In 2008, Fantasy Flight Games first began publishing great games set in the amazing Games Workshop universes. From the earliest days of the partnership, Games Workshop played a key role in the Fantasy Flight Games library, helping us further develop roleplaying games like Dark Heresy and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, while creating and establishing new board games like Chaos in the Old World and Forbidden Stars, and Living Card Games® such as Warhammer 40,000: Conquest and Warhammer: Invasion.
Games Workshop has been a fantastic partner for the past eight years, and we’re thrilled that we had the opportunity to work together and bring so many new and exciting games into the world. As much as we have enjoyed creating these games, our current licensing term is coming to an end.
Beginning February 28th, 2017, Fantasy Flight Games will no longer offer for sale any games in conjunction with Games Workshop, including Talisman and all games taking place in the Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 universes.
We’re extremely grateful to our friends at Games Workshop for giving us the opportunity to play in the worlds that they created, and we wish them nothing but the best in their future endeavors.
For more details, please keep reading in the FAQ below.
What is the timeframe for the conclusion of the business relationship?
All upcoming products for Games Workshop-licensed games have already been announced and will be released in upcoming months. All Games Workshop-licensed product lines will leave the Fantasy Flight Games catalog on February 28th, 2017.
What does this mean for Fantasy Flight Games products created from Games Workshop properties?
As stated above, after February 28th, 2017, product lines dealing with Games Workshop properties will end and will no longer be offered for sale by Fantasy Flight Games.
All upcoming products for these product lines have already been announced—there will be no new announcements of additional Games Workshop-licensed products. All announced, currently unreleased products will be released before the conclusion of the business relationship between Fantasy Flight Games and Games Workshop.
The full list of product lines leaving the Fantasy Flight Games catalog is:
• Black Crusade
• Blood Bowl: Team Manager
• Chaos in the Old World
• Chaos Marauders
• Dark Heresy
• Dark Heresy Second Edition
• Deathwatch
• Forbidden Stars
• Fury of Dracula
• Only War
• Relic
• Rogue Trader
• Space Hulk: Death Angel
• Talisman
• Warhammer: Diskwars
• Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
• Warhammer: Invasion The Card Game
• Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game
• Warhammer 40,000: Conquest
• All Fantasy Flight Supply products showing imagery licensed to Games Workshop
What does this mean for Warhammer 40,000: Conquest Organized Play?
Organized Play support for Warhammer 40,000: Conquest will conclude this year at the Fantasy Flight Games World Championships. After the 2016 World Championships, there will be no Organized Play support for Warhammer 40,000: Conquest.
Hopefully this means that the license for 40k RPGs is going to be passed to someone else. Someone who will go for lighter rules and isn't afraid of a classless system.
I don't understand why this means that all sales have to stop. Keeping the digital copies available costs nothing. Taking them down just encourages people to pirate because it's the only way to get a copy.
Probably because FFG doesn't want a fight with Game Workshop's Lawyers of Battle(Adeptus Shysteres).
"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."
—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law
"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”
GW made the mistake of recycling an ISBN number once: I have a copy of one of the Realms of Chaos hardbacks (well, one of each, actually), and they re-used the ISBN (which I had thought was supposed to be unique) to Lost and the Damned for a later edition Chaos book half the size and 1/8 the awesomeness.
edit: fixing typos
Rule #1: Believe the autocrat. He means what he says.
Rule #2: Do not be taken in by small signs of normality.
Rule #3: Institutions will not save you.
Rule #4: Be outraged.
Rule #5: Don’t make compromises.
I'm not surprised this is happening. There's been a noticeable decline in Games Workshop related material over the last year and they've been doing so much Star Wars. Things come, things go. Overall they did a fairly good job of adapting the 40K RPG stuff considering they were taking over after the initial game had been designed and had to follow in the same pattern. I was fairly happy with the 2nd edition of Dark Heresy.
As for the terms of the license and the cessation of sales, its probably something in the contract. I would guess its due to GW keeping exclusive control of its license and not having a company without it selling say a version of Talisman while trying to sell the license to make Talisman to another company. Some of these contracts have weird clauses. Fantasy Flight Games license for Star Wars doesn't include computer games and the license is so restrictive that they can't sell PDFs of their Star Wars RPG books.
The Excellent Prismatic Spray. For when you absolutely, positively must kill a motherfucker. Accept no substitutions. Contact a magician of the later Aeons for details. Some conditions may apply.
RE: Why they are discontinuing digital sales, Cause they would have to pay a licensing fee to continue digital sales, plus the aforementioned legal reasons. It isn't free income for them.
It's a shame it's happening, hope gw don't go back to producing their own rpg books.
