With the recent news of FFG no longer supporting their RPG lines, the future of the forum are in question. In order to keep in touch with the community, I would like to remind all y'all that only these forums are FFG/Asmodee-owned. The rest of the community is fan-run, so come and join us on:
Come join us elsewhere!
There was recent news that FFG is no longer supporting their RPG products? What did I miss?
1 minute ago, phillos said:There was recent news that FFG is no longer supporting their RPG products? What did I miss?
d20 Radio confirmed it from their sources. I'm surprised you missed my " Well Shît " post 😛
Yep, sad to say it appears to be true.
For everyone wondering if the forums are gonna stick around (or the Foundry, or dice production, or... anything at all that had to do with this stuff), let's go over to the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition forums here and talk about it.
Oh wait...
1 hour ago, emsquared said:For everyone wondering if the forums are gonna stick around (or the Foundry, or dice production, or... anything at all that had to do with this stuff), let's go over to the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition forums here and talk about it.
Oh wait...
Well, that might not apply. FFG no longer had the IP for Warhammer, so the forums went down. The Warhammer forums are still archived though so the material can still be looked up, but no posting I assume (ETA: Took a look in the Warhammer archive and there was a post from Feb 7).
Star Wars, when/if FFG loses the license, could be archived too? I hope at least archived. Louds of treasures there. But, the license could go to whatever company buys FFG out? Hopefully they will re-open the RPG department even if smaller?
Genesys is completely FFG's IP. So, they wouldn't have any legal reason to close the forum. Perhaps it doesn't get archived like the others? Especially not if a current or new owner has some sense, wants fee money, and keeps Genesys and the Foundry open.
Edited by SturnYea, I figured someone would want to talk about that...
Archived, sure.
But even if they retain the rpg license for Star Wars (which they would only do if it's a part and parcel with the board game license/stuff they kept, cuz that's gotta cost and be worth A LOT) this stuff still pops up as a line item in an accountant's spreadsheet that has to be dealt with, regularly. It's still a thing that IT admin had to look at and deal with in some capacity, however minor. And here's how it's gonna get dealt with: "Hmmm, Star Wars/Genesys/etc. Roleplaying Games forum, bandwidth/server space/whatever: X GB = X $$$/year. Oh, we don't do that anymore. Get rid of that..." *DELETE*
As for the dice and the Foundry and hopes of P.O.D., all of it, they apparently didn't find it profitable enough to keep around when it was an actively marketed and supported product. They're not gonna keep paying for the administration of this stuff - no matter how small you think that cost is or how easy you think the money is - once it's no longer marketed and supported.
You will support that product until your obligation to your customers is arguably fulfilled, sure, but then you end it.
It will very soon cost them more to pay their accountants for the time it takes to deal with these line-items, than they will make off of the line items. ESPECIALLY the Foundry.
Beyond the economics, they don't want to confuse new customers ("Hey, what's this RPG forum thing ya got over here? Where can I buy that?", "You can't.", "What? Then why do you have the forum?","Uhhh..."... "Hey what's this Foundry thing ya got over here? Where can I get those dice? Are you gonna make more stuff for that? Where can I learn more about that?", "Uhhhhhh...."). They don't want to have to answer questions like that. They don't want to remind their customers constantly, "Hey remember how we killed that thing you liked?"
Hate to be the Doom N Gloom guy, but as someone who works in an industry that is often characterized by bouts of sales and acquisitions... I said this when the lay-offs came down, and I still think it's true: it's all going away. Accept that concept, and you'll have a lot easier time with the coming "transition" I think.
Worst case scenario, you're pleasantly surprised when they say, "Hey everyone, out of the kindness of our hearts, we're gonna keep supporting this niche, side-thing of that one thing we otherwise ended."
You don't discontinue products but hang onto their peripheral relics.
You aren't wrong.
12 hours ago, emsquared said:For everyone wondering if the forums are gonna stick around (or the Foundry, or dice production, or... anything at all that had to do with this stuff), let's go over to the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition forums here and talk about it.
Oh wait...
10 hours ago, emsquared said:It's still a thing that IT admin had to look at and deal with in some capacity, however minor. And here's how it's gonna get dealt with: "Hmmm, Star Wars/Genesys/etc. Roleplaying Games forum, bandwidth/server space/whatever: X GB = X $$$/year. Oh, we don't do that anymore. Get rid of that..." *DELETE*
The difference in bandwidth of this forum with RPG's and without me thinks is not going to be a monumental thing. It's a forum. That's not huge bandwidth. Except for the occasional picture, it's nearly all text. I'm no IT guru but that's pretty small apples when you are talking about the limits on your bandwidth per month for whatever service you are already paying for.
10 hours ago, emsquared said:As for the dice and the Foundry and hopes of P.O.D., all of it, they apparently didn't find it profitable enough to keep around when it was an actively marketed and supported product. They're not gonna keep paying for the administration of this stuff - no matter how small you think that cost is or how easy you think the money is - once it's no longer marketed and supported.
It will very soon cost them more to pay their accountants for the time it takes to deal with these line-items, than they will make off of the line items. ESPECIALLY the Foundry.
I'm not sure what you mean by "didn't find it profitable enough to keep around" when referring to the Foundry. It's, at the moment at least, still around.
I could be wrong, but after reading comments from others with some knowledge about the Foundry and drivethrurpg, the costs are negligible. Drivethrurpg itself may not be charging FFG anything; they only get a chunk of the sales revenue. Administration costs of the Foundry by FFG? I don't see that being even a full time job for one person. As others have noted, the review process seems to be handled by Drivethru and not FFG. If this is not true, I still see it at most a part time job when you are talking about some website work to promote the Foundry, reading documents to make sure they have the proper legal statements, are original (aren't infringing on another's IP), and aren't full of "large sections" of official Genesys materials. I personally believe what others have said that Drivethru is covering most of the administration of their Community Content program through their owner, OneBookShelf. Some of the Community Content programs are very small beans, mom and pop companies. I don't think they are funding a full staff to simply oversee their content on Drivethru.
So, very negligible costs, they get a cut of whatever someone else creates. Yep, I stand by the "free money" comment while adding "nearly" to it.
The dice, I agree, is an issue. But, it does not have to be. When you are talking of a nearly 100% return on investment (since FFG is hardly investing any time or money in the Foundry), any purchases at all from the Foundry are still going to turn a profit. So, if it's only those who already have the dice making the purchases, it's still nearly free money. Why kill it? If FFG (or a future owner) decides to keep making dice, they may be able to keep attracting customers for the Foundry content upping their revenue from it a bit. Wherever FFG ends up, they are still making boardgames. If you've ever purchased an FFG boardgame (I have stacks of them), it's hard to find one without custom dice. FFG is still going to be making custom dice. Up the price model a bit for Genesys dice due to the lower demand and spit out a smaller amount per year.
4 hours ago, Sturn said:The difference in bandwidth of this forum with RPG's and without me thinks is not going to be a monumental thing. It's a forum. That's not huge bandwidth. Except for the occasional picture, it's nearly all text. I'm no IT guru but that's pretty small apples when you are talking about the limits on your bandwidth per month for whatever service you are already paying for.
I didn't know they had an Archive, but point was if it's attached to the RPG "program" and it pops up somewhere as an expense - even if it pops up somewhere with revenue, they're gonna get rid of it.
Edited by emsquared4 hours ago, Sturn said:I could be wrong, but after reading comments from others with some knowledge about the Foundry and drivethrurpg, the costs are negligible. Drivethrurpg itself may not be charging FFG anything; they only get a chunk of the sales revenue. Administration costs of the Foundry by FFG? I don't see that being even a full time job for one person. As others have noted, the review process seems to be handled by Drivethru and not FFG. If this is not true, I still see it at most a part time job when you are talking about some website work to promote the Foundry, reading documents to make sure they have the proper legal statements, are original (aren't infringing on another's IP), and aren't full of "large sections" of official Genesys materials. I personally believe what others have said that Drivethru is covering most of the administration of their Community Content program through their owner, OneBookShelf. Some of the Community Content programs are very small beans, mom and pop companies. I don't think they are funding a full staff to simply oversee their content on Drivethru.
The costs aren't negligible , the costs are zero . DTRPG does 100% of the admin work on the Foundry. The overhead for anything on the Foundry for FFG is when they actively decide to change things. If they were to, say, allow Keyforge stuff from the new book then that would require FFG to do something. If they wanted to shut it down (which might not be possible right now, depending on the license agreement they have with OBS/DTRPG) it would require FFG to do something.
At this point FFG is doing literally nothing for the Foundry. That's how it works. OBS/DTRPG takes care of the overhead and the admin of it and FFG/Asmosdee gets 20% of all sales.
Yes, emsquared is correct that FFG has to account for the money, but it's a line item like anything else and the amount of time their accounting department spends on it is so small that it's a rounding error. The accounting software is already putting it in the right place. As an accountant I feel like I have a bit of experience with this part 😛
8 minutes ago, emsquared said:I didn't know they had an Archive, but point was if it's attached to the RPG "program" and it pops up somewhere as an expense - even if it pops up somewhere with revenue, they're gonna get rid of it.
That point now seems distinctly at odds with observable company practice.
19 minutes ago, Morangias said:That point now seems distinctly at odds with observable company practice.
Observable company practices like... they do in-fact eliminate all capital expense for the products they discontinue and bury the community in an archive?
Can you point to a product line they've discontinued but that they still support in any way? Honest question.
As mentioned, I'd love to be pleasantly surprised.
But I'm afraid the truth is, this is an untimely demise for this RPG that has such great potential.
Like so many others have met frankly.
Edited by emsquaredThanks for the links c_beck!
We have a MeWe page for Finding The Narrative Podcast if you all want to join there too.
Chris "Zszree" Holmes