Recent Firefly Announcements - What to Expect, and What Not

Now this is fascinating. We’ve got four different licensed Firefly products announced in the past few months, and I’m starting to wonder if there’s a pattern.

Four products: a social mobile game, a board game, a card game, and a pen & paper RPG system. All of these are officially licensed, and three of them had their licenses announced in Q1 of this year. We’ve also got a fifth data point: In April, there was an internet explosion as FOX tried to clamp down on unlicensed Jayne hats. Oh, and possibly a sixth: ThinkGeek (they of the official Jayne hat) is selling a Kaylee messenger bag in October.

First thing to note: All of these are using the Firefly name, not Serenity. The Dark Horse comics are Serenity, and the old RPG was Firefly as well. Second: It was a snafu, but Hatgate was almost certainly FOX asserting its ownership of the brand. This is after years and years of FOX being pretty hands-off.

So, what exactly are we seeing? First off, almost all of them are narrow in focus. The card, board and social games are (from what I’ve seen) only hitting the key brand points of the show: crew, ship, jobs, Alliance. The social game mentions something about exploring the ‘Verse, but it’s tertiary and I don’t believe it means an actual expansion of the canon.

Second, while there is a trend here, it isn’t a full-court press on the brand. If FOX were sinking tons of money or reputation into these products, especially on a brand like this, they’d be doing everything they could to push the core brand. There has been no DVD re-release, no photo-ops with the crew, nothing built to trigger the Geek Flood. Hell, it’s hard to even find Firefly on the FOX website.

Third, all of this is small potatoes. Margaret Weis Productions, which is doing the pen-and-paper RPG, seems solid, but it isn’t Hasbro/WotC. I wouldn’t be surprised if the only reason FOX licensed it to a group MWP (which can probably command a better deal for using the license) is because they did the Serenity RPG back in the day. I don’t recognize any of the games from Toy Vault (the card game), and Gale Force Nine (the board game) only really has the Spartacus game to its name, which admittedly has been pretty popular.

What all of this tells me is the following, although you’re welcome to draw your own conclusions. First, this isn’t about a Firefly revival – at least, not in the way we’re probably thinking. No new movie is coming of this, no new show, no reboot. If there were, these tie-ins would either come after the big announcement, or would be big-scale tests of the water to try justifying a show.

Second, this isn’t a huge investment on FOX’s part. Whatever’s happening with Firefly, it’s not something that a board of brand directors is personally involved in; with these projects being as small as they are, this is more likely someone’s pet project. If FOX were strongly invested in it, they would be tying pieces together, and there would be a coherent vision of what they wanted to sell, probably expanding the fiction and letting writers go into new territory.

What I think is happening is that there’s a brand manager at FOX that grew up a Browncoat. They’ve fought hard and convinced the higher-ups that there’s money to be made with a property that’s lain fallow. As long as this property generates easy money – working with small companies, involving as few lawyers as possible, and not having to front much cost – this brand manager will continue to get the green light for giving out the license.

I don’t think we’ll see larger games/stories, though, nor will we see anything that pushes the fiction in a bold new direction. If I read this correctly, it’s a low-investment, constant-return project, and the potential returns wouldn’t justify the time put into the story meetings, the recruiting of writers, etc. Any brand decisions made right now could also block off potential future directions, which I think is why these projects are sticking so close to the existing brand.

So if I’m right, what will we see? More small projects – possibly many more. Anything Firefly-themed sells, and if my read is correct, the brand manager will be happy to slap Firefly on good products, even small ones. It’s worth noting that the card game is crowdfunding its printing, so indie-ish projects are possible. As more Firefly products get released, more people will pitch FOX, and I think we’ll see more and more of these.

Beyond that... it’s possible that this could get bigger. The more money that these projects make FOX, and the more good press they bring FOX, the more ammunition the brand manager has to expand. Under no circumstances do I think these could directly lead to a reboot, but they could lead to more ambitious spinoffs.

If Firefly games make enough money, maybe a double-A video game isn’t out of the question; maybe the RPG team gets to write about the ‘Verse during the war. Or a comic or board game designed around the Battle of Serenity Valley. I plan to throw some money at these projects, because that’s a game I’d love to play.

So, Godspeed, heroic brand manager. If you exist, may you fly under the radar, and may you make enough money that no one questions your decisions or reassigns you. We’re ready for a few more stories in this ‘Verse, and you’re making it possible.

(Note: I’m not the only person to have written about this. I do think this piece is different enough, though, especially with breaking down the business side.)

All the different products:

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/25018.html

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gamesalute/firefly-out-to-the-black

http://www.margaretweis.com/creative-directions/the-system-that-was

https://www.keepflying.com/

http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/f108/