I don't see any logical reason why the Legion minis had to be different in term of size.

In fact, it seems like more work on their part. If they want to release Ahsoka as a commander for Legion, they'll have to pay to make new molds and everything and they can't release conversion kits going either way neither.

16 hours ago, Scuro said:

That's my problem with it. I don't see any logical reason why the Legion minis had to be different in term of size.

In fact, it seems like more work on their part. If they want to release Ahsoka as a commander for Legion, they'll have to pay to make new molds and everything and they can't release conversion kits going either way neither.

The actual problem is they are competing with Games Workshop on the miniature games. Got to give it to GW, they have nice models. The old cheap minis FFG was using for years for all their games was simply not going to compete in the current market. FFG is even changing how they are making their minis for legion to sprue molding so they can increase customization and detail. So yeah, for Ahsoka they would in fact have to make a new molds and everything just to be competitive. It seems like a waste but so is propping up a deadend game. FFG hedge their bets on X-wing 2.0 and Legion. IA is no longer part of the plan. It's just not a game that can compete in the current market nor were the sales ever good enough to retool the whole game into a 2.0 variant. IA is simply a flat out better game than Legion but sadly not too enough other people also hold that opinion for IA to continue.

17 hours ago, Mep said:

The actual problem is they are competing with Games Workshop on the miniature games. Got to give it to GW, they have nice models. The old cheap minis FFG was using for years for all their games was simply not going to compete in the current market. FFG is even changing how they are making their minis for legion to sprue molding so they can increase customization and detail. So yeah, for Ahsoka they would in fact have to make a new molds and everything just to be competitive. It seems like a waste but so is propping up a deadend game. FFG hedge their bets on X-wing 2.0 and Legion. IA is no longer part of the plan. It's just not a game that can compete in the current market nor were the sales ever good enough to retool the whole game into a 2.0 variant. IA is simply a flat out better game than Legion but sadly not too enough other people also hold that opinion for IA to continue.

Then it sounds like FF is setting themselves up for failure. Legion will be to Warhammer what Keyforge is to Magic, especially now that GW is bringing back Warhammer Fantasy and If they end up making these so-called "better" minis, that are all customizable and on sprues then, I'm guessing they'll be even more expensive and FFG will either have to eat the cost or pass it on to the customers. As for Imperial Assault being a dead game 45 total expansions, 6 of them being big box, the rest unit packs, they must have been making some kind of profit to have released as much as they did, even X-Wing only has 42, by my last count, expansions available.

With Legion getting Skirmish rules now, I'm starting to wonder why they didn't just take the IA rules set and made a "Legion mode" with a higher point value and just included more map tiles and some campaign support but no they wanted to reinvent the wheel from scratch.

Apologies, I find all of this frustrating. It boggles the mind.

A lot of people are frustrated here. FFG is certainly taking a gamble by going head to head with Games Workshop. I am not sure how successful they will be but clearly IA wasn't successful enough for them to continue on with this game. Even Descent was shut down and that was after they tried to revitalize both games with app support. Clearly wasn't successful. They haven't lost yet to Warhammer but they clearly lost to D&D. I think Keyforge is doing just fine. Card games are so cheap to print it is like printing money.

13 hours ago, Mep said:

A lot of people are frustrated here. FFG is certainly taking a gamble by going head to head with Games Workshop. I am not sure how successful they will be but clearly IA wasn't successful enough for them to continue on with this game. Even Descent was shut down and that was after they tried to revitalize both games with app support. Clearly wasn't successful. They haven't lost yet to Warhammer but they clearly lost to D&D. I think Keyforge is doing just fine. Card games are so cheap to print it is like printing money.

I'm sure Keyforge is doing just fine, as I'm sure Imperial Assault was doing just fine but it doesn't seem like doing just fine is good enough anymore. They want the next big hit, something that'll make money for years to come but that doesn't happen anymore. D&D, Magic and Warhammer are only big now because when they came out they had no competition and over time they became staples of gaming. Not even Pathfinder could unseat D&D, it was close but you don't hear about it on Big Bang Theory or it being played by Acquisitions Incorporated and I don't care what anybody says Pathfinder is the better quality game. (ง’̀-‘́)ง

If they want the next big thing, they have to start by making a medium hit and grow it, over time, and not discontinue a game just because you came up with a new idea. Even if Legion does somehow start bringing in the Warhammer people as soon as Hasbro takes back the license, BOOM! No more Chinese laundry.

You know what Legion should have been.....a Twilight Imperium themed war game. It would have been a license they own, it's got plenty of factions to make armies for and while it may not have mainstream fame, the gaming community, the people who will actually buy and play it have at least heard of Twilight Imperium. Imagine finally getting to see the infantry troops for all those races instead of tiny flags. Think of the the possibilities. (」゜ロ゜)」

Hire me for R&D FFG. Put me in the game coach, I'm ready!

Also, I predict that after these giant ships Armada is next on the chopping block. I am Criswell, I know all.

@Scuro They are not certain they will even bother doing reprints of IA. That means IA isn't doing fine, far from it. It is the new flashy games that sell. That means new games get made all the time and old games get but on the back shelf then no self. It's just how it works. People have their fun, then get bored and move on. Magic and D&D are anomalies. Games just don't last that long. I can't explain what hold those games have on people but Wizards has figured it out. Making a better game isn't enough to unseat them. That has been done so many times over the years and it's never worked.

BTW Disney owns the star wars license not Hasbro. To make toys you need a strong IP that can sell them, the chinese factory to make them and a store to sell them like Target or Walmart. You know what is not part of that equation? Hasbro, who's gotta be hoping right now Disney doesn't figure it out and cuts out the useless middleman. Sure years ago they could have made trouble over some of the language in their license agreement with Disney but today, they dare not be difficult when it comes to dealing with Disney. If Disney wants FFG to make some SW or Marvel or whatever board games for them, they do. FFG too, isn't going to be difficult. So whatever agreement was made years ago between Disney, Hasbro and FFG isn't going to relitigate it even if that old license expired. Disney is just holding too many cards right now for anyone in the industry to be difficult with them. It's starting to cause a lot of problems and people are starting to talk about anti-trust when speaking about Disney. Of course there was anti-trust talk 20 years ago about Microsoft and today people do most of their computing on android or iOS, not Windows. Things change and so will Disney being the huge success and everyone else just kind of sucking.

42 minutes ago, Mep said:

@Scuro They are not certain they will even bother doing reprints of IA. That means IA isn't doing fine, far from it. It is the new flashy games that sell. That means new games get made all the time and old games get but on the back shelf then no self. It's just how it works. People have their fun, then get bored and move on. Magic and D&D are anomalies. Games just don't last that long. I can't explain what hold those games have on people but Wizards has figured it out. Making a better game isn't enough to unseat them. That has been done so many times over the years and it's never worked.

BTW Disney owns the star wars license not Hasbro. To make toys you need a strong IP that can sell them, the chinese factory to make them and a store to sell them like Target or Walmart. You know what is not part of that equation? Hasbro, who's gotta be hoping right now Disney doesn't figure it out and cuts out the useless middleman. Sure years ago they could have made trouble over some of the language in their license agreement with Disney but today, they dare not be difficult when it comes to dealing with Disney. If Disney wants FFG to make some SW or Marvel or whatever board games for them, they do. FFG too, isn't going to be difficult. So whatever agreement was made years ago between Disney, Hasbro and FFG isn't going to relitigate it even if that old license expired. Disney is just holding too many cards right now for anyone in the industry to be difficult with them. It's starting to cause a lot of problems and people are starting to talk about anti-trust when speaking about Disney. Of course there was anti-trust talk 20 years ago about Microsoft and today people do most of their computing on android or iOS, not Windows. Things change and so will Disney being the huge success and everyone else just kind of sucking.

Hasbro isn't beholden to Disney, it is the other way around. You think Disney bought Star Wars for four billion dollars so they could sell movie tickets? No, it was always about the merchandise. Hasbro has been paying Lucasfilm, and now Disney a lot of money for decades, for the right to produce those toys. That merchandise is not selling anywhere near what it used to. Hasbro makes a lot more than just Star Wars toys. Games that FFG make are a pittance of money compared to the action figure and collectible market. Hasbro has lost millions on Star Wars toys in the last couple of years, and they could tell Disney to take a walk and refuse to renew with them. Then Disney would be stuck trying to find a way to create their own toy line, which is nowhere as easy as you make it seem, but since toys aren't selling very well, why would they want to make that initial investment. Disney needs these companies to keep renewing the license. However, as the toy market becomes less profitable, companies are going to start demanding Disney lower the license fees. Just like television shows that are not very successful have to go off air because they can't sell advertising time at a rate that would justify said show's continued production.

@Scuro , @Mep and @Rikalonius all have some good an valid points. There's a lot of speculation as we don't know what's happening behind the scenes. While Disney has the capital to go ahead and produce their own toys in virtually any form, they've chosen not to and I doubt they are going to change that model. And neither company "needs" the other. There's plenty of toy/game/whatever creating companies that would pay a hefty sum to make Star Wars/Marvel/Disney stuff. If Hasbro loses the license, whether due to expiration of contract or other, Hasbro will continue to make plenty of other products. And they will have freed up the space in their factories to pursue a contract with another company(s). Disney in turn, will have plenty of suitors wiling to drop piles of money on their doorstep for the license to make their stuff. What will happen will happen and we're just along for the ride.

The best things we can hope for is that Disney will continue to pressure EA into making more games like Jedi: Fallen Order and less like Battlefront. That Disney will allow everyone to use more EU source material, and give up this ridiculous idea of the new canon. And that Disney will take a different view of the companies they are doing business with and make changes that are good from the long term success of the brand.

Having fiascos like Battlefront, having a revolving door of tabletop games that seemingly get abandoned for the new "shiny", and having reduced box office returns are slowing eroding the goodness of Star Wars. That's bad for everyone, whether you're OT, prequel, EU and/or ST.

Back to the optic at hand. I'm sad that IA has been seemingly abandoned at this point. At the very least a finishing of the OT story line that was the backbone until RotE seems like a fair ask. The whole idea that Legion is not at all compatible with IA is a major misstep in my eyes. I would have 100% been on the legion bus if I didn't have to re-purchase everything that I already have. But I don't have the desire to play a Legion style game, nor the pocketbook. Legion should have been something more like Memoir '44 , or like Armada in scale and scope.

Lastly:

9 hours ago, Scuro said:

Also, I predict that after these giant ships Armada is next on the chopping block.

Armada isn't going anywhere for the foreseeable future. FFG has already announced clone wars ships next year.

21 hours ago, Mep said:

They are not certain they will even bother doing reprints of IA. That means IA isn't doing fine, far from it. It is the new flashy games that sell. That means new games get made all the time and old games get but on the back shelf then no self. It's just how it works. People have their fun, then get bored and move on. Magic and D&D are anomalies. Games just don't last that long. I can't explain what hold those games have on people but Wizards has figured it out. Making a better game isn't enough to unseat them. That has been done so many times over the years and it's never worked.

They aren't keeping up with reprint of Armada either. The only way to get Raiders/Gladiators/Fighter I's/Cruisers are on ebay for $50. I just finished selling the last of my Armada stuff this week cause I can't find what I want but anyways, like I said, I have to go off of the assumption that due to the number of expansions that were made for IA that it was doing well, otherwise they would have discontinued it even earlier than they did. The point I was making is that FFGs seems to gone down the road of "If x game doesn't become a cash cow it's failed." The way I see it there's two ways you can go, the big company route, you make a your flagship game that you own and will support, improve and expand or the small company route, you make a string of consistently good games that sell and you're not at risk of collapsing because a game didn't go big. FFG seems to be trying to have it both ways, the LCG, Destiny, X-Wing, Legion, Armada, the RPG, games that will in theory bring in a constant cash flow, but they have so many, that they are all competing against each other and so none of them get ahead.

20 hours ago, Rikalonius said:

Hasbro isn't beholden to Disney, it is the other way around. You think Disney bought Star Wars for four billion dollars so they could sell movie tickets? No, it was always about the merchandise. Hasbro has been paying Lucasfilm, and now Disney a lot of money for decades, for the right to produce those toys. That merchandise is not selling anywhere near what it used to. Hasbro makes a lot more than just Star Wars toys. Games that FFG make are a pittance of money compared to the action figure and collectible market. Hasbro has lost millions on Star Wars toys in the last couple of years, and they could tell Disney to take a walk and refuse to renew with them. Then Disney would be stuck trying to find a way to create their own toy line, which is nowhere as easy as you make it seem, but since toys aren't selling very well, why would they want to make that initial investment. Disney needs these companies to keep renewing the license. However, as the toy market becomes less profitable, companies are going to start demanding Disney lower the license fees. Just like television shows that are not very successful have to go off air because they can't sell advertising time at a rate that would justify said show's continued production.

And that's what I'm worried about, every time it comes back to renew the license FFG is going to have to decide if they are making enough money off of the license to make it worth it. Hasbro didn't think so and they're the Magic/D&D company and if FFG does the same, everything goes and if anybody thinks Disney will settle for less, just remember they paid 4 Billion for the franchise.

19 hours ago, thestag said:

The best things we can hope for is that Disney will continue to pressure EA into making more games like Jedi: Fallen Order and less like Battlefront. That Disney will allow everyone to use more EU source material, and give up this ridiculous idea of the new canon. And that Disney will take a different view of the companies they are doing business with and make changes that are good from the long term success of the brand.

I think it was EA wanting to make money more than Disney pressure. They know that if EA can't make money on the license, somebody else will gladly pay for it thinking they'll do better, probably Activision and they'll make the same mistakes, except this time it'll be Call of Duty: Star Wars with Keven Spacey portraying Prince Xizor, press F to make unwelcome advances toward princess Leia.

On a side note, I know Fallen Order is, mechanically, a good game but the story kind of sucks. The end goal is to find a holocron, it has an open ending(for sequels, I'm sure) and the main villain is an inquisitor. I've hated inquisitors ever since I saw them use their lightsabers as helicopters. I really have no desire to play that game and just like anything else that Disney will produce, it all ends up at the same place, the sequel trilogy "and that's no good."

19 hours ago, thestag said:

Back to the optic at hand. I'm sad that IA has been seemingly abandoned at this point. At the very least a finishing of the OT story line that was the backbone until RotE seems like a fair ask. The whole idea that Legion is not at all compatible with IA is a major misstep in my eyes. I would have 100% been on the legion bus if I didn't have to re-purchase everything that I already have. But I don't have the desire to play a Legion style game, nor the pocketbook. Legion should have been something more like Memoir '44 , or like Armada in scale and scope.

There were a lot of missed opportunities with IA, no Clone Wars set, even though, apparently, every other game has gotten one. No "Legion Mode" to expand the game into what Legion is, even though Legion is now getting a "Skirmish Mode". They could have made a Villains set, with players playing Imperial heroes and the Overlord playing the Rebels through a dark side campaign, that would have been a fun twist.

19 hours ago, thestag said:

Armada isn't going anywhere for the foreseeable future. FFG has already announced clone wars ships next year.

Well Chiswell never got anything right either so at least there's consistency but I'm still predicting that Armada will go next. I would have guessed Destiny but that game's production cost is low enough that I think it'll outlast Armada at least.

On 11/23/2019 at 10:11 AM, thestag said:

There's plenty of toy/game/whatever creating companies that would pay a hefty sum to make Star Wars/Marvel/Disney stuff. If Hasbro loses the license, whether due to expiration of contract or other, Hasbro will continue to make plenty of other products. And they will have freed up the space in their factories to pursue a contract with another company(s).

See here is the problem. Hasbro doesn't have factories. The buildings and land those factories occupy are in fact owned by the Chinese government and leased by Chinese companies that then sell their goods to Hasbro .... or Disney. What exactly does Hasbro have? People who can design toys? Disney can just hire them. At best Hasbro owns some kind of patented IP for manufacturing of toys but after so many decades I doubt that is even true anymore. Anyways, it is the Chinese factories that work out how to manufacture stuff these days. Sure Hasbro can ask other companies to license IP but who? Those new Harry Potter movies aren't blockbusters anymore. DC comics are real hit and miss. Does anyone care about GI Joe and Transformers anymore? There is only so much play-doh and nerf they can sell. It is true the toy market is way down. If Disney decides they don't need Hasbro to make Star Wars, Marvel and Disney princesses then Hasbro goes from a big toy company to a small one over night. They will go the way of ToysRUs. They'll eventually have to sell of Wizards and Parker Brothers to make debt payments before filling. I don't see Hasbro existing without Disney. EA has plenty still minus Disney. Personally wouldn't mind EA being minus Disney.

The real issue that will come into play is the movement of money. Getting money out of China is difficult. The Chinese are very sensitive about foreigners making money off of them. If the money is allowed to leave China it just gets taxed on the way to the US. The solution is to spend the money made in China in China. This means buying up manufactured goods and importing them to the US, which used to be the tax free way of doing things. The recent tariff issues has thrown all of that up into the air but that will be solve in either 1 year or 5. Either way, Disney is starting to make a lot of money in China and that money will have to be moved some how. The best way being to buy manufactured goods from China which means Hasbro's days may be numbered no matter what. There is only so much stuff Disney can push through its theme parks.

Hasbro is NOT the reason IA got canned.

If there was a problem with the SW board game license how come Rebellion and Outer Rim still exist? The argument is therefore null and void.

The only reason IA got thrown under the bus was because the IA miniature packs were nearly the same scale as Legion.

FFG will likely say this was to avoid confusion. In reality, it's because Legion packs are more expensive and they want to sell those.

Legion may be a good game but I've not bought in. It does not provide and can never provide the same campaign experience, and the tabletop battle market is already flooded with other titles.

7 minutes ago, Gallanteer said:

FFG will likely say this was to avoid confusion.

I find it unlikely that FFG is going to say anything about it. It's done. They have said what they wanted to say.

No need for speculation, other than "keeping yourself warm by talking" like the Finnish proverb goes (puhua lämpimikseen).

1 hour ago, Gallanteer said:

Hasbro is NOT the reason IA got canned.

If there was a problem with the SW board game license how come Rebellion and Outer Rim still exist? The argument is therefore null and void.

The only reason IA got thrown under the bus was because the IA miniature packs were nearly the same scale as Legion.

FFG will likely say this was to avoid confusion. In reality, it's because Legion packs are more expensive and they want to sell those.

Legion may be a good game but I've not bought in. It does not provide and can never provide the same campaign experience, and the tabletop battle market is already flooded with other titles.

I know we're beating a dead horse here again and again, and I know that we'll never know the difference one way or another, but there's not a whole lot else going on with this game so I'll keep talking anyway

When people say that they think "business reasons" is a euphemism for "Hasbro reasons", nobody is implying that Hasbro out and out cancelled the game or anything like that. Let's just say for argument's sake that their deal with Hasbro involved giving them a cut of whatever they make. Say, $2 on each figure pack and $5 on each boxed expansion (I have no idea what actual margins are on board games, I'm just pulling these numbers out of the air to illustrate the point). Similarly, they have to give up $5 from each copy of Rebellion or Outer Rim sold.

Does it make sense to keep making Star Wars board games generally? Well if they make $15 on each copy of Outer Rim that they sell and give Hasbro $5, they could very well decide that the Star Wars IP will sell enough games that it will be worth selling them for $10 a pop instead of a different game at $15. For a time that was obviously true of Imperial Assault as well, as evidenced by the 40-some-odd expansions that exist.

But now, enter Legion. If you can sell an IA expansion for $10 or sell a Legion expansion to the same demographic and get the full $15, why not do the latter? I mean if they had unlimited resources they could continue to do both, but that really doesn't seem to be the case at FFG. They've only got so many people, so why waste those resources building two product lines that somewhat compete with one another when you could instead just concentrate on the one where you actually get to keep all the money you make.

Now don't get me wrong, IA is my first and only love at FFG and I'm really disappointed that it's gone (speaking of competitive skirmish here, as I still can and do play campaign). I don't know anybody who plays Legion, and even if I did I doubt I would buy in after being slow-rolled by FFG at the end of the IA lifespan. But looking at it from their perspective, I can absolutely understand why they would cancel one game in favour of the other. The only thing that leaves me a bit bitter is the way they went about doing it, leaving the fact that it's being discontinued to come out slowly over years, and in the end confirmation came only under the weight of fan pressure at a Q&A.

11 hours ago, Gallanteer said:

Hasbro is NOT the reason IA got canned.

If there was a problem with the SW board game license how come Rebellion and Outer Rim still exist? The argument is therefore null and void.

The only reason IA got thrown under the bus was because the IA miniature packs were nearly the same scale as Legion.

FFG will likely say this was to avoid confusion. In reality, it's because Legion packs are more expensive and they want to sell those.

Legion may be a good game but I've not bought in. It does not provide and can never provide the same campaign experience, and the tabletop battle market is already flooded with other titles.

Imperial Assault still exists. Rebellion still exists in the same way, i.e. no further content. Same for Doom. They are just done making expansions for it.

18 hours ago, a1bert said:

I find it unlikely that FFG is going to say anything about it. It's done. They have said what they wanted to say.

No need for speculation, other than "keeping yourself warm by talking" like the Finnish proverb goes (puhua lämpimikseen).

Then you agree that there's no harm in us talking about this. Glad to see we're all on the same page.

17 hours ago, ManateeX said:

But now, enter Legion. If you can sell an IA expansion for $10 or sell a Legion expansion to the same demographic and get the full $15, why not do the latter? I mean if they had unlimited resources they could continue to do both, but that really doesn't seem to be the case at FFG. They've only got so many people, so why waste those resources building two product lines that somewhat compete with one another when you could instead just concentrate on the one where you actually get to keep all the money you make.

But again the data available suggests that Legion isn't as popular so even if they keep more money from every sale of Legion if fewer people are buying it then not only did they cut off a hand but they'll be slowly bleeding while waiting for it to grow back and I agree, I think FFG has a problem, selling multiple collectible games that end up being in competition with each other. The LCG vs Destiny, X-Wing vs Armada, Imperial Assault vs Legion. It doesn't make sense.

9 hours ago, Rikalonius said:

Imperial Assault still exists. Rebellion still exists in the same way, i.e. no further content. Same for Doom. They are just done making expansions for it.

The difference is that IA is still fertile ground for further stories. With all the new TV series such as the Mandolorian which could bring in new locales and characters.

Lets hope they at least keep bringing out new app campaigns and keep doing reprints. The former could almost be done by one person and some playtesting, and has a very low cost base compared to new physical content. From a business perspective (ignoring the Legion model size and cost issue) there is no reason for them not to do it - small cost in order to promote and sell existing product.

11 hours ago, Scuro said:

But again the data available suggests that Legion isn't as popula r so even if they keep more money from every sale of Legion if fewer people are buying it then not only did they cut off a hand but they'll be slowly bleeding while waiting for it to grow back...

I said I understand their position, I didn't say it was a good idea on their part .

My local scene suggests that Legion is far less popular than IA, but other people have reported differently. The truth is we really don't have anything to tell us one way or another - even the BGG stats aren't very helpful, unfortunately, as the type of person who plays Legion probably doesn't bother logging their collection. For reference, IA and X-Wing are about equal in popularity on that site but I would be rather surprised if that were the case in reality.

I guess my reasoning is that the folks at FFG aren't completely out to lunch, and they actually do have the numbers that we're all only guessing about. With or without Hasbro, with or without Legion, they looked at things and decided that they weren't going to get enough return on their next IA expansion to make it worth spending the resources creating it. For the record, those same BGG stats that show 30,000+ people own IA show that only about 1500 own Tyrants of Lothal. And I know people don't always log expansions, but it does still go to show that it's hard for us to know anything at all about what's going on with the financial side of these games.

Now with all of that said...

Quote

I think FFG has a problem, selling multiple collectible games that end up being in competition with each other. The LCG vs Destiny, X-Wing vs Armada, Imperial Assault vs Legion. It doesn't make sense.

I'm totally with you here. X-Wing aside, their recent business model seems to be "create new game with lots of hype, front-load it with a bunch of expansions soon after launch to make a bunch of sales, release a few more expansions at a slowing rate, then create new game with lots of hype and front-loaded expansions, repeat". This has obviously worked for them to a certain extent, but it strikes me that at some point they're going to run into diminishing returns.

Speaking on the only financial numbers that I can be absolutely sure about, I can tell you that I personally will not be putting any more money into this sort of collectible FFG game despite how much fun I've had with IA skirmish. I look at something like Destiny and I'm genuinely interested in playing the game, but I have no faith that it will still be around a year from now. I'm not willing to put in the hundreds of dollars necessary to get up to speed only to see the game get cancelled with no warning shortly thereafter. And that's the problem with the model that they're working under - at some point you're going to "burn out" a lot of your fans, who just aren't going to be interested in spending so much on yet another game when they've already been through the whole cycle before.

At least that's what happened to me. If there are enough people like me then maybe they'll eventually start to notice, but who knows.

3 hours ago, Gallanteer said:

The difference is that IA is still fertile ground for further stories. With all the new TV series such as the Mandolorian which could bring in new locales and characters.

Lets hope they at least keep bringing out new app campaigns and keep doing reprints. The former could almost be done by one person and some playtesting, and has a very low cost base compared to new physical content. From a business perspective (ignoring the Legion model size and cost issue) there is no reason for them not to do it - small cost in order to promote and sell existing product.

Andrew stated there would be no more "physical content due to business reasons." I believe the latest raid for the app came out after this Q&A. The business reason come down to one of two things. The first, they believe the cost outweighs the profit, which dovetails with the second reason, the cost of the license fee for Hasbro is too high. I use the example of the original Battlestar Galactica before. It was a ratings hit, destroying its competition Mary in the 8pm time slot on Sunday night. However, CBS riposted by moving All in the Family to that time slot, thus giving BSG a run for their money. BSG cost a million dollars an episode in 1979. Who knows what All in the Family cost, but one can imagine a single set show with characters wearing every day street clothe was a far cry from space fantasy prices. So Galactica got cancelled in favor of Mork and Mindy. It wasn't that BSG wasn't profitable, it just wasn't profitable enough. If FFG can take the 3D models they already have and make 70% of their inventory for Legion, and not pay Hasbro a license fee, well, they may have just thought it was enough to cancel physical content for IA.

8 hours ago, Rikalonius said:

Andrew stated there would be no more "physical content due to business reasons." I believe the latest raid for the app came out after this Q&A.

I believe it was just announced around the same time as the Q&A, so it may simply have been a timing thing. (The timing of the additional Raid map announcement is in no way an indication that they are still developing things for the app)

Remember that development on these things take a while, so the large gap in announcements will likely mean no more App content either.