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 Main entrance of the Fantasy Flight Games headquarters inRoseville, Minnesota | |
| Company type | Division |
|---|---|
| Industry | Tabletop games |
| Founded | 1995; 30 years ago (1995) |
| Founder | Christian T. Petersen |
| Headquarters | Roseville, Minnesota, United States |
Key people |
|
| Products | Role-playing games,board games,card games,dice games |
Number of employees | 64 (2010)  |
| Parent | Asmodee North America (2014–present) |
| Website | fantasyflightgames |
Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) is agame developer based inRoseville, Minnesota, United States, that creates and publishesrole-playing,board,card, anddice games. In 2014, it became a division ofAsmodee North America.
Fantasy Flight Publishing was founded in 1995 by its CEOChristian T. Petersen. Since the release of its first game product (Twilight Imperium) in 1997, the company has been doing business as Fantasy Flight Games (FFG). Since that time, FFG has become one of the biggest names in the hobby games industry, being a marketplace leader in board games and maintaining strong businesses in the card game, roleplaying game, andminiature game categories.[1]
From 2000 through 2008, FFG produced a series of supplements and adventures forDungeons & Dragons 3rd edition under theOpen Gaming License. This series was collectively known as Legends & Lairs. These books included supplements for classes, expanded magic, and environments, as well as a series of Instant Adventure booklets.[2]
In 2008, FFG partnered withGames Workshop to representWarhammer andWarhammer 40,000 settings in role-playing, board, and card games.[1] FFG announced the end of that partnership on September 9, 2016. Effective February 28, 2017, FFG no longer offers for sale any games made in conjunction with Games Workshop.[3]
In August 2011, Fantasy Flight Games acquired the license for card, miniature and role-playing games set in theStar Wars universe.[4] They have also created board and card games for the well-known licensesGame of Thrones,Battlestar Galactica, andThe Lord of the Rings, as well as board games based upon popular computer games:Doom: The Boardgame,StarCraft: The Board Game, andWorld of Warcraft: The Board Game. They are also known for revising and reprinting popular or cult classic games, includingCosmic Encounter,Arkham Horror,Talisman, andNetrunner.
From 2010 to 2013 FFG was Dust Studio's partner in publishing and distributing Paulo Parente'sminiature wargameDust Tactics. Commenting on the shift in 2013 Petersen stated “it became clear that Paolo and the Dust games would be better served by a partner who specializes in the unique business of miniature games.”[5]
Fantasy Flight Games was known for their game franchiseMidnight, which was also made into amovie calledMidnight Chronicles[6] by the company's short-lived Landroval Studios.[7] As of 2012, it appears thatMidnight is no longer produced or supported by Fantasy Flight.[8]
On November 17, 2014, it was announced that Fantasy Flight Games had agreed on amerger withFrench board game publisherAsmodée Éditions.[9][10]
Asmodee has helped to bring some of Fantasy Flight's board games to digital form, and in October 2017, Asmodée and Fantasy Flight announced the formation of Fantasy Flight Interactive, a division of the merged companies to bring more of Fantasy Flight's physical board games to digital implementations.[11] However, as part of a company-wide layoff, Fantasy Flight opted to close Fantasy Flight Interactive in January 2020.[12]
In December 2019 through January 2020 Asmodee announced they were moving towards focusing on Fantasy Flight Games' core boardgame-, dice- and card- games. Their tabletop role-playing games likeStar Wars andGenesys will move toEdge Entertainment and Miniatures games likeX-wing andArmada to Atomic Mass.
Living Card Game is a term trademarked by Fantasy Flight Games forexpandable card games. FFG defines a "Living Card Game" as a variant ofcollectible card games.[13] LCGs have regular expansions and deck construction like CCGs, but do not have the "blind buy purchase model" of CCGs. Instead of randomized starter decks andbooster packs, LCGs have starter sets and expansion packs with fixed non-randomized distribution of cards. Their starter sets come with pre-constructed starter decks, and are designed to be self-contained; they can be played by themselves or expanded for constructed play with expansions.[14] Expansion packs are released on a monthly or near-monthly basis, each containing 60 cards, with a number of copies of each unique card equal to the limit of the number of copies a player is allowed in their deck (e.g. three copies of each card in anAndroid: Netrunner pack).[citation needed] Larger "deluxe" expansions are released less frequently, and typically contain many more cards and sometimes introduce new game mechanisms.[citation needed]
Many games from other companies use a similar distribution model, but because "Living Card Game" and its initials "LCG" are registered trademarks of Fantasy Flight Games, other publishers do not use this term.[15] For example,Upper Deck Entertainment relaunchedVS System in 2015 as an LCG-style game but markets it as a "Two-Player Card Game" or "2PCG"[16] and similarDoomtown: Reloaded was called an "expandable card game".[17]
Fantasy Flight Games currently prints the following LCGs:
Fantasy Flight Games has previously printed the following LCGs:
Fantasy Flight has also printedBlue Moon Legends, which is a comprehensive collection ofBlue Moon and its expansions. Although it has similar gameplay and a fixed card set like a Living Card Game, it was not released in the Living Card Game line.
Fantasy Flight Games published the card game KeyForge in 2018. Created byMagic: The Gathering designerRichard Garfield, KeyForge differs from othercollectible card games (CCGs) in that the game usesprocedural generation to create unique decks. Commonly, CCGs are sold in pre-built decks or boosters packs. Fantasy Flight Games calls KeyForge a "unique deck game" because each deck contains a procedurally designed character unique to that deck called an Archon.[18] IGN described the game as "a bold new idea and a vastly different kind of game format", but questioned the randomization model, speculating that "people won't be spending tons of money on single rare cards, but that may have been replaced with spending tons of money on random deck boxes in the hopes of getting lucky with a great card combination.[19] On June 22, 2022, it was announced that Ghost Galaxy had acquired KeyForge from Fantasy Flight Games.[20]
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