Games Workshop and Fantasy Flight Games Part Ways

Published: September 9, 2016 1:12 PM /

A surprise post on the Fantasy Flight Games website this morning is set to cause quite a stir in the Warhammer 40,000 community, as the company announced their business relationship with wargaming company Games Workshop has concluded. Starting on February 28^th 2017, Fantasy Flight Games will no longer sell any Games Workshop related games. Any official competitive support for games like Warhammer 40,000: Conquest will be discontinued at the conclusion of the 2016 World Championships.

According to the press release, the reason for the termination of the business relationship is due to the licensing agreement coming to an end, with Games Workshop apparently uninterested in renewing it. The increased prevalence of boxed games like Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower and Deathwatch: Overkill along with the announcement late last year concerning the reopening of the Specialist Design Studio indicates a potential desire to bring board games back in-house rather than license them out to third parties, however, this is pure speculation.

The announcement from the official Games Workshop mobile app regarding Specialist Games

This theory also does not take into account the roleplaying books released by Fantasy Flight Games. While it would be easy to see Games Workshop fully taking on the creation and production of their own board games, jumping into the realm of roleplaying games seems too risky for the company. With this in mind, it appears that the future of games like Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader is very much in doubt, along with any other roleplaying game set in the grim darkness of the far future.

A complete list of Fantasy Flight Games affected has been released by the company, allowing players one last chance to pick up whichever games they’ve been considering and putting off, as it’s entirely possible any remaining copies will end up on eBay for exorbitant prices once the disappear from store shelves.