From the Hero website:

"Hero Games has been around for 30 years with ups and downs. The economy's been pretty rough lately, as has the gaming market. With declining sales and fewer releases, Hero has reached the point where it's no longer possible to maintain a full time staff of three, so it's scaling back.

Darren and Steve will be departing December 2nd, with our thanks for a decade of hard work that gave us 108 books, and best wishes for their future endeavors, which may include producing new books under a Hero System license. We'll keep you posted on that.

Jason will remain to continue shipping books and handling day-to-day matters. Existing books will continue to be available for purchase, and the company will continue in business, just a bit more slowly. The online store remains open. Steve will continue to answer rules questions on the Hero boards as "the guy who wrote the rulebook."

We're looking into doing a Kickstarter to print Book of the Empress, since it's complete and ready to go.

For the near future Hero would appreciate your kind thoughts and your patience. Transition periods of this sort take time, and Jason has a lot of work cut out for him, so the support of our fans is much appreciated."

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While I'm not a huge fan of the latest edition, it's sad to see yet another rpg company damn-near folding. It looks like the plan for now is to keep books in print. I hope they will at least keep Steve and Darren working as freelancers. If not, I would think any number of gaming companies would want to hire them. I hope everything works out.

Quote from: danbuter;492389While I'm not a huge fan of the latest edition, it's sad to see yet another rpg company damn-near folding.

My impression of Hero Games is that it's been basically a vanity imprint since Steve Long took over the rights.  It's basically been reprinting to serve an ever-dwindling hardcore fan base.  Kind of like Traveller, but without the IP that could be ported to other, more marketable systems.

Quote from: danbuter;492389While I'm not a huge fan of the latest edition, it's sad to see yet another rpg company damn-near folding.

I've toyed with Hero (original Fantasy Hero, actually) but never played, and I probably never will. Yet I respect the game, and I know that system aside, there have been some good supplements. Maybe this thread would be a good place to mention them?

Personally, I enjoyed the Valdorian Age supplement--it has some good S&S setting materials that could probably be adapted to other systems, and the sorcery/summoning rules are thought-provoking (though perhaps not entirely unfamiliar to players of Elric/Stormbringer or Sorcerer).

The only Hero/Champions book I have is "Villainy Amok" which is a great example of what game supplements should be like as it's just packed with ideas and plot seeds (the other example supplement for a game I don't play is Star Wars D20 "Galactic Campaign" book).

And I've just playing in a Icons campaign based in the Champions universe (the GM played a lot of Champions online). We've been promised that, among other things we will play out the "Foxbat for President" story line.

Quote from: daniel_ream;492394My impression of Hero Games is that it's been basically a vanity imprint since Steve Long took over the rights.  It's basically been reprinting to serve an ever-dwindling hardcore fan base.  Kind of like Traveller, but without the IP that could be ported to other, more marketable systems.

This is basically true. But it's nonetheless sad to see the final swan-song of what was once one of the powerhouses of the RPG industry.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;492443This is basically true. But it's nonetheless sad to see the final swan-song of what was once one of the powerhouses of the RPG industry.

Yeah, it's a punch in the gut, and I was kinda alienated by HERO 6.  If this is Steve's vanity project and Steve's out, that ain't good.

JG

And three people wasn't many in the first place... Really, that's not even SME scale, it's a micro-entrepreneurship.

Quote from: daniel_ream;492394My impression of Hero Games is that it's been basically a vanity imprint since Steve Long took over the rights.  It's basically been reprinting to serve an ever-dwindling hardcore fan base.  Kind of like Traveller, but without the IP that could be ported to other, more marketable systems.

At this point, I am increasingly doubtful RPG IP other than a few D&D settings is worth more than "jack shit". Ideas are dime a dozen, too few people play P&P games for it to matter, and computer gaming has its own IP mills. It is no longer the 90s when the Realms and Dragonlance could be leveraged into novels and computer games and game publishers would shell out big bucks for the rights to use them. Dragon Age has its own mythology, Deus Ex: Human Revolution has its own mythology, and the Elder Scrolls series has its own mythology. The kind of people who used to write RPG splat are writing setting bibles for computer game publishers. Which are real companies that pay real salaries.

Traveller, who remembers Traveller? People over 40-50.

Quote from: James Gillen;492445Yeah, it's a punch in the gut, and I was kinda alienated by HERO 6.  If this is Steve's vanity project and Steve's out, that ain't good.

I got the impression there are two Steves--no?

Breaks my heart, but whaddyagonnado?  Melan's post pretty much nails it from the 3-point line.  

The days have gone down in the West, passing over the mountains in to shadow.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;492463The days have gone down in the West, passing over the mountains in to shadow.

Somewhat overdramatic, but yeah. The hobby lives on and thank god for pdf and POD technology. In 50 years the curious will still be able to get this stuff for cheap.

How many people are there in companies like Steve Jackson Games (disregarding Munchkin, etc.) and Chaosium, say?

I don't know nothin' about this stuff, but have heard of the HERO RPG. Pretty sad news for fans, then.

Quote from: brunz;492494How many people are there in companies like Steve Jackson Games (disregarding Munchkin, etc.) and Chaosium, say?

That's a hard question to answer, but for SJGames, technically: two.  Steve and an accountant.  They outsource everything to freelancers.

I'm a recovering Hero player (twenty years clean!) and when Steve Long took over the license, I remember thinking "Hero as a property will last exactly as long as Steve feels like continuing to pour money down this hole".  I'm honestly surprised it lasted this long; I'm flabbergasted that Cryptic went after the "IP" (what IP?).  I can only assume there was a hardcore Champions grognard on the dev team.

As for good Hero stuff, anything by Aaron Allston on specific genre tropes is gold.  Pretty much everything else is forgettable and dated.

Having had a beer or two with Darren, I'm sad, but not unexpectedly so, to see him and Steve walk away from HERO.

Quote from: daniel_ream;492506I'm flabbergasted that Cryptic went after the "IP" (what IP?).

I'm not really letting any cats out of the bag to answer this one: Cryptic was originally working on Marvel Universe Online, and had a lot of code done and whatnot, when Marvel bailed. Cryptic shopped around for an IP they could still use after investing so much into the MMO, and ended with Champions.

C'mon...no one thought it was odd they had a "line-swinging" travel power?

So was Steve Long actually spending his own money keeping Hero going as a loss-making enterprise? That's what a couple of you seem to imply. Sounds a bit like the owner of ICE since 2000 who seems to be someone who doesn't mind leaking a bit of money to see his favorite game stay in print.

Quote from: daniel_ream;492506That's a hard question to answer, but for SJGames, technically: two.  Steve and an accountant.  They outsource everything to freelancers.

Unless SJG recently laid off a half dozen or more people that I'm unaware of, that's not true.

(Their line editors may be freelance now. But last time I checked, their COO, managing editors, fulfillment crew, marketing department, and at least a chunk of their IT department were all full time employees.)

But, yes, outside of WotC there are probably no more than a dozen full-time positions for creative personnel in this industry.