 | |
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Electronic publishing Role-playing games |
| Founded | 2003 |
| Founder | Loren L. Coleman Heather Coleman Randall N. Bills Tara Bills Philip DeLuca |
| Headquarters | |
| Subsidiaries | Catalyst Game Labs Battlecorps |
| Website | defunct, formerly imrpro.com at the Wayback Machine (archived 5 February 2012) |
InMediaRes Productions, LLC is an American game company that produces role-playing games and game supplements.
Loren L. Coleman founded the company InMediaRes Productions in 2003 with Heather Coleman, Randall Bills, Tara Bills, and Philip DeLuca. [1] : 433 InMediaRes obtained a license from WizKids in fall 2003 for the electronic publication of fiction from Classic Battletech . [1] : 433 InMediaRes announced this at GenCon 36 that year and their full website, BattleCorps.com, was ready one year later in August 2004. [1] : 433 InMediaRes started by publishing the fiction written by founders Bills and Coleman, and continued month-by-month with an electronic delivery model. [1] : 433 InMediaRes announced their intentions in 2005 to begin a similar "Holostreets" website for Shadowrun fiction but this was never completed. [1] : 434 After changes to the license for InMediaRes in 2007 and 2008, some of the fiction from the BattleCorps website was published in print as Battletech Corps Vol. 1: The Corps (2008) and Battletech Corps Vol. 2: First Strike (2010). [1] : 434
Rob Boyle and Bills tried to purchase FanPro LLC from Fantasy Productions in 2007, and when that deal fell through WizKids came to mediate; although they would not allow Boyle and Bills to start a new company, they did give the Battletech and Shadowrun licenses to InMediaRes. [1] : 435 With the rights to both FASA games, Boyle and Bills joined InMediaRes as regular staff as part of their agreement with WizKids. [1] : 435 Boyle stayed as the line editor on Shadowrun for a few years, and Bills left the line director of Battletech to take on the role of a Managing Director of InMediaRes. [1] : 435 InMediaRes created a subsidiary to hold the game rights they had aquired: Catalyst Game Labs. [1] : 435 InMediaRes highly valued electronic material, and in 2007 started charging for Shadowrun releases from Catalyst. [1] : 436
InMediaRes Productions was founded in 2003 by Loren and Heather Coleman, Tara and Randall N. Bills [2] and Philip DeLuca with the express purpose of licensing the rights to publish new, canon Classic BattleTech fiction to the Internet from WizKids. [3] Wizkids granted this license to IMR in the fall of 2003, which directly led to the creation of BattleCorps in August 2004. [4] In 2005, IMR announced its intentions to branch out into Shadowrun fiction and established Holostreets with the intention of doing for Shadowrun what had been done for BattleTech. [5] IMR hopes to have Holostreets up and running by 2008. [6]
On April 20, 2007, IMR announced that it was in negotiations with WizKids and FanPro to acquire the licenses for Classic BattleTech and Shadowrun, as FanPro's licenses were set to expire. [7] On May 17, 2007, IMR announced the creation of Catalyst Game Labs in preparation for the acquisition of the licenses. [8] As of mid-2007, Catalyst began releasing new sourcebooks for both lines.
Heather Coleman serves as IMR's executive manager, while Loren is the submissions editor for BattleCorps.
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 videogames, Microsoft's Xbox Game Studios; Catalyst Game Studios licenses the franchise from Topps.
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.
Fantasy Productions Medienvertriebsgesellschaft GmbH is a German publishing company based in Erkrath.
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.
Loren L. Coleman is a 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.
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.
MechWarrior: Dark Age is the title of an ongoing series of novels set in the BattleTech Universe. The series was created by WizKids and has a companion game MechWarrior: Dark Age. The Dark Age series of books is intended as a re-launch of the BattleTech book franchise, to create an easy starting point for new readers.
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 a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games.
Robert Boyle is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games.
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.
BattleTech: 25 Years of Art & Fiction is a non-fiction book published by Catalyst Game Labs in 2009 about the science fiction wargame BattleTech. It includes artwork, a description of the development of the game, an historical timeline of in-game history, and twenty pieces of fiction by authors such as Michael A. Stackpole, Robert Charrette and Victor Milán.
Shrapnel: The Official BattleTech Magazine is a magazine covering various BattleTech topics such as short fiction and campaign scenarios. The first issue was released in June 2020 by Catalyst Game Labs. Various BattleTech authors have appeared in the issues, such as Michael A. Stackpole and Blaine Lee Pardoe. It was a created after Catalyst Game Labs reached a stretch goal in a Kickstarter campaign. It has been called a spiritual successor to the original BattleTechnology magazine from the 1990s. The magazine is helmed by John Helfers and Philip A. Lee.