DoW sells BattleLore to FFG

Well, I spoke at length to my brother-in-law this week after his recent expedition to GenCon, and he said that the largest booth at GenCon was FFG's. He said the place was a nuthouse of activity, too.

That sounds like a company on the make, to me.

--Mike L.

People have been saying FFG has been overreaching for the past couple of years now. They said it when World of Warcraft: The Board Game came out. They said it when Starcraft came out. but FFG is doing fine. Actually, they look like they are doing better than every before. All of those games have been big hits and it looks like they could have more on the way with BSG, WoW: The Adventure game and Age of Conan.

I think FFG is reaching just fine, they are steadily growing by developing their own lines (Descent, Runebound, Tide of Iron), getting big licenses (Starcraft, World of Warcraft, Battlestar Galactica, Mutant Chronicles, Conan, Cthulu stuff, Kingdom Hearts) and partnering with other games makers to put out their products (Rackham, Games Workshop, Nexus). All of this shows that fans, industry members and companies outside the industry recognize that Fantasy Flight Games is a game company devoted making quality games and getting them out there to their respective fans. I really think FFG is on their way to becoming the next Wizards of the Coast. I'm sure eventually somebody like Milton Bradley or Mattel will be making them an offer just like WoTC was bought out by Hasbro.

Now, Days of Wonder. I'm not sure if FFG or DoW are publicly traded companies, so I don't have any figures on how either companies do financially, but I bet they are doing fine. Probably not as good as FFG AS THEY ARE selling off a significant property, but is this a sign that they are nearly drowning? I don't think so. I think Days of Wonder is doing fine with Ticket to Ride and Memoir '44. I'm sure sales of Shadows over Camelot, Pirate's Cove and Mysteries of the Abbey are good, but they do have those stinkers of Cleopatra, Coliseum and then BattleLore.

I think the problem of DoW and BattleLore is that they didn't know how to develop and market the game. They made all kinds of promises about it being a game of adventure, reminiscent of Chainmail and Dungeons and Dragons, etc. They said the expansions were going to come on a regular basis in an all sizes from blister packs to small boxes to big boxes and you could pick and choose what you wanted to make the most of the game. I heard they ditched the blister pack ideas because retailers complained about having to deal with blister backs: easier to steal so you put them behind the counter, then they're harder to sell, etc. They also said the expansions would come out on a regular basis, several expansions in a year. So what did DoW do? The put out 7 expansions all roughly the same size, and 5 of them being roughly the same thing (2 dwarves, 2 goblins and the 100 Years War). The game tried to straddle the line between historical gamers and fantasy gamers, not wholly appealing to either. So Days of Wonder made a smart move and sold it to another company before the whole thing started to become a liability, affecting the sales of its other games. You sale the bad press DoW was starting to get on BGG.

Another good sign? Days of Wonder sold BattleLore to Fantasy Flight Games, a bigger company. It's not like they sold it to Z-Man Games or Asmodee, both of which I'm sure would do a fine job at marketing and producing the game, but both of which are obviously smaller companies. Selling up is always better than selling down. Just because you sold a property doesn't mean you're sinking. Look at the new Star Wars: Clone Wars movie, it was produced and distributed by Warner Brothers, not Twentieth Century Fox. Does that mean Fox is going bankrupt? No. They just don't know what to do with cartoons. WB does.

I'll have to chime in and vouch for what Mike L's brother-in-law said; The FFG booth was fucking hopping with activity. Case in point, I went by the booth everyday hoping to jump in on one demo or another, and I didn't even know that they where demoing Tomb of Ice. It was that busy. I also had a quick chat with Thaadd, and she told me that the schedule that she was worked on was such a bitch cuz she only had a week and change to arrange a working timetable for 70 people.

That's seven-zero.

Look, I'll be the first to admit that I don't know that business end of gaming half as much as Barnes does-- but, I think that FFG buying Battlelore is an awesome business move for the simple reason that they are buying a game that already has a solid fanbase and with some expert tweaking (and FFG,s stable of developpers are more than up to the task)that fanbase would grow exponentially.

For crissake imagine Battleore finally fufilling it's potential and putting out worthwhile expansions.

That's a gamble I'd make anyday.

metalface13 wrote:
Look at the new Star Wars: Clone Wars movie, it was produced and distributed by Warner Brothers, not Twentieth Century Fox. Does that mean Fox is going bankrupt? No. They just don't know what to do with cartoons. WB does.[/quote]

Wrong way around - the question should have been "Does that mean Star Wars is losing it's viability as a product" and the answer is yes.

We will never know the true story but to me this looks more like DoW offering to sell BL rather than FFG activly persuing it. And someone looking to offload never gets the better end of the deal.

Speculation on my part of course.

Nah, those are some valid points. Star Wars has been losing its validity as a product ever since Phantom Menace came out, it is still going strong as a video game license though.

My main question about the DoW/FFG/BattleLore deal is, will it make my DoW version obsolete meaning I should sell it now? Or will the value of my Hill Giant and Earth Elemental figures go up meaning I should hold on to them for appreciation? Or just hold on to everything in this crazy ride.

Ryan B. wrote:

In regard to what DoW's new focus might be... I pulled this from the DoW Website:

What does this mean for other games?
We have a number of exciting new games which we will announce in the coming months. Stay tuned!

So it looks like they could be coming back to their roots and they are certainly planning new games. So I do plan to stay tuned.

That statement seems to be at odds with something that Frank B. wrote elsewhere on this site:

moofrank wrote:

I know the two guys who run DoW from my secret cabal meetings. I am a fan of some of their stuff (I'm a bit of a Richard Borg junkie, but I'm also fond of Shadows. ) Mark told me that they are mostly just coasting for a bit. They are doing a bunch of small projects until the next big thing.

Maybe they've found that next big thing, or maybe they're going into a holding pattern. I expect that the "exciting new games" will be card games, since those don't necessarily have to be manufactured in China (or Germany or Belgium), so the weak US dollar won't make them uneconomical. This would be consistent with the "bunch of small projects" statement.

Then again, I have no idea what I'm talking about.

As far as a "professional gaming press" goes, I really think FAT is as close as we gonna come. And the only reason FAT isnt more professional is that it's all pro bono work. The *quality* of interviews is always awesome, but I dont see anyone with a day job having the time to scout out story leads and persue them. It's a shame, but then you don't see me volunteering my time to do it either.

Porting the BATTLELORE world over to the RUNEBOUND/DESCENT setting would be brilliant. It'd require essentially resetting the game with a new base game (a _complete_ game this time, please)but retaining backward compatibility. I'm not sure FFG wants to take the risk on that, but it would be the best approach in terms of satisfying the established customer base while giving the line a new direction.

Hum... I don't think a "Battlelore in the Terinoth world" would be better... Battlelore needs to move forward, not to be reinvented.

But what about a C&C in the world of Twilight Imperium...? We don't have a SciFi themed C&C game yet...

silbach wrote:

Porting the BATTLELORE world over to the RUNEBOUND/DESCENT setting would be brilliant. It'd require essentially resetting the game with a new base game (a _complete_ game this time, please)but retaining backward compatibility. I'm not sure FFG wants to take the risk on that, but it would be the best approach in terms of satisfying the established customer base while giving the line a new direction.

Hum... I don't think a "Battlelore in the Terinoth world" would be better... Battlelore needs to move forward, not to be reinvented.

But what about a C&C in the world of Twilight Imperium...? We don't have a SciFi themed C&C game yet...

Yeah - my point was with my limited knowledge of BL, it seemed like it could be easily moved forward by putting it in a familiar/popular setting. No reinvention necessary!

I actually like the Fantasy 100 Years War setting. Particularly for a fantasy themed war game.


I'd have no interest in C&C: Runebound.

Ska_baron wrote:

silbach wrote:

Porting the BATTLELORE world over to the RUNEBOUND/DESCENT setting would be brilliant. It'd require essentially resetting the game with a new base game (a _complete_ game this time, please)but retaining backward compatibility. I'm not sure FFG wants to take the risk on that, but it would be the best approach in terms of satisfying the established customer base while giving the line a new direction.

Hum... I don't think a "Battlelore in the Terinoth world" would be better... Battlelore needs to move forward, not to be reinvented.

But what about a C&C in the world of Twilight Imperium...? We don't have a SciFi themed C&C game yet...

Yeah - my point was with my limited knowledge of BL, it seemed like it could be easily moved forward by putting it in a familiar/popular setting. No reinvention necessary!/quote]

At least placing BL in Terrinoth would get rid of goblins riding ostriches and dwarfs riding cows. I'm not sure how those offerings were supposed to appeal to either the fantasy crowd or the historical wargamer crowd. That's another reason I lost interest in BL that I had forgotten until now. Too cartoonish and ridiculous. At least the Runebound world has a much better set of races and creatures to work with although not quite the standard Tolkienesque stereotypes. I think FFG would do better trashing the DoW setting and avoiding the RB setting and creating something that can move the game system in a unique direction unlimited by existing conceptions.

BillN

I think that would alienate current owners and fans of BattleLore and make the whole point of buying BattleLore completely redundant.

metalface13 wrote:

I think that would alienate current owners and fans of BattleLore and make the whole point of buying BattleLore completely redundant.

Honestly there isn't much "setting" to Battlelore at present, so there wouldn't be much to trash. Just take it in a new direction. I seriously doubt there is much of a fanbase of ostriches and battlecattle to alienate, and fans of goblins and dwarfs have already been catered to. So going in a new direction really shouldn't upset anybody or make the game redundant. I didn't mean to imply that the base game needs to be released in a totally new edition, just the direction that future expansions take needs to be smarter and more appealing than, say, goblins riding giant snails and dwarfs on geese.

Ah, I thought you were advocating a change in the rules system for some reason.

Snails and geese huh? That could be the Barnyard Battles expansion.

Hell yeah! Now there's an idea. Set in the world of Agricola!