Editing Fantasy Productions

[[Image:FanPrologo.png|right]]
'''''Fantasy Productions''''' (often abbreviated '''''FanPro''''') is a pair of now defunct game and publishing companies from [[w:Germany|Germany]] and the [[w:USA|USA]], respectively, who held the [[BattleTech]] license for a time. Owned and managed by essentially the same people, they are often perceived as a single entity but legally they were two distinct firms.

The German firm (Fantasy Productions GmbH), created from the merger of two precursor firms that had existed since 1977 and 1983, respectively, existed from 1988 to 2012. The US-based firm (FanPro LLC) was created in 2001 and ceased operations in 2006.

In Germany, the FanPro brand name is now used as imprint for the Fuchs & Fuchs GbR, with no remaining connection to BattleTech.

==FanPro Germany==
===Inception===
In 1977, [[Werner Fuchs]] started the Fantastic Shop in [[w:Düsseldorf|Düsseldorf]], Germany, an import business for British and American books and boardgames where his brother-in-law [[w:Ulrich Kiesow|Ulrich Kiesow]] later worked with him. Fuchs and Kiesow had a keen knowledge of the RPG boom in the United States and were among the first to prepare for a similar boom in Germany; their business flourished.

Fuchs had also been producing a science fiction anthology series together with a friend, [[w:Hans Joachim Alpers|Hans-Joachim Alpers]], that was cancelled after 6 volumes (out of 15 projected volumes). Fuchs, Alpers and Kiesow subsequently decided to create their own publishing house, [[Fantasy Productions]], as a ''[[w:Types_of_business_entity#Germany|Gesellschaft bürgerlichen Rechts]]'' (GbR), a Partnership Agreement under the German Civil Code, in 1983.

In 1988, the Fantasy Production GbR publishing house and the Fantastic Shop game import business were merged into the Fantasy Productions [[w:Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung|GmbH]] (Limited Liability Company under German Civil Code), and took up production of [[w:Miniature figure (gaming)|gaming miniatures]]. The Fantasy Productions GmbH was originally based in [[w:Düsseldorf|Düsseldorf]] and later in [[w:Erkrath|Erkrath]], Germany.<ref>[http://www.spielarchiv.de/websites/labels/fanpro.htm Spielarchiv.de entry] (German)</ref>

Besides producing miniatures, the FanPro founders had created the massively popular and successful German fantasy role-playing game ''[[w:The Dark Eye|Das Schwarze Auge (The Dark Eye)]]'', which they initially published in cooperation with the [[w:Schmidt Spiele|Schmidt Spiel & Freizeit GmbH]] and [[w:Droemer Knaur|Droemer Knaur]] publishing house because the young FanPro enterprise was too small at the time to handle the project by themselves. The Dark Eye is often regarded as the premier German RPG, on par with if not eclipsing (A)D&D in German-speaking countries. Kiesow's editorial work for ''Das Schwarze Auge'' was organized at FanPro, and the firm evolved into a major German publisher of role playing games and science-fiction/fantasy literature. They would publish The Dark Eye in-house following the bankruptcy of Schmidt Spiel & Freizeit GmbH in 1997.

===BattleTech & Shadowrun licensee===
:''See also:'' [[Essay: BattleTech in Germany]]
Under license from [[FASA Corporation]], FanPro produced the German-language edition of [[BattleTech]] from 1988 onwards and also the German edition of [[Shadowrun]], FASA's other highly successful game.

FanPro did not merely translate the English material, however. German editions of BattleTech products differ from the English originals more often than not, especially the earlier translations. FanPro would often add content like additional scenarios. They also created new products by combining material from several original sources into omnibus products (like ''[[Mächte der Inneren Sphäre]]'', which is essentially a compilation of the five original House Books, or the ''[[Atlas der Inneren Sphäre]]'' which compiles astronomical and planetary data from a wide range of original sources, adding newly drawn maps). FanPro produced at least one completely original German-only sourcebook, "''[[Ronin!]]''". It was in turn used as the basis for the write-up on the [[Ronin Wars]] in ''[[Brush Wars]]'', a subsequent publication.

In a 2003 interview, FanPro CEO Werner Fuchs said they were a smallish firm with just about 20 employees and that they were barely profitable (he literally described FanPro as a "non-profit enterprise" at the time).<ref>"FanPro-Interna" report from RatCon 2003 on [http://www.vinsalt.de/Ticker/ratcon03_5.htm Vinsalts DSA-Ticker] (German)</ref> As of 2004, FanPro was reported to have 12 employees, plus a "large number" of freelance authors.

===BattleTech & Shadowrun producer===
When FASA unexpectedly withdrew from the market in 2001, the [[w:intellectual properties|intellectual properties]] (IPs) to BattleTech and Shadowrun (among others) were transferred to [[WizKids]].

[[Christoph Nick (Person)|Christoph Nick]], an avid BattleTech fan and freelance writer for FanPro at the time, convinced FanPro to obtain the license and take over and continue the English-language BattleTech IP for what was now "[[Classic BattleTech]]", while WizKids created the new [[MechWarrior: Dark Age]] game in the same setting.

FanPro created a sister company in the United States (FanPro LLC, see below) to license these IPs from WizKids, thus becoming the producer for the original (English) version of both Classic BattleTech and Shadowrun.

The FanPro BattleTech license contained the stipulation that they were not allowed to advance the timeline, keeping Classic BattleTech frozen at the conclusion of the [[Civil War era]] in [[3067]]. This was done to avoid timeline conflicts with the MW:DA game that was now considered the main product line by WizKids, and which was set in the 32nd century.

===Cutting back===
In 2007, FanPro's BattleTech and Shadowrun licenses ran out and were not renewed. FanPro also sold the rights to their other flagship product, ''Das Schwarze Auge'', to [[Ulisses Spiele]]. WizKids licensed the BattleTech and Shadowrun rights to [[InMediaRes]] instead, who proceeded to market the games through their [[Catalyst Game Labs]] imprint (who were essentially the same people who had previously worked for US-based FanPro LLC; see below).

In this way, FanPro reduced itself to its book publishing division, formerly their ''Phoenix'' imprint. FanPro thus ceased to be a producer of boardgame and RPG material, but continued its novel series for ''Das Schwarze Auge'' and also a series of German BattleTech novels, most of which were original work and not available in English (see [[List of BattleTech Print Novels and Anthologies#FanPro]]). This led to a disagreement with InMediaRes over whether or not FanPro had retained the right to publish new German-language BattleTech and Shadowrun novels. FanPro ceased further publications for BattleTech and Shadowrun after 2008.

In 2011, Ulisses Spiele acquired the orphaned German BattleTech license, took over existing stocks from FanPro as well as existing contracts, and seamlessly continued both the Classic BattleTech and MechWarrior: Dark Age novel lines from where FanPro had left off in 2008, to the point of keeping the numbering of the books.

===Closing down===
Ulrich Kiesow died in 1997; Hans-Joachim Alpers died in 2011. With Werner Fuchs still at the helm, FanPro (now '''Fantasy Productions Verlags- und Medienvertriebsgesellschaft mbH''') continued as a publishing house and RPG retailer until 2012. In that year the firm was closed down and the online FanPro Shop was merged into the online shop of the '''17und8 GbR''', a retailer company run by Werner Fuchs and Charif Ben Lasfar. FanPro initially redirected its web presence to that of the 17und8 GbR, though the web shop still kept the name "FanPro Shop" and the old FanPro logo for a time. It subsequently became the "F-Shop" and is now owned by Ulisses Spiele, while the 17und8 GbR underwent a restructuring and continued as purely an [[w:eBay|eBay]] seller enterprise after 1 February 2014.

===New FanPro GbR===
Together with his daughter Corinna, Werner Fuchs launched a new firm in 2012. Distinct from the Fantasy Productions of old, the new Fuchs & Fuchs GbR (doing business as FanPro GbR) is a publishing house that continues some of FanPro's legacy, particularly the German translations of [[w:George R. R. Martin|George R. R. Martin]]'s massively popular ''[[w:A Song of Fire and Ice|A Song of Fire and Ice]]'' series. The old FanPro online presence including the FanPro online store was transferred to this new firm. FanPro GbR has only tenuous connections to the old FanPro business otherwise, and has nothing at all to do with BattleTech.

===Wunderwelten magazine===
{{main|Wunderwelten}}
From 1989 to 1999, FanPro published their ''[[Wunderwelten]]'' magazine which covered fantasy, science-fiction, roleplaying and boardgaming-related content, including original content for BattleTech.

==FanPro US==
In 2001, the owners of FanPro set up a sister company in Chicago, '''Fantasy Productions LLC''' (also often referred to as FanPro US), although most of its employees worked remotely. FanPro US initially licensed the rights to produce English-language ''Shadowrun'' books in early 2001 from WizKids, who had obtained the licensing rights from FASA, and by the summer of 2001 FanPro LLC had also signed an agreement to publish what was now known as the Classic BattleTech product line in English. The staff of authors that went to work for FanPro was largely identical to the people who had previously worked for FASA, so the transition was almost seamless.

Because WizKids' own new BattleTech game, [[MechWarrior: Dark Age]], was set some seven decades in the future from where the classic BattleTech had been left off, FanPro was not allowed to continue the timeline beyond the year [[3067]], giving WizKids the opportunity to shape the [[Jihad era]] between 3067 and the new game's [[Dark Age era]] however they wanted to serve as a background for their MechWarrior: Dark Age game. However, many of the authors working for FanPro LLC also worked for WizKids at the same time so the BattleTech timeline was still more or less in the same hands.

From 2001 to 2005, FanPro US released over a dozen original Shadowrun titles and reprinted core BattleTech titles that FASA had originally released, with a new cover and a FanPro product number, often in revised editions that included errata, and in the case of ''[[MechWarrior, Third Edition]]'' also with a renaming to ''[[Classic BattleTech RPG]]'', to avoid confusion with the MechWarrior: Dark Age game line. They continued to release new Classic BattleTech books in English, and in 2006 released [[Total Warfare]], the first in a series of revised full-color books for Classic BattleTech. FanPro Germany continued to translate these books and publish them in Germany, along with German-only Shadowrun books. Conversely, FanPro US published The Dark Eye, a translated English edition of ''Das Schwarze Auge''.

All English material published by FanPro LLC also bears the WizKids logo and is copyrighted to WizKids (instead of FanPro).

FanPro LLC allegedly<ref>''According to a [http://forum.rpg.net/showpost.php?p=11857231&postcount=11 forum post by Rob Boyle]''</ref> lost a significant amount of money when their distributor [[Fast Forward Entertainment]] (FFE), through whom all their income was funneled, collapsed. FFE is said to have grown too rapidly and hired employees with FanPro's money while creating what was described as an "accounting mess" through poor bookkeeping that made it impossible to find out just how much of FanPro's money they had actually spent. This, combined with business decisions by the FanPro owners that benefitted FanPro Germany to the detriment of FanPro US, spelled doom for FanPro US.

The FanPro US staff—[[BattleTech Line Developer]] [[Randall Bills]] and Shadowrun Line Developer Rob Boyle—made an attempt to buy the company out, but the owners refused. Subsequently, the staff all quit and then went to work for [[Catalyst Game Labs]] who had acquired the licenses. Catalyst even operates from the same business address that FanPro LLC had previously had.

==References== 
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://www.fanpro.de/ German FanPro website] (defunct)

[[Category:Game Publisher]]