In 1992, George Vasilakos founded Imagination Games & Comics, a hobby shop in Albany, NY, where he met M. Alexander Jurkat, a lawyer with an interest in roleplaying games.[2][3] While visiting GenCon with friends, Vasilakos was inspired by the success of collectible card games (CCGs) such as Magic: The Gathering, and suggested they create a similar game. Jurkat suggested they adapt the 1990 indie roleplaying game Battlelords of the 23rd Century, written by Larry Sims, which he had worked on previously as an editor.[4][3]
In 1995, a team of Vasilakos, Jurkat and three others launched Battlelords under the imprint New Millennium Entertainment (NME). By the time Battlelords was released, the CCG market had already become oversaturated due to the CCG craze, leaving NME with substantial debts. Despite initial success with the game, the company had printed too many cards, and could not recoup its costs.[3][5][4]
In 1996, when the company was already struggling, New Millennium published the first edition of the roleplaying game Conspiracy X, a game of aliens and conspiracies loosely inspired by The X-Files television show. The game was popular, and especially so in the UK. Although Conspiracy X sold out its first print run in two weeks, NME ceased trading shortly afterwards.[6][4][7]
In 1996, C. J. Carella had been involved in setting up his own publishing company, Myrmidon Press, to publish the first editions of his games WitchCraft and Armageddon.[4][2] Influenced by the World of Darkness games and the supernatural creatures of the horror genre, WitchCraft was based on the premise that all the iconic monsters from books and film co-existed in the same world, hidden from humans. Armageddon was set in a possible future of that world, against the backdrop of an apocalyptic war between Lovecraftian horrors, pagan gods, angels, and mythic creatures. Both games used the same rules engine, the Unisystem, which Carella had intended to disappear into the background during play.[8][4]
Carella grew dissatisfied of the business side of Myrmidon Press, and in 1997 began trying to sell the rights to his games to another company. As a small independent games studio, Myrmidon published only four roleplaying games between 1993 and 1997—besides Carella's own work, the press also published Manhunter (1993) and Cosmic Enforcers (1995), as well as the Palladium Games crossover book Rifts Manhunter (1997).[8] Vasilakos and Jurkat were fans of Carella's work with Rifts and GURPS, and initially discussed a possible Conspiracy X/WitchCraft crossover.[8][4]
Founding of Eden Studios
Vasilakos closed Imagination Games & Comics in June 1997, so he and Jurkat could set up a designer-led games publishing company. With investment from Ed Healy, who later set up Adept Press, Jurkat and Vasilakos announced the formation of Eden Studios, Inc. on July 4, 1997.[9] Healy suggested the name "Eden" because he saw working at a games studio as his paradise job. After joining Deloitte & Touche, Healy had to relinquish his ownership, leaving Jurkat and Vasilakos as sole partners.[3]
Eden Studios announced it had acquired the rights to Conspiracy X on the same day it launched for business.[9][4][10] It was able to produce a third printing of Conspiracy X and began publishing new supplements.[3] In July 1998, Eden Studios also announced it had bought the exclusive rights to Carella's games. In 1999, the first of these was republished as CJ Carella's WitchCraft. Armageddon would be published on 2003 as Armageddon: The End Times.[11]
While he remained Eden Studios' president in a part-time capacity, Vasilakos was offered a job at Last Unicorn Games (LUG) in 1999 and moved to California.[12] On January 29 2000, Eden Studios announced that Bernie Trombley had stood down as Conspiracy X line developer, to be replaced by Susanne Johnson-Haggett.[13][14][15] On January 25, 2001, John Goff took over as lead developer of the game.[16]
All Flesh Must Be Eaten
In 2000, Vasilakos and artist Christopher Shy created the zombie toolkit roleplaying game All Flesh Must Be Eaten (AFMBE) using the Unisystem, which had become the studio's official house system. AFMBE was designed to provide support for a range of different zombie settings or "deadworlds". AFMBE used a new, smaller format (7" x 9"), which the publishers hoped would help it stand out in stores.[17]
In support of the game, Eden also published a series of zombie anthologies under the AFMBE brand. These were edited by James Lower and featured authors such as Scott Edelman, Robin D. Laws, Scott Nicholson, and Tom Piccirilli. Many of the stories received honorable mentions in the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror anthologies, and the books sold well through the book trade. The game quickly became Eden Studios' flagship game, even outselling Conspiracy X, and was buoyed by the zombie renaissance started by 28 Days Later and The Walking Dead. That year, they also published their first and only video game, Rail Empires: Iron Dragon, based on the popular fantasy game Empire Builder from Mayfair.[17]
d20 and GURPS
During the height of the d20 System license, Eden Studios published a small number of Dungeons & Dragons-compatible roleplaying adventures and supplements with Matthew M. Colville as lead developer.[18][4][19] Starting with David Chart's Akrasia: Thief of Time (2001), Eden Studios published a trilogy of short adventures (or "vignette books") under the Open Gaming License in the early 2000s. This Eden Odyssey trilogy was set in the Studios' own proprietary setting, called Eden. The second book, Wonders Out of Time by Kevin Wilson, was published later the same year, although the conclusion would be delayed.[18]
In 2002, Eden Studios published the d20 supplement Liber Bestarius: The Book of Beasts and M. Alexander Jurkat produced GURPS Conspiracy X in conjunction with Steve Jackson Games.[20] In 2003, another d20 supplement followed: Fields of Blood: The Book of War. That same year, the Eden Odyssey trilogy was completed with the publication of Secret of the Ancients by Carella. This was followed by another d20 supplement, Waysides: The Book of Taverns (2004).[18]
Through writer Christina Stiles, Eden Studios also collaborated with Bizarro Games on the print-on-demand d20 System game Odyssey Prime. This game, also delayed, eventually came out in 2006. In 2010, it was translated from d20 into the Unisystem for its re-release with Bizarro's successor, Misfit Studios.[18]
Unlike their other books, the d20 books were intended to have single print runs, since it was easier for distributors to order new d20 titles than order from a publisher's backlist. The one exception was Fields of Blood: Book of War, which sold well and was reprinted based on the continuing demand.[4]
With help from Christian Moore of Last Unicorn Games, Vasilakos and Jurkat bid for the licence to produce a Buffy the Vampire Slayer role-playing game when they heard the current licensee of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Collectible Card Game, Score Entertainment (part of Donruss Playoff LP), were looking for a publishing partner. Eden Studios announced it had acquired the licence to publish the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Roleplaying Game on December 21, 2001. Vasilakos and Jurkat initially vacillated over whether to use the popular d20 System or their in-house Unisystem for the game, but eventually decided on the latter and hired C. J. Carella to write a streamlined version of the rules, called the Cinematic Unisystem, to take advantage of the licensed game's mass-market appeal.[21][22][4]
The game was released at GenCon in the summer of 2002, and was initially more successful than the studio's own All Flesh Must Be Eaten.[23][24][25] The game allowed Eden Studios to move into offices and have salaried staff, including new staff members Ross A. Isaacs (editorial) and Alexandros Vasilakos (web design). Vasilakos also opened a new games store, Zombie Planet.[4][26]Buffy was followed by the Angel Roleplaying Game in 2003 and the Army of Darkness Roleplaying Game in 2005.[23][25][27]Angel initially outsold Buffy and Army of Darkness initially outsold both.[21][4] Due to the cost of the licences, Eden Studios ultimately decided not to continue with the Buffy and Angel games in 2006.[21]
New games
Despite delays during the studio's work on Buffy and Angel, 2003 was Eden's most successful year. Also using the Cinematic Unisystem rules, Terra Primate was published in 2003 as a variant on All Flesh Must Be Eaten—swapping zombies for intelligent apes, and "deadworlds" for a variety of "ape worlds". The 2003 reissue of AFMBE featured d20 rules conversions alongside the Unisystem, and the game also had a number of new releases, including a zombie bestiary, setting books, and another anthology.[28]
As Buffy came off the air in 2003, Eden also attempted to diversify its output. As well as releasing card games, it launched Eden Studios Presents, a magazine which provided additional rules and fiction for its games.[29][4] EdenlStudios so planned to publish Beyond Human, a toolkit game like AFMBE but focused on superhuman and inhuman characters, which Jurkat said would be the closest thing to a generic Unisystem game.[4]
As the RPG industry contracted in 2005, the costs of licensing the Buffyverse properties became a financial strain. By 2005, M. Alexander Jurkat was no longer a co-owner of the company, and would leave altogether by 2006. Jurkat went on to edit for Margaret Weis Productions and Wizards of the Coast, and Eden Studios returned to a smaller team, consisting of Vasilakos and a number of freelancers.[28][30]
In 2006, with the Buffyverse licences now ended, Eden Studios published the second edition of its first game, Conspiracy X 2.0.[30][28] This time, British writer David F. Chapman was hired as line developer on a freelance basis. Chapman had pitched a new version of the game converted to the Unisystem rules, and updates to factor in the changes to the American security services after 9/11.[30] Rather than using the new Cinematic Unisystem rules used in Buffy and Angel, Chapman reworked the game to use a version of the original, so-called "Classic" Unisystem rules.[30][28]
For AFMBE, the studio published a compendium of 20 new deadworlds in Worlds of the Dead. It also partnered with Misfit Studios to release Odyssey Prime and Armageddon's monster manual Enemies Archived through PDF and print-on-demand.[28]
2007–present
As freelancers, David Chapman line-edited Conspiracy X and Thom Marrion line-edited WitchCraft and All Flesh Must Be Eaten. In 2008, Eden published Ghosts of Albion (with a second edition in 2011): a Cinematic Unisystem game of Victorian era fantasy co-created and co-written by Tim Brennan and former Buffy star Amber Benson. From 2011 to 2013, Eden Studios also crowdfunded several Conspiracy X titles through Kickstarter: The Extraterrestrials Sourcebook (2011), The Conspiracies Sourcebook (2012) and Band of Zombies (2012).[31] As Vasilakos' store, Zombie Planet, became more profitable than Eden Studios, the latter eventually became inactive.[5]
↑ Kociemba, David. (2014) "Fake It Till You Make It: Understanding Media Addiction and Buffy the Vampire Slayer". In Kirby-Diaz, Mary (ed.). Buffy and Angel Conquer the Internet: Essays on Online Fandom (Jefferson, FC: McFarland & Company, 2014). p. 142.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
