appstore google play

Game Collectors Enter Panic Mode as Fantasy Flight Games ends deal with Games Workshop

In the grim darkness of the future, all of these great games are out of print.
In the grim darkness of the future, all of these great games are out of print.

Way back in 2005, I attended the Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) trade show in Las Vegas on behalf of my game shop. One of the biggest announcements—and one that has been profoundly impactful over the past 10 years—was that Fantasy Flight Games had entered into a licensing agreement with Games Workshop, the storied Nottingham, U.K. company responsible for the evergreen Warhammer miniatures product lines.

The immediate effect was that sought-after and long out-of-print Games Workshop titles such as Fury of Dracula and Talisman would be reprinted. But in the long term, this also meant that FFG would create original board and card designs based on the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 settings. Some of these original designs, such as Chaos in the Old World and the Warhammer Quest: Adventure Card Game have gone on to become best-selling, influential, critically well-regarded and extremely popular. And then the apocalypse happened.

It was one of the greatest partnerships in the history of hobby gaming, producing ten years’ worth of great reprints and original designs.

Just a couple of weeks ago as of this writing, Fantasy Flight Games announced that its partnership with Games Workshop was ending and that everything in the catalog produced as part of the license was effectively discontinued. Speculation has been rampant as to why, ranging from rumors that Games Workshop didn’t like being in a licensing deal with a company producing a miniatures games (X-Wing) that is currently outselling their product line to the more likely assumption that FFG is making much more money from its Star Wars license, thus demanding more of its resources to develop in-house products.

We may never know the reason that probably the greatest team-up in the history of hobby games ended, but game collectors and game players are definitely feeling the aftershocks today.

On Sept. 9—the day the split was formally announced—virtually every online retailer of hobby games experienced a sudden rush of customers grabbing up anything and everything with the FFG/GW brand on it. Stocks vanished. Particularly stocks of several small, “Print on Demand” expansion packs and more recent publications that haven’t had extensive print runs.

By the end of the day, you couldn’t find a copy of the Blood Bowl Team Manager: Foul Play expansion or a copy of Talisman: Cataclysm. Anywhere.

It was one of the greatest partnerships in the history of hobby gaming, producing 10 years’ worth of great reprints and original designs.
The licensing agreement between Fantasy Flight Games and Games Workshop was one of the greatest partnerships in the history of hobby gaming, producing 10 years’ worth of great reprints and original designs.

I’ve never seen anything like it in more than 30 years of buying, selling, trading and playing games. Message boards lit up, tongues wagged and collectors shared sources while everyone was suddenly struck with the dreaded FOMO bug—that’s “fear of missing out.”

The sudden rush, of course, means the speculators came out in droves. Who knows how many of these rush-purchased games are being hoarded, waiting for the inevitable appreciation. In the aftermarket, prices for many of these titles are skyrocketing. A Warhammer Quest: Adventure Card Game POD character pack that was $5.99 two weeks ago is hitting $60 to $70 closing prices at auction. On various marketplaces, even games that have been in print for years and have wide distribution, like Chaos in the Old World, are tripling in value.

It’s also a particularly unique situation because the likelihood of many of these designs being reprinted in new editions in the future is extremely unlikely due to the licensing arrangements. It’s also unclear as to who, between the two parties, owns particular pieces of these designs. FFG may own parts of the design work and could potentially revisit these games with new subject matter, but the rights to all of the art, settings, nomenclature and other elements are undoubtedly retained by Games Workshop. And then there is the complicated issue as to whether GW will republish new editions of properties they still own, particularly the Talisman series. And will it be as good as FFG’s 4th edition?

All of the above are driving this sort of Dutch Tulip Mania that is going on right now in the game collecting hobby and it will likely continue to go on well past the February 2017 deadline, after which FFG can no longer sell or distribute any GW-branded products. As a game collector and trader, it’s been a very exciting couple of weeks watching all of this go down and witnessing the panic. I was able to round up some items I was missing and managed to flip a couple of the hottest titles, but I have been suggesting caution in conversation with other enthusiasts. I’m definitely recommending against buying the $77,000 copy of Chaos in the Old World that was on Amazon Marketplace the other day.

Right now, the split has created a very discernible bubble that is almost entirely predicated on those first three days, after the split was announced. The panic has as much to do with aspiring buyers going from web site to web site over that first weekend and seeing everything out-of-stock as it does with any actual shortage. There is no telling, at this stage, how many copies of these games are actually in the supply pipeline, sitting in distributor warehouses or in transit to retailers. There have been restocks over the past two weeks, so there are still copies of some of these games still available, particularly the titles that were still in print up until the shutdown, like Fury of Dracula. And that was one of the games that everyone was freaking out about.

The items to watch out are those lower print run, original FFG products that haven’t been around for long. Forbidden Stars, a $100 retail title, is a big and elaborately produced wargame that has only been around for a little over a year. I would expect its value to double or even triple in the next year or two.

Even if FFG releases a new edition with a different setting (which is likely), there is no other game like it for Warhammer 40,000. Those little $6 print-on-demand expansions for the Warhammer Quest card game, Talisman and Space Hulk: Death Angel are going to average around $50 but I don’t know if those values will hold.

At the end of the day, they are easily proxied or reproduced and I can’t imagine packs of 20 or so cards selling for any more than that. The boxed Talisman expansions will at least double in value and could go higher—unless GW does its own edition and improves on it but that is a huge question mark at this stage.

And there are a few titles, such as The Horned Rat expansion for Chaos in the Old World, that have been between print runs and currently unavailable. It was already selling for around $60 three weeks ago. Today, it’s hitting over $100 with the more optimistic sellers looking for twice or even three times that asking price.

Ten times its retail price.
Ten times its retail price.

I think we will see most of these products stabilize in value as this initial demand bubble subsides and it becomes more apparent what the truly scarce items are and what games have a surplus. For example, I suspect we’ll see plenty of copies of the Warhammer: Diskwars base game and the not-very-popular Warhammer 40k Conquest card game around and reasonably priced. But good luck finding the Nemesis and Halls of Terra expansions for Relic. And I think that some of the role-playing game sourcebooks that FFG produced will become highly sought-after and command high prices.

It’s also going to be interesting to watch how these games are valued over time because that combination of FFG’s modern design sensibilities and Games Workshop’s best-in-the-business sense of atmosphere and setting produced some really great games that people will want to collect and play for years to come—and unlike so many other games we’ve seen return to print—they won’t be returning to market.


Michael Barnes is a lifelong game player, collector and enthusiast. He has parlayed his passion for games into several successful ventures, including a retail hobby store, two popular gaming Websites, and more than a decade of widely read commentary and criticism about both tabletop and video games.

WorthPoint—Discover Your Hidden Wealth

Stay up to date - Subscribe to Newsletter!

Keeping you informed, connected, and involved in the antiques and collectibles industry