Steve Wieck

Last updated
Steve Wieck
Other namesStephan Wieck
Occupation(s)Game designer, CEO
Notable work Mage: The Ascension
Relatives Stewart Wieck (brother)

Steve Wieck (also credited as Stephan Wieck) is best known as one of the founders of the publishing company White Wolf, Inc. He is also one of the original writers of Mage: The Ascension . Wieck is a co-founder of DriveThruRPG which later merged with RPGNow to become OneBookShelf. Wieck is currently the CEO of OneBookShelf.

Contents

Career

White Wolf

Steve Wieck and his brother Stewart Wieck had their first published work in 1986 as the adventure The Secret in the Swamp for Villains & Vigilantes from FGU. [1] :215 Later that same year, while they were still in high school, the brothers began self-publishing their own magazine, Arcanum; Stewart soon retitled the magazine as White Wolf , publishing the first issue in August 1986. [1] :215 The Wiecks were fans of Elric, and named their magazine after him. [2] Stephan Wieck wrote the Shadowrun adventure Queen Euphoria (1990). [3] :280 The Wiecks had befriended the company Lion Rampant, and when that company encountered financial trouble, White Wolf and Lion Rampant decided to merge into the new White Wolf Game Studio, with Stewart Wieck and Mark Rein-Hagen as co-owners. [1] :215–216

Steve graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1991 and left White Wolf to start MBA-equivalent training at General Electric. [1] :217 Steve returned from GE after completing two years of training in business, and Stewart made Steve the CEO of White Wolf in 1993. [1] :220 [4]

The company encountered economic problems in 19951996, which resulted in a falling out between Rein-Hagen and the Wiecks, and Rein-Hagen leaving White Wolf. [1] :222

Steve co-designed the Exalted role-playing game with Robert Hatch and Justin Achilli, and the game was published in 2001. [1] :227

Steve left his role as President of White Wolf in 2002, and Mike Tinney became the new president. [1] :227

CCP Games

In November 2006, it was announced that CCP Games had entered a merger agreement with White Wolf Publishing. [5] [6] Steve left White Wolf in 2007 for a seat on the board of directors at CCP. [1] :230 He served on CCP's board of directors for 9 years.[ citation needed ]

DriveThruRPG and OneBookShelf

In 2004, Mike Todd, Chris McDonough, and Wieck created DriveThruRPG, an online RPG PDF distributor. [7] [8] In 2006, DriveThruRPG merged with RPGNow, another online RPG distributor. [1] :230 The merger formed OneBookShelf. [9] As of July 2022, Wieck remains the CEO of OneBookShelf. [10]

In July 2022, Roll20 and OneBookShelf announced a merger between the two companies. This merger will combine the content libraries of both companies [11] [10] and make "OneBookShelf's PDF libraries accessible within Roll20". [12] Ankit Lai, CEO of Roll20, will become the new company's CEO and Wieck will become president of the new company and join Roll20's board of directors. [12] [11] The combined company's name has not yet been announced. [10]

Related Research Articles

White Wolf Entertainment AB, formerly White Wolf Publishing, was an American roleplaying game and book publisher. The company was founded in 1991 as a merger between Lion Rampant and White Wolf Magazine, and was initially led by Mark Rein-Hagen of the former and Steve Wieck and Stewart Wieck of the latter. White Wolf Publishing, Inc. merged with CCP Games in 2006. White Wolf Publishing operated as an imprint of CCP hf, but ceased in-house production of any material, instead licensing their properties to other publishers. It was announced in October 2015 that White Wolf had been acquired from CCP by Paradox Interactive. In November 2018, after most of its staff were dismissed for making controversial statements, it was announced that White Wolf would no longer function as an entity separate from Paradox Interactive.

<i>Vampire: The Masquerade</i> Tabletop role playing game

Vampire: The Masquerade is a tabletop role-playing game created by Mark Rein-Hagen and released in 1991 by White Wolf Publishing as the first of several Storyteller System games for its World of Darkness setting line. It is set in a fictionalized "gothic-punk" version of the modern world where players assume the role of vampires, who are referred to as "Kindred." and deal with their night-to-night struggles against their own bestial natures, vampire hunters, and each other.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monte Cook</span> American writer and game designer

Monte Cook is an American professional tabletop role-playing game designer and writer, best known for his work on Dungeons & Dragons.

World of Darkness is a series of tabletop role-playing games, originally created by Mark Rein-Hagen for White Wolf Publishing. It began as an annual line of five games in 1991–1995, with Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Mage: The Ascension, Wraith: The Oblivion, and Changeling: The Dreaming, along with off-shoots based on these. The series ended in 2004, and the reboot Chronicles of Darkness was launched the same year with a new line of games. In 2011, the original series was brought back, and the two have since been published concurrently.

<i>Wraith: The Oblivion</i> 1994 tabletop role-playing game by Mark Rein-Hagen

Wraith: The Oblivion is a tabletop role-playing game designed by Mark Rein·Hagen. It is set in the afterlife of White Wolf Publishing's classic World of Darkness setting, in which the players take on characters who are recently dead and are now ghosts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CCP Games</span> Icelandic video game developer

CCP hf., doing business as CCP Games, is an Icelandic video game developer based in Reykjavík. Novator Partners and General Catalyst had previously collectively owned a majority stake in the company, and in September 2018, CCP was acquired by South Korean video game publisher Pearl Abyss for $425 million. CCP Games is best known for developing Eve Online, which was released in 2003 and has since been maintained.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Rein-Hagen</span> American game designer

Mark Rein-Hagen, stylized as Mark Rein•Hagen, is an American role-playing, card, video and board game designer best known as the creator of Vampire: The Masquerade and its associated World of Darkness games. Along with Jonathan Tweet, he is also one of the original two designers of Ars Magica.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indie role-playing game</span> Aspect of role-playing game publishing

An indie role-playing game is a role-playing game published outside traditional, "mainstream" means. Varying definitions require that commercial, design, or conceptual elements of the game stay under the control of the creator, or that the game should just be produced outside a corporate environment. Indie role-playing game designers participate in several development communities and game distribution networks. Indie games also grant their own awards committees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adam Tinworth</span> British role-playing game designer and journalist

Adam Matthew J. Tinworth is a journalist and writer who co-authored two major role-playing games, Demon: The Fallen and Werewolf: The Forsaken from White Wolf Publishing. He was also an extensive contributor to Hunter: The Reckoning, a game line that was subsequently ported to video games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lisa Stevens</span> CEO of Paizo Publishing

Lisa Stevens is an American editor, CEO and founder of Paizo Publishing, and COO of Goblinworks. She began her career in games in the 1980s, working with Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein•Hagen to help produce the tabletop roleplaying game Ars Magica. She later worked at White Wolf and Wizards of the Coast before founding Paizo. She announced her gradual retirement from her role in June 2020.

Jason Carl is a game designer who has worked on a number of roleplaying games for companies such as White Wolf, TSR and Wizards of the Coast, Kenzer & Company, and Exile Game Studio. He is currently the Brand Marketing Manager of Paradox Interactive's World of Darkness property.

<i>White Wolf</i> (magazine) Game magazine published 1986–1995

White Wolf is a game magazine that was published by White Wolf Publishing from 1986 to 1995.

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Onyx Path Publishing is a publisher of tabletop role-playing games that produces company-owned and creator-owned games as well as licensed products.

Stewart Douglas Wieck was one of the founders of the publishing company, White Wolf, Inc. He was also one of the original writers of Mage: The Ascension.

Mike Tinney is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roll20</span> Website for playing tabletop roleplaying games

Roll20 is a website consisting of a set of tools for playing tabletop role-playing games, also referred to as a virtual tabletop, which can be used as an aid to playing in person or remotely online. The site was launched in 2012 after a successful Kickstarter campaign. The platform's goal is to provide an authentic tabletop experience that does not try to turn the game into a video game, but instead aids the game master in providing immersive tools online. The blank slate nature of the platform makes integrating a multitude of tabletop role-playing games possible.

Wolves of Freeport, formerly named OneBookShelf, is a digital marketplace company for both major and indie games, fiction and comics. In 2023, OneBookShelf merged with Roll20 to become Wolves of Freeport. OneBookShelf itself was formed by the merger of RPGNow and DriveThruRPG in 2006. The company's e-commerce platforms host content from individual sellers, indie creators and major publishing companies such as Chaosium, Fantasy Flight Games, White Wolf, and Wizards of the Coast.

<i>Chicago by Night</i> Role-playing game supplement

Chicago by Night is a tabletop role-playing game supplement originally released by White Wolf Publishing in 1991 for use with the first edition of their game Vampire: The Masquerade, and released in updated versions for the game's second and fifth editions in 1993 and 2020. As a sandbox-style setting sourcebook for storytellers to use in campaigns, Chicago by Night describes the city of Chicago as it is portrayed within the game's setting, reinterpreted as having a large population of vampires.

Whimsy Cards is a 1987 role-playing game supplement published by Lion Rampant.

References

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