Getting my head around the state of Hero Games.

[baronspam]

So,

 

I have been away from Hero for quite a while, dropped in today to see what was new, and I bump my head into kickstarter campaigns and news about Hero Games no longer having full time employees. Is there a post or a new article somewhere that explains the status of things?

 

From what I can gather

 

1- The company still exists, is publishing the in-print catalog, and is looking for third party authors to publish material under license.

 

2- Future publications directly from Hero will be written by freelancers, and possibly funded by kickstarter campaigns.

 

3- Steve is an owner in the company, but is not currently an employee, meaning he isn't drawing a weekly paycheck, but he may write as a freelancer for them.

 

Do I basically have this correct?

[RexMundi]

Re: Getting my head around the state of Hero Games.

 

Not sure about the 1st half of Number 3, but that's pretty much the gist of it here or there. Giant thread on the board somewhere about it. Eventually a Smart Person with connections will answer or direct a link at the thread that does.

 

~Rex

[concord]

Re: Getting my head around the state of Hero Games.

 

The thread which RexMundi refers to is this one: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/87794-Changes-At-Hero

[baronspam]

Re: Getting my head around the state of Hero Games.

 

Not sure about the 1st half of Number 3, but that's pretty much the gist of it here or there. Giant thread on the board somewhere about it. Eventually a Smart Person with connections will answer or direct a link at the thread that does.

 

~Rex

 

He said in the BAMF podcast that he still is one of the owners, which I assume means that if the company pulls a profit he gets a cut at the end of the year. He just doesn't have a salary, which I Imagine was where most of his income was, considering the company can't afford full time developers these days. Its all too bad. I have great memories of Hero and Champions. Still, this is the future for most of these companies, they are basically becoming publishing houses rather than supporting full time developers. Which makes sense. Its not like TOR can afford to keep novelists on staff to write books for them. You get paid by the product.

[RexMundi]

Re: Getting my head around the state of Hero Games.

 

Agreed. Should make for some interesting times ahead.

 

~Rex

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: Getting my head around the state of Hero Games.

 

DISCLAIMER: Mentally attach "as far as I know" to everything in this post.

 

I have been away from Hero for quite a while' date=' dropped in today to see what was new, and I bump my head into kickstarter campaigns and news about Hero Games no longer having full time employees.[/quote']

 

They do still have one full-time employee (Jason), where previously they had three (Steve, Darren, and Jason). Although keep in mind that (again AFAIK) it's DOJ that has one FTE, not (strictly speaking) just the part of DOJ that does business as Hero Games. So that includes DOJ Logistics and Indie Press Revolution in addition to Hero Games.

 

Is there a post or a new article somewhere that explains the status of things?

 

In addition to the thread concord linked to, the official announcement on the web site is at http://www.herogames.com/home.htm?history=4 .

 

1- The company still exists' date=' is publishing the in-print catalog, and is looking for third party authors to publish material under license.[/quote']

 

Correct.

 

2- Future publications directly from Hero will be written by freelancers' date=' and possibly funded by kickstarter campaigns.[/quote']

 

Correct. Additionally, it appears that DOJ/Hero plans to focus their own efforts entirely (or at least, predominantly) on the kinds of "core" books that tend to appeal to all or almost all HERO System players, and leave "support" type products to third-party publishers. At least, that's my understanding of the concept. I don't know what the exact breakdown there is.

 

(For example, will they stick to Core Library books, or will they also do at least some genre support? If so, would it be for all genres or just Champions? Would they do Genre Books and only have third-party folks do support stuff (settings, adventures, character books, equipment books, etc.)? Or could a third-party potentially do a Genre Book? Will third-parties be allowed to do support books set in the Champions Universe? For that matter, could a third-party potentially do a project that could be seen as a Core Library-type book, if it was one DOJ/Hero wasn't planning to do themselves? If there are answers in place to all these sorts of questions at this stage, I don't think they've been made public knowledge.)

 

3- Steve is an owner in the company' date=' but is not currently an employee, meaning he isn't drawing a weekly paycheck, but he may write as a freelancer for them.[/quote']

 

Correct, and I believe the same is true with Darren.

[Steve Long]

Re: Getting my head around the state of Hero Games.

 

From what I can gather

 

1- The company still exists, is publishing the in-print catalog, and is looking for third party authors to publish material under license.

 

2- Future publications directly from Hero will be written by freelancers, and possibly funded by kickstarter campaigns.

 

3- Steve is an owner in the company, but is not currently an employee, meaning he isn't drawing a weekly paycheck, but he may write as a freelancer for them.

 

 

#1 is basically correct. #3 is basically correct.

 

It's not precisely true that Hero is "looking for" third parties to publish content. It's simply making it easier for interested third parties to do so.

 

#2 is more or less correct, though of course it's possible that Jason might do some writing (in his copious free time, of course ). I suspect that if there are such projects, the "freelancer" in question is most likely to be me, but that depends in part on what else is going on.