Alderac Entertainment Group announced on July 9, 2010 that most of the Dust Games design library they have published or were going to publish (excluding The Adventurers) will be moving to Fantasy Flight Games. Some games involved in the transfer include Dust Tactics, City of Thieves, Arcana, and Mad Zeppelin. The increasing number of games on AEG’s release schedule was going to require the company to grow faster than it was prepared to, and may have forced AEG to release multiple titles per month to keep pace with both its own planned releases as well as those of Dust Games. AEG will cut the total number of scheduled releases to provide adequate playtesting and support for each product they do release. The company also plans to focus on its core product lines that are already doing well (such as L5R and Thunderstone), and may push some other new games back to 2011 release dates. GenCon 2010 events that were scheduled for the affected products will go on as planned, only to be run by FFG staff instead of AEG. (Full AEG announcement copied below.)
Official AEG forum announcement (repost):
AEG – Dust Games – Announcement
by AEGTodd » Fri Jul 09, 2010 3:07 pm
There is big news this week coming from AEG. In keeping with our long-standing practice of informing our partners and players of the happenings at AEG, we’d like to make an announcement before the official press release later this week.
Dust Tactics along with a good portion of the Dust Games library is moving to a new home with Fantasy Flight Games. AEG initiated and engineered this new arrangement to all parties involved upon the realization of several factors. First and foremost, our commitment to our players to only take on games we can fully support and our commitment to our partners at Dust Games to make sure their games get the attention they deserve.
The combination of all the Dust Games releases, the scheduled AEG releases, and support for Legend of the Five Rings and Thunderstone had us growing faster than planned.
While not an easy choice to make it is the right one. This is a great deal for each company involved and while we cannot disclose the terms of the transfer, all parties feel they ended up with a winning hand.
AEG will remain as focused and committed as ever to our products and keeping our focus on L5R and upcoming new AEG games. We will continue to help our partners at Dust and Fantasy Flight who have become good friends, to successfully transition, produce and promote these games we love.
So what now? The Fantasy Flight game machine will take over where AEG left off. Fantasy Flight will handle the launch of Dust Tactics and City of Thieves at Gen Con and all games other than The Adventurers line will move to Fantasy Flight.
Questions will be addressed on our forums. http://www.alderac.com/forum/ This is an exciting time for everyone involved. For all players anxiously awaiting these games, Fantasy Flight will announce release plans in the next few days.
We will see you at Gen Con!
The AEG Team
Todd C. Rowland
Senior Brand Manager
Alderac Entertainment Group