I was stumbling around the App Store last night, as I’m prone to do from time to time, and came upon some startling info. When I visited the Twilight Struggle page on iTunes, I noticed that Playdek’s name was no longer on the byline, replaced by none other than Asmodee Digital. This appears to be the case for Ascension as well. What the heck is going on?
As of posting this article, I’ve tried to contact Asmodee at both their underground volcanic lair as well as their moonbase, and haven’t received a reply from either. I have spoken with Playdek, however, but they aren’t able to talk about what’s going down other than to assure me that Playdek is still alive and well. This isn’t the end of Playdek or anything like that, but we’ll have to wait for Asmodee to make an announcement before we learn how deeply the Asmodee tentacles reach.
I’m joking here, of course. Asmodee has actually been a boon for digital board gaming, publishing polished apps at a rapid pace. The only negative aspect of Asmodee’s digital library is the lack of a proper asynchronous online multiplayer system. As it happens, Playdek has a pretty great and sturdy online multiplayer system in place for their titles, so, maybe this is a win-win for all of us and Asmodee is banking on Playdek to help with their multiplayer woes? Again, I have no information from either party on this one, so right now we’re just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. If and when Asmodee does fill me in on the details, I’ll be sure to pass them along. Until then you can start chanting, “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Asmodee R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”
From what I can tell, this is similar to Asmodee jumping in on Pathfinder Adventures for Obsidian. Asmodee didn’t buy Obsidian, and they haven’t bought Playdek. At least I don’t think they have. I’ve been contacted by Asmodee who are preparing the press materials now. Will have more info in the next day or two, hopefully.
It’s the same app. Nothing has changed other than the publishing/marketing is now being done by Asmodee. At least that’s what it appears like at this point.
Ascension was/is a big moneymaker for Playdek as far as I understand. Seeing the writing on the wall now this doesn’t sound all to good. So…hang in there playdek?
Quite so. Oh, I remember the time when the Goko marketing VP gave Owen an interview on the old site, and the comment thread was a thing of transcendent beauty. Lost, all lost.
So now that Asmodee has sent out an email, can we get more details on what this all means? What is “joining forces”, and why does it only pertain to three games in Playdek’s catalog?