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With the sale of Middle Earth Enterprises to Embracer Group, who amongst many things, also owns Asmodee who make a few miniatures games of their own (Star Wars: Shatterpoint, Marvel Crisis Protocol) -- is the end in sight for Games Workshop's license?

My understanding (based on some semi-insider knowledge via a friend who is only somewhat familiar with the exact legalities involved) is no, so long as New Line Cinema/WB continues to exercise and exert control over its segment of the license, and continues to choose to deal with GW over another party.

The majority of GW's license is derived from WB/New Lines IP, and the terms of their license basically gives them permanent control of everything to do with the current Hobbit and Lord of the Rings films,as well as potentially (its not automatic, GW would have an option) any further productions authored by them set in the same franchise (such as the War of the Rohirrim animation that they started developing without input from Embracer). This includes who New Line/Warner Bros (rather than Embracer) choose to deal with in terms of merchandising said franchises and films (i.e. who has a license for tabletop miniatures games based on those properties). The only way that changes basically is if they (WB) let the license go inactive by not continuing to exploit it (hence why they are doing War of the Rohirrim, as it keeps their license "current" and prevents it from lapsing and reverting back to Middle Earth Enterprises/Embracer).

The main risk at this juncture is that WB cuts a new deal with bracer that gives them (WB) something of value in exchange for cutting over the minis license to Embracer instead of GW - most likely that basically creates a bidding war for the license and it becomes a question of how much GW is willing to put up to make WB decide that its more financially beneficial to keep the license nested with GW rather than moving it over. If I were to guess, GW would lose in that case as Embracer potentially can offer a lot more value to WB by virtue of having a very broad portfolio of potential merchandising avenues to take advantage of (such as video games and more proper board games) whereas GW can only really do minis.

There is a possible "secondary risk" in that ifwhile WB has an exclusive right to exploit the likeness of the film IP, it does not necessarily have an exclusive right to licensing miniatures games based on the books nor the overall concept of the setting. I.E. - Embracer is able to have Asmodee/Atomic Mass Games release their own Hobbit/Lord of the Rings based tabletop miniatures game to compete directly with MESBG - however said game would not be able to use any of the visuals, designs, likenesses, or concepts based on the film series - they could have Aragorn, but Aragorn could not look like Viggo Mortensen and the overall aesthetics of the design could not resemble his appearance in the film in any way. In essence, they would have to come up with a totally unique and different design/aesthetic - there could be some similarities with regards to any of the visuals based on artwork associated with or produced for the books or other previously licensed publications, but anything created wholely and solely for and by WB in connection with its license to produce that media would be off-limits so long as they continue to retain that license (and don't cut a separate deal with Embracer that changes those terms) - and for the most part there is not a lot that Embracer can do to change that without WBs agreement to it.

One possible point of concern though, if I understood correctly, is that GW does also have a semi-separate license directly with Middle Earth Enterprises that allows them to include content that either did not appear in the films but did appear in the books, or to create new content that appeared in neither (hence a lot of the stuff in the game that appeared from nowhere). Not sure on the specifics of this, but there is a possibility that Embracer cuts its part of the license from GWs control, which would force GW to in turn cut whatever content in the game that was based on that part of the license.

To be fair this was always a risk in taking on Middle Earth in the first place.

The other was the eventual slump in sales once the films stopped showing, which GW already experienced.

So yeah right now the licence not being renewed or being cancelled outright is always a risk. It might even be that GW knows its going to happen and that might have been part of the reason they were happy to investigate brining Old World back. Giving them another specialist fantasy game to replace Middle Earth content.

The worst for GW is that the licence gets revoked in any situation quickly/suddenly or against prior agreements/discussions. Ergo that GW gets caught unawares with no time to plan or phase things out/in etc...

I would guess at least to some extent TOW is GW hedging bets, but GWs continued investment into new plastics for MESBG implies that they continue to see a future for MESBG.

True, then again if we believe that GW often makes a lions share of sales when a sculpt is brand new and released; then GW could keep releasing new content right up until the end.

Of course normally we see GW wind down support for a game and then kill it. Often a prolonged lull of releases and then a planned death.

We might not see that with Middle Earth. If GW got little to no warning they might not be able to run it down.








It could also just be that as time passes the chance of GW holding onto the licence get less and less as it becomes a more complicated affair.

Thing about plastic molds is that they cost a lot and have a lengthy payback period. If MESBG sells as poorly as everyone acts like it does, they'd basically be passing away the money on them.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Thing about plastic molds is that they cost a lot and have a lengthy payback period

not according to what we have heard from GW, first of all they are able to make cheaper moulds for low level sales like heroes and years back we got the comment that they said if a plastic kit won't make the initial investment back on the release weekend, it never will (though this might be only 40k)

and any decision to continue or not would be based on the sales of the latest army boxes anyway, as if they sold as expected, GW might continue, if they were not, refreshing the licence might not be an option and rumours are that GW need to decide in 2024 if they want to renew it (hence why some predicted a 2024 release of TOW with the idea that GW does not continue with a licence of they can make their own IP sell)

and the one reason for new army boxes with only new heroes for that time I can see is to test of the game still sells with larger new releases or not, and depending on what we get for TOW on Saturday, if it is only an army box with new heroes, GW have something to compare sales of similar content and investment and gets data to compare if the licence is worth keeping

 kodos wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Thing about plastic molds is that they cost a lot and have a lengthy payback period

not according to what we have heard from GW, first of all they are able to make cheaper moulds for low level sales like heroes and years back we got the comment that they said if a plastic kit won't make the initial investment back on the release weekend, it never will (though this might be only 40k)

I was having this conversation with Ronnie Renton last month (not the first time we've spoken about it), he has always said first 3 weeks, though that's almost splitting hairs.

Thats all well and good, but they invested into plastic molds for the new gondor terrain kits. Terrain historically doesn't sell all that well, and unlike smaller kits like heroes they can't really use aluminum molds for them (the larger a sprue is the more pressure required in the injection molding process to ensure a proper fill, aluminum works for small molds but not larger ones because it deforms under the pressure). If they can justify the investment into that, then the health of the game would seem to be pretty good.

Didn't the Urrukai (sp) set outsell Space Marines within one sales window - something that is super rare to ever happen.

I get the feeling that whilst the films are gone and whilst GW doesn't quite push it as hard as their own IP; the game seems to do well enough.

I wonder if its just doing really well in player niches that aren't typical for wargamers so we don't see as much media posted online for it compared ot other sci-fi/fantasy wargames

Terrain is a very different story as not only the gamers but all the diorama/scenery builders appreciate it

That market is much larger than just the game

MESBG seems to be in a very healthy place right now all over the world even with GW doing the bare minimum (or nothing like right now). The new terrain kits have been sold out since day 1 and events all over the world is getting record numbers of players. They might not earn as much as they do on their own IPs but the return on investment should be good for them still.

But I don't think that has much to do with if GW wants to keep the license or not, just only how much they might be willing to bid to keep it.

GW right now have the largest IPs in the market and is a huge behemoth. If there were to suddenly come a competitor to them in this market it would have to rely on a pretty popular IP to garner massive growth in a short time period. LotR is the number 1 fantasy IP and right now GW have the rights to some of the book materials as well as the currently most popular version of the IP, the 2 Trilogies (the LotR movies the most important by far). Even if someone were to make a new LotR game due to some other licensing allowing it, as long as they don't have the Jackson/NLC aesthetics it probably won't be able to reach mass appeal in a short while. The movies are still massively popular and you see memes and mentions of them all over the internet so if you can't get the look of movie Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, the hobbits, Gollum, Gandalf and the rest you won't have an easy time getting people to connect with the IP even if this new game would be closer to the books.

I would bet GW wouldn't mind losing money, as long as it isn't too much ofc, just to keep the license so no one else can make something that risks being popular and actually competes with GW. Especially if they are trying to get back into the more old school fantasy wargaming they gave up when they transitioned to AoS. A new LotR game could be a competitor to that and anything else they want to do that isn't Warhammer 30k/40k.

They might not invest very much into the game since they still can't meet the demand for their own IPs and those have not only higher returns but also more guaranteed long term returns since there is 0 risk they lose the rights to their own stuff suddenly in X amounts of years and all the investments up to that point are suddenly worth 0. If GW can meet their demand and stop having supply/shipping issues for their own products then I suspect that they will put more interest into MESBG since at that point a sold mesbg model isn't resulting in one less 40k model being sold. Right now any additional effort into MESBG will cannibalize their own IPs that are more profitable.

I only play mesbg right now and I just hosted the Swedish Masters last weekend and I have already planned to attend ArdaCon again next year and see if I can place even higher than 3rd place. So I am quite invested in the game both as a player and as a TO. Of course I would want to see a bit more content for the game but since it already is in a good spot and I can with logical reasoning see why GW aren't doing more at the moment while having 0 intent to drop it I stay calm. Even if they were to drop it I think it could survive with 3d printing and fan content at this point. Would have been different 10 years ago but now with how supported 3d printing already is in MESBG (at least outside of the UK since there really aren't any official GW events that would enforce GW only models) the supply of models is secured for the future.

I wish my local area had any MESBG players.

I had one of the sets during the era the movies were in production, green box… fun game but I could never find another player.

So locally I never see anyone playing or buying and recently the only thing I’ve seen released is a stand alone game using old sculpts and the Forge World resin scenery piece from a few weeks ago.

What’s the best way to get started? Pick up the $150 starter?

The starter is great, so is any of the battlehosts + a command pack (captain, banner and maybe a shaman/warhorn/drummer).

We built a rather huge and active community for the game in just a little over 2 years. But it took quite a lot of effort from my part to find players and entice them. I have spent most of my free time building and painting terrain or organizing tournaments and game knights. But so worth it. Had 34 players at my event last weekend and that was despite a few last minute sickness calls and 6 local players not being able to attend it due to working weekends or not being in town. It was 6-12 players at most at an event until october last year.

I suspect the game is fine, two main reasons, firstly GW cannot afford to let someone else get the license for what it could do for a smaller company and secondly I doubt any smaller company could afford it so its better for the IP owner as well.

helps its easily the best combat game GW have, and flies just low enough the "TFG" players largely ignore it (while being a game thats reasonably hostile to TFG playstyles)

I picked up the starter and split it with a friend. I have the good guys and the book and half the terrain.

Excited to give it a go.

Painted my half of the starter box tonight. Great models.

nicely done models them

GW just hired 2 sculptors specifically for ME:SBG.

Said enough.

Well I heard from a very reliable source that never makes complete gak up for clicks that the game is dead

Youtubers making clickbait titles to get people watching their videos because otherwise no one is going to click on it or YT won't show it even to people who subscribed?

Seen the video already, the title does not really match the content and the points she has about the game and the new model release are valid

Meh

"I only make money when I lie, therefore lying is justified"

I've only seen a couple of her videos in the past, they were not worth the pixels they were displayed on. Her content is low-effort illogical cringe, not even going to bother clicking on it.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Meh
"I only make money when I lie, therefore lying is justified"

why are even sharing a video if you did not watch it

same as sharing news articles based on the headline

MESBG has seemed to have a shaky future for 20 years when RTOK was released.

Support has been erratic, the game seems to have deep pockets of fans but isn't a huge hit, but they keep slowly adding stuff.

OTOH, I've certainly seen more MESBG being played than necromunda.

And at least one or two kits have outsold Space Marines in recent years so its still got support.

We had 5 tables of MESBG and 2 tables of 40k at the club this Saturday. We joke about pushing 40k to the "fringe games" room but not to their faces, they get pissy about their dead game quick.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Well I heard from a very reliable source that never makes complete gak up for clicks that the game is dead

Don't know what is worst: making or sharing a video like this.

LotR is a bigger "brand" than 40k by several orders of magnitude, and so people who are otherwise uninterested in a battle game will still be open to buying figures because they liked the books and films.

Back in the day, the issue was that GW had basically gutted WHFB by releasing better, cheaper and more iconic figures than the Fantasy stuff, and that's pretty much come to pass.