Development on the Lord of the Rings: Adventure Card Game comes to an end with the announcement that its developer, Fantasy Flight Interactive, is closing it’s doors in February. The announcement was made by the Studio Head, Tim Gerritsen, who shared this message on LinkdIn:

“It’s with great sadness that I have to report that the decision has been made to close Fantasy Flight Interactive next month. I’m proud of the team and the game we’ve dedicated ourselves to for the past few years. It’s a been an amazing journey with even more amazing people. I’m going to do my best to get my team placed in new positions. I have programmers, designers, artists, QA staff and a producer to get placed in new roles and will do my best to do so quickly. Additionally, I’m now open to new opportunities myself since I will also be out of a job.”

Fantasy Flight Games, founded in 1995 by it’s CEO Christian T. Peterson, announced in late 2014 that it was to merge with the French board game publisher, Asmodee, with the intent of creating digital implementations of some of FFG’s properties. As a result of this merge, in 2017 the company announced the formation of Fantasy Flight Interactive and that it’s first project would be a digital implementation of ‘The Lord of the Rings The Card Game’.

On August 28 2018, The Lord of the Rings Living Card Game was released onto Steam Early Access with the goal of developing the game alongside player feedback. As such, the game went through several adjustments, including a complete economic overhaul, a name re-branding, the addition of a multiplayer co-operative mode, and the eventual release of new content through additional campaign quests.

The Game re-branded itself from Living Card Game to Adventure Card Game



Unfortunately for the small company, this early access period wasn’t without problems, thanks to multiple content delays, a failure to properly communicate with consumers, and the exit of some key members of the team. This coupled with an already small consumer base thanks to the niche appeal of a PVE-only card-game, meant that the game was never able to hit it’s stride when it came to popularity and success.

Despite this, by the time the game exited Early Access and into a fully released state, The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Card Game had gained a small, but passionate fan base eagerly awaiting new content to enjoy.

So What Happened?

As with all studio closures, this is a sad thing for all involved with the development team, those who are now suddenly thrown into the world of job hunting. It’s an unfortunate truth that making games for a living means being in constant fear of losing your job, and a sad reminder that no matter how much love, passion and creativity goes into a product, at the end of the day, it can always be cut down because of a few bad decisions or bad economic turn.

It’s important to first acknowledge that Fantasy Flight Interactive (or FFI) weren’t the only ones effected. In a reddit post made to the r/boardgames thread titled ‘Massive Layoffs at FFG’, an ex-employee of FFG not only confirmed the closure and layoffs at the FFI division, but also mentions layoffs within the parent company Fantasy Flight Games (or FFG), even going as far to say that “most, if not all, the RPG department has been laid off” and that “numerous other employees have been cut in a large reorganisation of the studio following the departure of several key members of the company that have been there for years.”

Every company has it’s hits-and-misses, and Fantasy Flight Games has seen an increase in issues in the past few years with product delays, shortages in stock numbers and a lack of communication (or transparency) with its consumer base,.

In this same reddit thread, another user by the name of WrightSparror, offers further insight into the situation at FFG/ANA:

“Can confirm, was just laid off from Asmodee North America, which shares offices with FFGThe company bit off way too much too fast and is collapsing under its own pacing. Too many game lines cannibalizing from one another, too much reliance on expensive licensing deals, too much disregard for institutional knowledge and getting farther and farther away from their own stated values.”

While there’s a lot to parse in this statement, it paints a clear picture of a company (FFG/ANA) in a situation where it’s aspirations of growth has resulted in a collapse in the foundation of the business. Normally businesses want growth, but too much too fast can create circumstances where a single failed venture can rock the foundations of the whole company.

In additon to this, Wrightsparrow refers to a ‘cannibalisation’ between the different game lines/products released by FFG. This cannibalisation may indicate a drop in sales volume or revenue on certain products as the result of the introduction of another similar product in the same line or by the same producer.

An example of this may exist in FFG’s line of Star Wars Miniature games, which includes ‘X-Wing‘, ‘Armada‘ and ‘Legion‘, all three of which feature similar skirmish-type tactical combat. It’s nice to have choice (you know, different strokes/different folks) but the unfortunate result of this is that each game in competing with one another when it comes to the market share. Consumers cannot be expected to shell out for every game featuring Star Wars Miniatures, nor can they be expected to commit and buy into every LCG (Living Card Game).

Thus, the cracks in the foundation form and to save from complete collapse, the company must resort to cutting costs in an effort to reduce expenses, maximize profitability and boost its bottom line. It’s a miserable strategy, and it’s sadly clear that all those employed within Fantasy Flight Interactive division, including some at its parent company, FFG, were simply victims of this strategy.

The Takeaway… and what’s next?

They say hindsight is 20/20, that it’s easy to know something after it has already happened. In truth, hindsight is only occasionally 20/20, and in the case of the FFI closure and layoffs at FFG, we may be looking at an ongoing situation. Rumours exists and are shifting within their respective communities about the future of other FFG products, including Star Wars: Destiny (suffering from frequent content delays), and a hiatus in production of future content for both The Lord of the Rings & A Game of Thrones LCG’s.

In the digital realms, we have yet to see the fruits of the Asmodee acquisition merger, though a digital implementation of A Game of Thrones: The Board Game is in the works and set for release in 2020.

Looking back, was The Lord of the Rings Adventure Card Game financially unsuccessful? It’s impossible to say, though as a live service game requiring regular expansions, it most likely was! The market simply wasn’t there for a game of it’s type.

In the words of Tolkien himself:

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”

So let us all measure the success in the number of hours spent enjoying a good thing, and the company of good people.

Luckily for that community of fans, there is a silver lining as Asmodee has announced that it’ll be keeping the servers running for the foreseeable future, allowing the community of fans to continue to enjoy what’s already there. For many, The Lord of the Rings Adventure Card Game will represent a shining example of a game for those who had grown kind of tired of the competitive rock-paper-scissors game-play of the many preexisting card games, and a welcome change of pace for those what just want to sit down, create a deck, and use it to solve a puzzle, while also being told a short tale in the Tolkien universe they love.

And that’s a hard thing to replace.