Every year at Gen Con, Fantasy Flight Games‘ Christian Petersen delivers the In-Flight Report, a presentation about the company’s current and future projects, as well as some information on the state of the company and its priorities.

This year we learned that 55 percent of FFG’s revenue comes from outside the United States and 97 percent from wholesale sales. The other 3 percent comes from the company’s online store, convention sales, or other direct retail outlets (e.g., the Event Center).

Responding to my questions, Christian explained that FFG was focused on the hobby market and was not considering expansion through acquisitions. Some of its games are carried in mass-market outlets, but the company is not pursuing those retailers.

To support its product line, Fantasy Flight Games believes in maintaining a mix of its own and licensed intellectual properties. Christian views FFG’s three main partners as Games Workshop, Dust Studios, and Lucasfilm.

In regards to Lucasfilm, FFG signed the Star Wars deal at last Gen Con. The license allows FFG to produce RPGs, miniatures, and card games for Star Wars. It does not cover board games, the license for which is held by Hasbro. Also, FFG did not license the Clone Wars cartoon. This means that while games may be set in the Clone Wars time period, FFG does not have access to artwork from the cartoon. Two games have been announced so far. More will be announced later.

    

The Lord of the Rings LCG was Fantasy Flight’s fastest selling game ever.

Media Center displays are located in 160 retail outlets.

FFG is working on additional electronic games and toolkits but is having difficulty with the economics of the app market. Consumers expect phone and tablet applications to be priced at 99¢, but in the niche hobby games market that’s not enough to support the cost of development.

On the other hand, print-on-demand has been very successful and FFG is planning to expand its POD offerings. The company views POD as an avenue for delivering bonus content, not as an alternative to normal production of games. FFG is also committed to making its POD products available to retailers.

FFG also made three new game announcements at the In-Flight Report:

Rex will be the replacement for Dune and set in the Twilight Imperium universe. The game takes place in the final days of the Lazax empire. Gameplay should be very similar to Dune. Instead of the sandstorm there will be a Sol bombardment of Mecatol. Accomodating 3-6 players, Rex will be available in late 2011 at a suggested retail price of $59.95.

    

FFG will be reprinting Wiz-War in late 2011. The game will be for 2-4 players with a retail price of $59.95.

    

And in early 2012, FFG will release a 2nd Edition of Descent: Journeys in the Dark. Descent is FFG’s second best selling game but has not held up well to all the expansions. This new edition will be a major revision to the game, reworked to better support campaign play from the beginning and to fix some tactical issues. For example, Christian mentioned the problem that in order to prevent Overlord from spawning new monsters, players in the current version often focus on keeping all corners within line-of-sight. The new edition will include new monsters and heroes and will be priced at $80. FFG will offer a competitively priced upgrade kit to owners of the first edition.

And finally, one thing not covered in the In-Flight Report, but that I believe deserves mentioning… Fantasy Flight Games’ reissue of Hey That’s My Fish! is being priced at a very reasonable $12! The tiles are a little smaller than the Mayfair version but the compact box and price point are just right for that game.