FFG announces - Imperial Assault

black inferno wrote: Phandec, Barnes, et. al. are spitting some raw truth right now. It's extremely charitable to assert that FFG is simply trying to publish a SW game for "each kind of gamer." No. They're doing the same thing they do with all of their mainline franchises: they're launching product lines, not games, and in the case of Star Wars they're cynically exploiting the license in a really transparent cash grab. The intersection of hobby gamers and Star Wars enthusiasts is massive - I mean, guys, I've been to plenty of cons, that is one Venn diagram with a very fat middle - and FFG is hellbent on brazenly exploiting it. The amount of hubris on display is staggering and really gross.

Whatever. Talk about hubris...

This is Gen Con though, this is the time when you're supposed to announce all of your big AAA games all at once.

Yeah, there is definitely some hubris going on here...you can almost imagine Mr. Petersen grinning at the in-flight report or whatever it is, thinking to himself "you know you're gonna buy this shit".

The more I think about it, the more it just seems reckless. I mean, it would be one thing if Imperial Assault and Armada were $40 MSRP cores...but the ground floor buy-in is $100 a piece, and that's IF you don't go multiples on Armada. And THEN they're rolling out more X-Wing product. Who the fuck can afford all of this?

People used to bitch about GW's avarice...but god damn, FFG is getting up there.

There's nothing wrong with making money. FFG should, as a capitalist business, be cash-grabbing. But when you're just recklessly assuming that people are going to be throwing money at you...I dunno, it's going to be interesting to see if Armada is a sideshow to X-Wing, if it replaces it (I don't think it will) or if it just flops due to the cost ON TOP OF the other SW product. I think Imperial Assault will do well, but quite frankly, couldn't FFG do better than to reskin Descent? I mean come the fuck on...

Wait a fucking minute. Why didn't they put Star Wars on the Gears of War design????!??!!?!! That would have been awesome!

black inferno wrote: The amount of hubris on display is staggering and really gross.

Separating nerds from their money is a moral imperative.

FFG: "It says Star Wars, you know you have to buy it!"
Customer: "Okay, but I hate you. And myself. Please sell me more."

Though if there's anything that could get away with it, it'd be Star Wars.

But you know, Star Wars games haven't traditionally done all that well...the Star Wars CCG did _OK_ but it didn't last. The WotC Star Wars minis game went away (but I liked it a lot, very fun). None of the mass-market games sold well. Queen's Gambit didn't sell well. None of the hobby-sector stuff has really been all that great or that successful.

X-Wing is probably the only SW game that's really lasted...I guess the West End RPG stuck around for a while, but it still seemed like something very marginal and never mainstream.

The LCG seems to be doing well.

Not Sure wrote:

black inferno wrote: The amount of hubris on display is staggering and really gross.

Separating nerds from their money is a moral imperative.

FFG: "It says Star Wars, you know you have to buy it!"
Customer: "Okay, but I hate you. And myself. Please sell me more."

The customer in this scene is basically me when it comes to their unyielding barrage of Talisman expansions. Expansions which roughly introduce one good concept for every three or four cumbersome, fiddly ideas that also get thrown into the box. But, hey, gotta keep the product line going, right? Can't just call it a game, release an expansion or two and be done with it. Nope. Has to be eleven expansions, most of which have to be doctored, deck-culled and houseruled to prevent them from damaging the essence of what makes Talisman appealing.

Michael Barnes wrote: I think Imperial Assault will do well, but quite frankly, couldn't FFG do better than to reskin Descent? I mean come the fuck on...

Yeah, a new system would have been way cooler than Descent. But this will be 3rd generation so maybe it's in a good state. It could very well be rotten as fuck but it could be a smooth transition, who knows.

For the record, before two years ago I owned absolutely ZERO Star Wars lisenced products. It's an empty niche and now FFG is making a good show of it so I'm not going to bitch about it.

Michael Barnes wrote: But when you're just recklessly assuming that people are going to be throwing money at you...I dunno, it's going to be interesting to see if Armada is a sideshow to X-Wing, if it replaces it (I don't think it will) or if it just flops due to the cost ON TOP OF the other SW product.

That's basically what I meant by the hubris comment. Fortunately for Mr. Petersen, overreacting to the popularity of your product by rapidly oversaturating the market with more of the same never backfires...

Hex Sinister wrote: For the record, before two years ago I owned absolutely ZERO Star Wars lisenced products. It's an empty niche

It's pretty cool of Lucasfilm to finally license the Star Wars brand to a third party.