Beat me to it. I’d just seen the BGG news. 
Pretty much confirms FRG is just shopping the GTG IPs around and getting out, which probably bodes very poorly for all the KS fulfillment.
Flat River Group is owned by a private equity firm. This fits the playbook that private equity firms usually follow of aquire, canniblize and shut down.
oh god dammit >:(
Synapses Games has bought Get Bit and Medium Synapses Games Acquires Medium and Get Bit! | BoardGameGeek News
This BGG post is also how Dave Chalker found out about Get Bit being bought by them.
Also this tidbit
As for whether Synapses might acquire other titles from GTG or GTG’s owner Flat River Group such as Spirit Island or Sentinels of the Multiverse, I’ll quote this bit from the press release: “Both titles perfectly align with Synapses Games’ editorial focus on easy-to-learn, quick-to-explain games that bring family and friends together.”
Following the Compile deal, I had asked Synapases about future GTG acquisitiions directly and received a non-response response, but the “easy-to-learn, quick-to-explain” qualifier would seem to rule out these titles.
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Jesus.
When this stuff started up, I had a little faith that at least it seemed like Flat River was doing okay by the creators, making sure that they were able to regain their works, and that this suggested that they still had plans for Sentinels and weren’t just rapacious assholes.
Any lingering embers of that have been snuffed out by the news this week.
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There are significant reasons a publisher might not want to pick up Sentinels at this point, be it the card game or the RPG - notably, the expectation that whoever buys them has a moral (albeit not legal) obligation to fulfill their crowdfunding projects. The CG is apparently ready to print so it’s a little more viable in that regard and might actually make a profit if produced someplace that isn’t buried in tariffs. The RPG books that are due are largely pipe dreams and likely to sell worse than the CG if ever finished as well, so highly unlikely that will be bought up on its own. Selling either separately would open up a rat’s nest of IP rights questions, so if they do go I’d expect it to be as a bundle.
There might even be other issues if a new owner wanted C&A to help work on the games and there’s some kind of non-compete clause in their contracts with GTG-as-FRG-subsidiary.
Last I checked, Spirit Island is still creator-owned, so FRG probably can’t sell it off, period.
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I’m not entirely clear on how the rights for Spirit Island work right now. Eric has seemingly indicated he owns the IP but there could be some publishing rights he doesn’t have.
Based off comments from Michael Yang it seems he found out Compile was bought out by Synapses Games shortly before the press release. FRG also caught all of GtG off guard when they halted production and laid off folks. So at no point in this process have they been transparent with their own workers. Now, I’ll say this doesn’t feel any different than the company I’ve worked for where there have been layoffs with no indication to the main workers that it was coming.
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Does anyone have info on this? It’s the first I’ve ever heard that FRG is owned by private equity, and that seems like something that would have come up earlier. 
FRG’s own press release says more plainly, “Guardian Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in Wayne, Pa., has partnered with the executive management team at Belding-based Flat River Group LLC to acquire the company.”
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Thanks. Gutting to see that was just before they bought GTG. 
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Mere speculation, but they probably didn’t have the money to do so prior to the GCP partnership. Heck, negotiations over acquiring GTG may have spurred that partnership.
Official press release on buying Get Bit and Medium given by Synapses Games https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/xy6jbgpsomm7xdx4qddp2/EN_Press-Release_GetBit-Medium.pdf?rlkey=swtnnwsk775cbv4r853pczx61&st=pv0dvvld&dl=0
As far as I can tell, it does not provide any further info.
We look forward to working with their designers to honor their vision
Kind of have to let them know about it, first…
Also, the descriptions of the two games read like someone who doesn’t really understand how they work. Not encouraging. Although I suppose it could be a language barrier?
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I’m not sure. I don’t know that Chalker has bigger plans for Get Bit so it may not matter much for him beyond compensation for his work but for Yang I hope he is able to get the resources he needs to continue work on the game.
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Yeah, Michael Yang is in the weirdest spot. Christopher, Braithwhite, and Matt Krull put a ton of work into Compile, and making stuff without them will be rough at best. Plus I’m sure they’ve at least begun work on a third set, and that could get really murky regarding who owns what parts of that copyright.
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Yeah, I had a conversation with Matt about it a while back. If I remember correctly, when FRG closed the door on them, they had the third set drafted (and about ready for playtesters to see it), high-level concepts for the next done, and additional plans for some cool accessories in the works.
I have no idea how all of that falls out, now. But hopefully we’ll find out.
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I got this email today indicating they are expecting restocks of the base Spirit Island and expansion Branch and Claw by the end of the month. With this extra comment
The remainder of the Spirit Island restock is just around the corner. We truly appreciate your patience and support over the past few months, thank you!
https://mailchi.mp/greaterthangames/warehouse-sale-2609642?e=cf56affe1b
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Prioritizing best sellers, right? Somewhat anecdotal, but I know the FLGS owner and the circle of other retailers he gossips with say Spirit Island was by far the best seller GTG ever had, Sentinels notwithstanding.
Less universally, the Sentinels card game sales were better under the previous edition, and definitive hasn’t actually done all that well. I know the amount of play I’ve seen locally fell right off a cliff with Definitive, where it used to be effortless to get a game going before then. Bloom’s off the rose around these parts, it seems - or people were just content with the old game and don’t want to invalidate all the stuff they own to buy into an edition that feels quite incomplete by comparison.
Is that something you have seen numbers around? Or based on anecdotal info? Because from what I understand talking to GTG folks, DE was doing great, but I didn’t hear any actual numbers.
And in my experience, anyone who tried DE preferred it to EE. Ran into a guy at a FLGS last week who reiterated that to me, in fact. Said he really didn’t want to like it, as he had everything from EE, but he just couldn’t argue with how much better it is. 
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