History
In 1981, George MacDonald and Steve Peterson, from San Mateo, California, printed 1000 copies of a 64 page rulebook for Champions, their super-hero role-playing game, to take to a Bay Area gaming convention. It sold very strongly, enough to form a company, Hero Games. Later, the pair recruited Ray Greer as their sales and marketing partner.
In the following years, the company published two more editions of Champions, two dozen adventures, and several self-contained role-playing games using the Champions core rules as a universal role-playing system: Danger International, Justice, Inc., Robot Warriors, Fantasy Hero and Star Hero. The games were very compatible, but each differed slightly, using new rules or costs. Hero Games used the term Hero System to describe them all.
But ongoing production and financial troubles plagued the company, and in January 1986, Hero Games made an arrangement with Iron Crown Enterprises, publishers of Rolemaster and MERP. Initially this was only to handle the game production and distribution, leaving creative tasks to Hero Games, but in 1987 ICE also took over editorial. During this period the company was led by Rob Bell, followed by Monte Cook, and finally by Bruce Harlick.
The original partners found new interests: Greer worked for Steve Jackson Games, and later he joined a Los Angeles movie special effects company run by Mark Williams, Hero Games' original artist. MacDonald became Senior Game Developer at the software company Strategic Simulations, Inc.. Peterson went to work for Electronic Arts, and then became a freelance marketing consultant and technical writer, but remained most connected with Hero Games of the original three.
On August 25, 1996, ICE's role handling publishing and distribution was taken over by R. Talsorian Games, just before Iron Crown itself suffered financial difficulties in 1997. During this period, Bruce Harlick, who had been the first official hire of Hero Games in 1982, continued in his role as Line Developer. This collaboration also resulted in the Fuzion system, which was successful in itself, but an attempt to publish the Champions game under the new system as Champions: The New Millennium met mixed reviews.
In 2000, Hero Games was bought by Cybergames.com, a gaming portal site which Steve Peterson was working for. Cybergames.com retained Bruce Harlick as president of their Hero Games subsidiary, but eventually decided to leave the publishing market in 2001. In December 2001, a new company called DOJ, Inc. acquired all rights to Hero Games, keeping none of the remaining original staff. DOJ, Inc., consisted of Steven S. Long (Line Developer), Darren Watts (President), and various support staff. It was formed specifically to acquire Hero Games. The title came from "Defenders of Justice", Watts's Champions campaign.
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