![Starting in 2016, Asmodee Will Operate as Asmodee North America, Cut Off Distributors, and Limit Online Sales](https://cf.geekdo-images.com/JIsMmdbuI1XiRYNZESgW5w__medium/img/uWHE9eVA9BHoKFBY_2wi8uaUqbs=/fit-in/500x500/filters:no_upscale():strip_icc()/pic2805787.jpg)
Perhaps not coincidentally, at that time FFG CEO Christian Petersen will become CEO of Asmodee North America. A press release from ANA states that this change in the overarching business structure "will have no effect" on the titles being produced by FFG, DoW, and Asmodee Publishing, a claim that mirrors those made when Asmodee bought Days of Wonder in August 2014 and acquired Fantasy Flight Games in November 2014.
Even larger changes are taking place behind the scenes, with ANA stating that as of January 1, 2016, it will authorize only five distributors in the U.S. — ACD Distribution, Alliance Game Distributors, GTS Distribution, PHD Games, and Southern Hobby Supply — for resale of its products to retailers within the country. This new distribution policy will prevent some current distributors of FFG and Asmodee titles from doing so in the future; at the same time, Days of Wonder product will no longer exclusively be available through Alliance Game Distributors, a situation that's existed since July 1, 2008. Retailers can also purchase product directly from ANA.
What's more, retailers that want to continue carrying and selling titles from ANA need to become authorized as an "Asmodee Specialty Retailer" by April 1, 2016 — and to do that they need to agree to the terms of its Asmodee North America Specialty Retail Policy (PDF).
The existence of a retail policy isn't surprising. Businesses use these to ensure that the products that they deliver to distributors aren't tampered with or represented in ways not intended by the originating business, that buyers agree to specific payment terms, and so on. What is surprising is this all-caps section of the Specialty Retail Policy (SRP):
A. Channel of Sale
RETAILER MUST NOT SELL OR TRANSFER ANY ANA PRODUCT PURCHASED HEREUNDER IN ANY MANNER OTHER THAN THROUGH FACE-TO-FACE COMMERCIAL RESALE EXCHANGE WITH END-USERS IN RETAILER'S PHYSICAL RETAIL LOCATION(S) OR AT A PHYSICAL EXTENSION OF THE RETAILER'S RETAIL LOCATION AT A CONSUMER SHOW/CONVENTION. ALL OTHER CHANNELS AND METHODS OF SALE FOR ANA PRODUCT IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO SUB-DISTRIBUTION, SALES OVER THE INTERNET, AND MAIL ORDER.
FOR THE AVOIDANCE OF DOUBT, ANY TRANSFER OR SALE OF ANA PRODUCTS TO SUBSIDIARIES OR AFFILIATE COMPANIES CONTROLLED, OR PARTIALLY CONTROLLED, BY RETAILER OR ANY OF RETAILERS' OWNERS AND/OR SHAREHOLDERS, ARE PROHIBITED HEREUNDER.
This prohibition on online sales can even outlast the contract itself, as noted in the section on "Effects of Termination":
4. Except for Section VII.B.3, upon termination, this Specialty Retailer Policy is no longer binding on Retailer or ANA.
One way that ANA will police this policy is hinted at in another section of the SRP: "Retailer understands that ANA Distributors must provide ANA with frequent detailed reports outlining Retailer's ANA Product purchases from the ANA Distributor." In other words, ANA will know which distributors sold which products to which buyers.
In a Q&A-style press release meant to clarify the above policy, ANA wrote the following:
A: No, as a Specialty Retailer, you are limited to the channel of sale involving resale of Asmodee North America products to end-users only, by transaction in your physical retail stores only.
Q: I want to sell products from Asmodee North America online, how do I do this?
A: We will be very selective as to which online merchants will be authorized to sell our products. To qualify as an online merchant, you will need to contribute either significant scale, unique service, or other exceptional differentiation. Most online sales activities, including sales through third party websites, will not be authorized.
Q: I sub-distribute products to other businesses, what do I do?
A: Asmodee North America will not authorize sub-distribution of our products, unless by rare and unique exception.
Elliot initially stated that Christian Petersen would answer these questions, but noted that all of FFG was taking the afternoon off to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens — no surprise there given how invested FFG is in the Star Wars brand! However, Elliott later sent the following note: "After carefully considering your questions, along with many of the questions we've seen from others, we have decided to issue a statement on Monday [Dec. 21, 2015] to clarify a few things from the initial release."
Thus, we'll have to wait for further clarification of who will be affected by the SRP and what ANA hopes to achieve by adopting this policy, but that hasn't stopped plenty of people from speculating on these topics, as evidenced by this BGG thread started by game retailer Rockin B' Games.
The game industry has gone down a similar road before in 2007 when Mayfair Games announced that it would allow retailers to discount its titles by no more than 20% from the MSRP. Many on BGG stated that this policy would lead to the demise of Mayfair, and I wrote a column on Boardgame News — the site I ran at the time — explaining why such claims were nonsense. (I'll republish this column in the near future since these types of arguments are already being made about Asmodee, and they're still equally ridiculous.)
The biggest issue to keep in mind is that despite BGG having a huge readership and user base, that base in no way represents the game market at large. Days of Wonder, for example, claims to have sold more than three million Ticket to Ride games, and while the publisher doesn't state whether that number relates to sales of the base game, all of the standalone games, or every Ticket to Ride-branded product, a glance through the BGG database shows that no more than 175,000 TtR items of any type are listed as owned by BGG users. Not every BGG user uses the collection function, of course, but I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I suggest that the hardcore, price-conscious BGG user base is a tiny fraction of Days of Wonder's entire sales base.
As Mayfair did nearly a decade ago, Asmodee is willing to bet that it will more than make up the difference of lost sales to price-conscious gamers through the support of physical game stores that will have more of an incentive to market and promote titles from ANA. At least that's my takeaway from the announcements; ideally we'll see in a few days how closely they match ANA's stated reasons for the policy change...