As the title says, I'm a bit annoyed by this latest move.  For one, I was led by a fantasy flight employee at GenCon to believe that this cardgame was going to be compatible with the LCG.  Although that was certainly no promise, I feel a bit let down.  I'm further disappointed by what a wasted opportunity this is to expand the player base for the LCG.  Instead of providing new players with a viable set of cards for the LCG, they'll find themselves in the unappealing position of having two decks of tournament illegal cards. For old players of the LCG who wanted a bit of HBO flair like me they'll find their hopes dashed and without any true incentive of buying another card game that is essentially a dumbed down version of the card game they already love.  All in all, this strikes me as a bit of a fumbling cash grab that's left a nice opportunity on the table.  

OK End Rant. 

 My thoughts exactly. Seems like a pretty dumb move, since a lot of new players who'll buy this box due to the graphics from the series won't progress to LCG now and buy chapter packs, resulting in ultimately less revenue for FFG and smaller playerbase for us.

 I hope I'm not being too cynical, but considering that this might be available in some big-box stores, I doubt the target audience will care about the LCG one way or the other. 

I agree with Jason that this is not intended to appeal to the LCG group.

As with many other game companies and titles, there are mass market version and versions dedicated to the hard core.

This title is for the occasional player to get a chance to explore the GOT via a card game and perhaps in doing so will draw them to the more "ADVANCED" card game that is the LCG.

I actually applaud the move with FFG trying to reach out to a broader audience. It is savy business like it or not…

Well, the HBO show is a dumbed-down version of the books, so having the card game based on the show be a dumbed-down version of the LCG seems appropriate.

But, the one knock I'll giving in FFG's favor is that "non-gamers" may be drawn to this product much more than the other AGoT products. I have a non-gamer friend who got the board game thinking it would be at a Milton Bradly level of complexity and he felt overwhelmed when he unboxed it. So, I can definitely see a market for the "non-gamer" game in this line. But, I do disagree with making it a deckbuilding game. "Non-gamers" historically are much more apt to go after boardgames than deckbuilding card games.

The Broasted said:

It seems like the House decks will be fixed and only the plot cards will be changed. There could even be a suggested default set of plots for each House and then anyone can play without any deck building, but can later tweak their strategy slightly. I think it will work out nicely for "non-gamers" and otherwise for a quick game you can pick up and play with anyone without worrying about the deck building.

This is the Portal of the agot lcg. Non-tournament legal cards that are simplified for new players. Portal was hated by MTG players for years, too.

Firgus said:

Hmm, just off hand, any idea how successful Portal was?

…and oi! How long till they make the aGoT version of Unhinged?

Will there be expansions? If so, the problem here will be that they can now include Baratheon as the 2nd TV season has finished but it's going to be difficult to add other houses etc. until that particular TV season has started (or at least filming). I can see the game being quite dry and may lack a high replay value…

monk said:

They could easily add Lannister and Greyjoy already. Targaryen and Martell may have to wait a while. As others have said though, the game clearly isn't targeting the kind of players who want to buy a ton of new expansions all the time. It can still be a fairly replayable game without many or any expansions. While we're used to FFG's and other similarly complex games, there are still people who play Uno and Scrabble and Monopoly and plenty of other games that don't have expansions and don't complain that they need new Uno cards, letter tiles or Chance cards.

I think it's a great idea.  As I said on BGG, some people want a night of entertainment with friends, not a way of life.  However I think they made a big mistake not making it playable with four people.  Unless it has a couples style of play it will miss a target market for this game.

The Old Man said:

I don't think it wouldn't have been too much of a stretch to design a set of aGoT that worked as a casual standalone and as an expansion to the LCG.  

SPQRappelt said:

I disagree, I'm not sure how that would work at all.

 Easy, it could simply be the new revised core set. 

SPQRappelt said:

Yeah, that would be simple.

 I completely agree with the Old Man. Though I love deckbuilding with LotR, the GoT LCg has just expanded too much for me to invest (it would have been different, of course, if I had started collecting the cards when the core set was released).

So the "simple streamlined" version of it will be enough for me, and I will easily make other people play (no DB, no prep time, and less exceptions and complexity than with expansion sets).

This game would be a great way to play quickly in the world of Westeros, the only pity being that it's only 2 players and no more, but hey, it's not the first game that is so. Battles of Westeros is a wonderful 2P game, for instance.

Right now, only the bad-looking cards (the colors are too flashy for me, but maybe it's not the final version) make me cautious.