Not really shocking. I mean, sounds rather similar to the reasons SW got cancelled.

Yep, saw this story last night on the Axis & Allies MiniForum -- they are asking if A&A is next.

Unfortunately, because my son and I like that game also, I'm guessing it will be gone soon enough also. Like SWM, we won't stop playing, but it will be sad to see another line end.

I think what happened to WizKids was inevitable, but accelerated due to Topps getting bought by Tornante shortly after buying WizKids themselves. Within a year of Topps buying WizKids they had the inevitable layoffs that always follow such a purchase. While WizKids was still undermanned and recovering from those layoffs, the Tornante purchase forced another round of them. At the end WizKids had actually fired all of its creative personnel, and the only people left were the salesmen/managers. A few months after that it was announced that they'd be closing.

NECA is a smaller company and has some experience with games. That's been one of the pluses for Wizards being under Hasbro as well.

Having seen how the various purchases have played out, my conclusion is that the hobby game market is one that's perfectly fine for small, private companies who can survive and even thrive on small margins, but large, public companies that demand higher profit margins just can't squeeze the market well enough to produce a margin that works for them.