FASA

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FASA Corporation logo (since 1986)

Founded in 1980, FASA Corporation was an American publisher of role-playing games (RPGs), wargames, and boardgames, notable for having created the BattleTech universe and game setting. They were renowned for a witty, tongue-in-cheek attitude and frequent humorous pop-culture references and self-references in their games.

FASA ceased active operations in 2001, but still exist as a corporation holding intellectual property (IP) rights. The rights to BattleTech were transferred to WizKids who were in turn bought by the Topps Corporation in 2003 and terminated as a brand in 2008. The BattleTech IP (minus the rights to produce computer games, which are held by Microsoft since 1999) is held by Topps since then.

History

Inception

FASA Corporation was founded by Jordan Weisman and L. Ross Babcock in 1980 with a starting capital of $350 ($175 each). At the time, the two were fellow gamers at the Merchant Marine Academy.

FASA first appeared as a Traveller licensee, producing supplements for that RPG, especially the work of the Keith brothers (William H. Keith Jr. and J. Andrew Keith). The company went on to establish itself as major gaming company with the publication of the first licensed Star Trek RPG.

Several successful original game lines followed, most importantly Battledroids in 1984 which was renamed to BattleTech for BattleTech, 2nd Edition in 1985 because of George Lucas' trademark on the term "droid".

Enter Mort Weisman

Mort Weisman, Jordan's father, joined the company in 1985 to lead the company's operational management, having sold his book publishing business, Swallow Press.

Under the new commercial direction and with the Mort's capital injection, the company diversified into books and miniature figures. After consulting their UK distributor, Chart Hobby Distributors, FASA licensed the manufacture of its BattleTech figurines to Miniature Figurines (also known as Minifigs). FASA would later acquire the US figures manufacturer Ral Partha, which was the US manufacturer of Minifigs. While Mort ran the paper and metal based sides of the business, the company's founders focused on the development of computer-based games.

Computer games rights

They were particularly interested in virtual reality but also developed desktop computer games. To this end FASA created the FASA Interactive Technologies Inc subsidiary together with Spectrum HoloByte and Danny Thorley in 1994. In the following year, FASA Interactive and another subsidiary (Virtual World Entertainment, another company created in 1987 by FASA Corp founders Jordan Weisman and L. Ross Babcock), became wholly owned subsidiaries of Virtual World Entertainment Group (VWEG) which was in turn sold to the Microsoft Corporation in 1999, including the rights to produce BattleTech computer games. Ever since, this particular right has been separated from the remaining BattleTech IP.

Ross Babcock went with VWEG. After the sale, Jordan Weisman turned his attention to the founding of a new games venture called WizKids.

Withdrawal from the market

FASA unexpectedly ceased active operations in early 2001, but still exists as a corporation holding IP rights which it licenses to other publishers. Contrary to popular belief, the company did not go bankrupt. According to the owners, they decided to quit while the company was still financially sound in a market they perceived as going downhill. Mort Weisman had been talking of retirement for some years and his confidence in the future of the paper-based games business was low. He considered the intellectual property of FASA to be of high value but did not wish to continue working as he had been for the last decade or more. Unwilling to wrestle with the complexities of dividing up the going concern, the owners issued a press release on 25 January 2001 announcing the immediate closure of the business.

The BattleTech IP, among others, was transferred to Jordan Weisman's firm WizKids, who in turn licensed the publication rights to FanPro.

Origin of the name

Original FASA Corporation logo (until 1985)

According to a 2006 GameSpy interview of co-founder Jordan Weisman, FASA was named after an old joke from high school: Jordan Weisman had been one of a group in high school who ran a fictional country called "Freedonia" as an homage to the country in the Marx Brothers' movie "Duck Soup". The group's goal was to throw parties where the participants took "official" roles and one of Jordan Weisman's was that of Vice-Chairman of FASA (Freedonian Aeronautics and Space Administration).

In the same interview, he said that the old FASA logo was a combination of the emblems of his and Ross Babcock's RPG characters. The old logo was replaced by the simpler starburst logo "after about seven years".

Notable products

Games published by FASA (besides those from the BattleTech/MechWarrior setting) include:

References