Fantasy Flight Games, the major board game publisher behind such great titles as X-Wing Miniatures and A Game Of Thrones, has announced a new initiative to venture into digital games. The new studio will be led by former Human Head CEO Tim Gerritsen.
“We’re incredibly excited to be bringing Fantasy Flight Games’ best game properties to life as amazing video game experiences,” said Gerritsen in a press release. “Fantasy Flight Interactive is made up of developers who love both tabletop games and video games and we are striving to create games that capture the best aspects of both media to entertain our fans.”
Although no games were specified to be in development, Fantasy Flight does plan to create digital versions of existing games as well as brand-new digital games to play. Interestingly, Fantasy Flight’s digital games will focused on a PC release via Steam at first, while other platforms will be considered in the future. It would shock me if Fantasy Flight does not bring its games to mobile devices, where board game apps have proven to be quite popular.
Perhaps the biggest implication for this move is regarding the Star Wars properties. Fantasy Flight has a whole range of Star Wars games, from card games like Star Wars: Empire vs. Rebellion, to huge war games like Star Wars: Armada. While EA has exclusive rights to Star Wars console and hardcore games, Disney still retains the ability to make social and mobile Star Wars games. This means Fantasy Flight would probably need to make a deal with Disney to digitize any of these games.
Similarly, games in the A Song Of Ice And Fire and Lord of the Rings worlds would probably also need some deals to be made. The smart move would be to start with either the original games or games in the Arkham Horror universe. Once a few of these games pick up traction, getting deals made for the bigger properties will probably be easier.
So what do you think? What Fantasy Flight game would you like to see turned into a video game? Do you think these games will be more like digital board games or video games? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
