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| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Publishing Role-playing games |
| Founded | 1983 |
| Founder | Ulrich Kiesow Werner Fuchs Hans Joachim Alpers |
| Headquarters | , |
Area served | Germany |
| Products | novels |
| Subsidiaries | FanPro LLC |
| Website | FanPro.com |
Fantasy Productions Medienvertriebsgesellschaft GmbH (a.k.a. FanPro) is a German publishing company based in Erkrath.
The company was founded in 1983 by Ulrich Kiesow, Werner Fuchs and Hans Joachim Alpers to produce small metal miniature figures. When the Droemer Knaur Verlag and the Schmidt Spiel & Freizeit GmbH published Kiesow's role playing game "Das Schwarze Auge", Kiesow organised the editorial work at FanPro. After the bankruptcy of the Schmidt Spiel & Freizeit GmbH in 1997, FanPro published Das Schwarze Auge by itself.
Fantasy Productions had spent years translating FASA products into German, and when FASA closed in 2001, WizKids licensed some of the FASA game rights to the Fantasy Productions principals. [1] : 433 Fantasy Productions expressed interest in obtaining a license for Shadowrun before Rob Boyle was able to make a bid, so Fantasy Productions founder Werner Fuchs invited Boyle to visit him in Germany, and Boyle soon set up and ran the new corporation FanPro LLC, created by two Fantasy Productions principals and Boyle. [1] : 434 Fantasy Productions created FanPro LLC as a subsidiary in the USA to hold the FASA game line rights. [1] : 433 FanPro licensed Shadowrun in early 2001 with Boyle as Line Editor, and FanPro also licensed Battletech six months later and hired Randall Bills to continue working as Battletech Line Editor; Bills became the second and only other employee of FanPro LLC. [1] : 434 FanPro LLC also began producing English translations of German role-playing games beginning with The Dark Eye (2003), a translation of the top German fantasy RPG Das Schwarze Auge (1984) which on its fourth edition (2002) in Germany by Fantasy Productions; The Dark Eye was centered on a metaplot like the FASA game lines, which was advanced in both adventures and the magazine Aventurische Bote from Fantasy Productions. [1] : 435 The Dark Eye did not sell well in the US, so FanPro LLC did not further supported the game and did not publish Degenesis as intended in late 2006 as another translation of a second German RPG. [1] : 435
From 2001 to 2005, FanPro LLC released over a dozen original Shadowrun titles and reprinted core titles that FASA had originally released. In 2005, FanPro LLC released Shadowrun, Fourth Edition. Likewise, FanPro LLC continued to release new Classic BattleTech books in English, and in 2006 released Total Warfare, the first in a series of revised full-color books for Classic BattleTech. FanPro GmbH continued to translate these books into German, along with German-only Shadowrun books.
Until early in 2007 FanPro was a publisher for fantasy books and various role playing games. The company owned licensing agreements with WizKids to produce the German-language versions of Classic BattleTech, Shadowrun, Pirates of the Spanish Main, and the "Clix" games of Mage Knight and HeroClix. [2]
FanPro maintained a small staff so they used the fulfilment company Fast Forward Entertainment for warehousing and shipping but when that company went under, they took the profits that they had not yet paid FanPro for their books. [1] : 435 Fantasy Productions in Germany began divesting themselves of game properties in April 2007 due to their own difficulties, first selling Das Schwarze Auge and soon all the others; Fantasy Productions needed support from the gaming stock that FanPro LLC warehoused, so while FanPro LLC needed support from Fantasy Productions they were instead supporting Fantasy Productions. [1] : 435 Boyle and Bills attempted to purchase FanPro LLC from Fantasy Productions but when that failed they threatened to leave bid for the WizKids licenses when they came up for renewal; WizKids came to mediate and while they would not allow Boyle and Bills to start a new company, they did grant the licenses to InMediaRes. [1] : 435 The license for Das Schwarze Auge went to Ulisses Spiele. Since then the company focuses on publishing novels only, although it continued its preexisting novel series for Das Schwarze Auge ; the Shadowrun and BattleTech series ceased publications in 2008, following disagreements between WizKids and Fantasy Productions concerning the German license for those properties.
FASA Corporation was an American publisher of role-playing games, wargames and board games between 1980 and 2001, after which they closed publishing operations for several years, becoming an IP holding company under the name FASA Inc. In 2012, a wholly owned subsidiary called FASA Games Inc. went into operation, using the name and logo under license from the parent company. FASA Games Inc. works alongside Ral Partha Europe, also a subsidiary of FASA Corporation, to bring out new editions of existing properties such as Earthdawn and Demonworld, and to develop new properties within the FASA cosmology.
BattleTech is a wargaming and military science fiction franchise launched by FASA Corporation in 1984, acquired by WizKids in 2001, which was in turn acquired by Topps in 2003; and published since 2007 by Catalyst Game Labs. The trademark is currently owned by Topps and, for video games, Microsoft Gaming; Catalyst Game Studios licenses the franchise from Topps.
The Dark Eye is a German tabletop role-playing game with a high fantasy theme created by Ulrich Kiesow and launched by Schmidt Spiel & Freizeit GmbH and Droemer Knaur Verlag in 1984. It is the most successful role-playing game on the German market, outselling Dungeons & Dragons. Many years of work on the game have led to a detailed and extensively described game world.
NECA/WizKids, LLC is an American company based in New Jersey that produces tabletop games. WizKids is best known for its collectible miniatures games (CMGs) Mage Knight, HeroClix, MechWarrior, and HorrorClix, all of which make use of the company's Clix system, in which the changing combat statistics and abilities of each figure were indicated by a turnable dial inside the base underneath the figure. The company was founded in 2000 by Jordan Weisman, a veteran of the game company FASA. It was purchased by sports-card manufacturer Topps, Inc. in 2003.
Classic BattleTech is a table-top wargame set in the fictional BattleTech universe that simulates combat between futuristic mechanized forces. Originally published by FASA Corporation, the game is now produced by Catalyst Game Labs under license from WizKids. The term "Classic" is used to differentiate the original game from variants and related games that have derived from it, such as MechWarrior: Dark Age. The game has an extensive range of 1/285 scale miniatures.
Jordan Weisman is an American game designer, author, and serial entrepreneur who has founded five game design companies, each in a different game genre and segment of the industry.
Robert N. Charrette is an American graphic artist, game designer, sculptor and author. Charrette has authored more than a dozen novels. His gaming materials have received many Origins Awards. Charrette was inducted in the Origins Hall of Fame in 2003. His work is known for a clean, realistic style that invokes themes from Feudal Japan and Chanbara films and in particular, historical and fantastic representations of Samurai culture. His early work in game design and miniature sculpting set the tone for depictions of Japanese mythology in American fantasy and science fiction. His 1979 role-playing game Bushido was one of the first role-playing games with a non-Western theme and remained in print for more than three decades. Charrette produced gaming products for Fantasy Games Unlimited, Grenadier Models Inc., Ral Partha Enterprises, FASA and currently operates Parroom Enterprises, LLC, a boutique miniatures game company.
Loren L. Coleman is an American science-fiction writer, born and grew up in Longview, Washington. He is known for having written many books for series such as Star Trek, Battletech/Mechwarrior, Age of Conan, Crimson Skies, Magic: The Gathering and others. He has also written game fiction and source material for such companies as FASA Corporation, TSR, Inc. and Wizards of the Coast. He resides in Washington with his wife Heather and three children.
Sam Lewis is an American designer of board games and former line developer of the Renegade Legion line in FASA Corporation. He was also president of FASA for a time.
MechWarrior is a set of role-playing game rules published by FASA Corporation in 1986 that were designed to be used with FASA's previously published mecha wargame BattleTech.
Catalyst Game Labs (CGL) was created in May 2007 by InMediaRes Productions, LLC for the purpose of publishing print Shadowrun and Classic BattleTech sourcebooks. In June 2007, WizKids transferred the licenses for both Shadowrun and Classic BattleTech from FanPro's United States subsidiary, FanPro LLC, to Catalyst, and in June 2008, Catalyst announced novels for Shadowrun and Classic BattleTech, as well as the MechWarrior series.
Formed in 1975, Ral Partha Enterprises, Inc. of Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, is now known as Ral Partha Legacy Ltd. and produces miniature figures in 25 mm, 30 mm, 15 mm, and 54 mm scale. The company's products are made by spin-casting metal alloys which depict soldiers, adventurers and creatures that have been inspired by history and fiction. Their miniatures are sold at gaming conventions, in hobby shops, and by internet and mail order for use in role playing games, wargaming, dioramas, competitive painting, and collecting.
Adam Jury is a Canadian game designer and graphic designer working in the hobby games industry. He is the co-founder of Posthuman Studios.
Randall N. Bills is an American game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games.
Robert Boyle is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games.
InMediaRes Productions, LLC is an American game company that produces role-playing games and game supplements.
Shadowrun is a science fantasy tabletop role-playing game set in an alternate future in which cybernetics, magic and fantasy creatures co-exist. It combines genres of cyberpunk, urban fantasy, and crime, with occasional elements of conspiracy, horror, and detective fiction. From its inception in 1989, it has spawned a franchise that includes a series of novels, a collectible card game, two miniature-based tabletop wargames, and multiple video games.
Harebrained Schemes, LLC is an American video game developer based in Seattle, Washington. It was co-founded in 2011 by Jordan Weisman and Mitch Gitelman. Prior to founding Harebrained Schemes, Weisman and Gitelman worked together on the MechCommander and Crimson Skies franchises at FASA, another company founded by Weisman. As of mid-2015, the studio had under 60 employees. The studio was acquired by Paradox Interactive in June 2018. Harebrained Schemes and Paradox Interactive parted ways on January 1, 2024.
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