Fantasy Productions Medienvertriebsgesellschaft GmbH (a.k.a. FanPro) is a German publishing company based in

Erkrath Erkrath () is a town in the district of Mettmann, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Geography Erkrath is situated on the river Düssel, directly east of Düsseldorf and west of Wuppertal, close to the famous Neandertal. It has two stations, E ...

History

The company was founded in 1983 by

Ulrich Kiesow Ulrich Kiesow was one of the co-founders of Fantasy Productions (FanPro) in 1983, together with Werner Fuchs and Hans Joachim Alpers. He was the translator of the first German language editions for both ''Tunnels & Trolls'', which was the first ...

Werner Fuchs Werner Fuchs (25 October 1948 – 11 May 1999) was a German football player and coach. Playing career Fuchs was born in Kaiserslautern. A centre forward, he began his professional career in 1967 with a professional contract at 1. FC Kais ...

and

Hans Joachim Alpers Hans Joachim Alpers (14 July 1943 – 16 February 2011) was a German writer and editor of science fiction and fantasy. Together with Werner Fuchs and Ulrich Kiesow he founded Fantasy Productions, which became one of the premier German RPG- and ...

to produce small metal miniature figures. When the Droemer Knaur Verlag and the Schmidt Spiel & Freizeit GmbH published Kiesow's role playing game "

Das Schwarze Auge ''The Dark Eye'' (German: ''Das Schwarze Auge'', lit. "The Black Eye") is a German tabletop role-playing game with a high fantasy theme created by Ulrich Kiesow and launched by Schmidt Spiel & Freizeit GmbH and Droemer Knaur Verlag in 1984. ...

", Kiesow organised the editorial work at FanPro. After the bankruptcy of the ''Schmidt Spiel & Freizeit GmbH'' in 1997, FanPro published ''Das Schwarze Auge'' by itself.

FanPro LLC

Fantasy Productions translated

FASA Fasa ( fa, فسا, Fasā, also Romanized as Fassa) is a city and capital of Fasa County, Fars Province, Iran. At the 2016 census, its population was 110,825, in 33,379 families. Fasa is the fourth most populous city of the province. The city date ...

products into German for years. When FASA closed in 2001, WizKids licensed some of FASA's old tabletop rights went to the principals of Fantasy Productions. Rob Boyle considered making a bid to license ''

Shadowrun ''Shadowrun'' is a science fantasy tabletop role-playing game set in an alternate future in which cybernetics, magic in fiction, magic and fantasy creatures co-exist. It combines genres of cyberpunk, urban fantasy and crime fiction, crime, with ...

'', but before he could, Fantasy Productions expressed interest in Shadowrun themselves. Fantasy Productions founder Werner Fuchs invited Boyle to visit him in Germany, and Boyle was soon setting up and running FanPro LLC, a new corporation created by two of the principals of the Fantasy Productions and Boyle himself. They created the new USA subsidiary FanPro LLC to hold the rights to FASA's game lines. FanPro licensed ''Shadowrun'' in early 2001, and Boyle took over as Line Editor, and six months later, FanPro licensed ''

Battletech ''BattleTech'' is a wargaming and military science fiction franchise launched by FASA Corporation in 1984, acquired by WizKids in 2001, which was in turn acquired by Topps in 2003; and published since 2007 by Catalyst Game Labs. The tradema ...

'' as well and hired Randall Bills to continue with his job as ''Battletech'' Line Editor; that made Bills FanPro LLC's second and only other employee. FanPro LLC also began expanding into translations of German RPGs, their first being ''

The Dark Eye ''The Dark Eye'' (German: ''Das Schwarze Auge'', lit. "The Black Eye") is a German tabletop role-playing game with a high fantasy theme created by Ulrich Kiesow and launched by Schmidt Spiel & Freizeit GmbH and Droemer Knaur Verlag in 1984 ...

'' (2003), a translation of Germany's top fantasy RPG, ''Das Schwarze Auge'' (1984) – which had recently been released in a fourth edition (2002) by the German Fantasy Productions. ''The Dark Eye'', like FanPro's FASA lines, depended on a metaplot, this one advanced through adventures and Fantasy Productions' ''Aventurische Bote'' magazine. However, ''The Dark Eye'' did not sell well, and was not further supported by FanPro LLC as a result. ''Degenesis'', originally scheduled for late 2006, would have been a second German RPG, but once more FanPro LLC was not able to follow through. From 2001 to 2005, FanPro LLC released over a dozen original Shadowrun titles and reprinted core titles that FASA had originally released. In 2005, FanPro LLC released

, Fourth Edition. Likewise, FanPro LLC continued to release new Classic

BattleTech ''BattleTech'' is a wargaming and military science fiction franchise launched by FASA Corporation in 1984, acquired by WizKids in 2001, which was in turn acquired by Topps in 2003; and published since 2007 by Catalyst Game Labs. The tradema ...

books in English, and in 2006 released ''Total Warfare'', the first in a series of revised full-color books for Classic

. FanPro GmbH continued to translate these books into German, along with German-only

books.

Licenses selling

Until early in 2007 FanPro was a

publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

for fantasy books and various role playing games. The company owned licensing agreements with WizKids to produce the German-language versions of

Classic BattleTech ''Classic BattleTech'' is a table-top wargame set in the fictional ''BattleTech'' universe that simulates combat between futuristic mechanized forces. Originally published by FASA Corporation, the game is now produced by Catalyst Game Labs unde ...

, Pirates of the Spanish Main, and the "

Clix Clix, CLIX, etc. may refer to: Technology * Clix (ISP), a Portuguese triple play brand * CLiX (markup), a formal XML schema validation language and method of using valid XML for overlapping markup * Clix (miniatures), a system of miniatures games p ...

" games of

Mage Knight ''Mage Knight'' is a miniatures wargame using collectible figures, created by WizKids, Inc, and is the earliest example of what is now known as a collectible miniatures game (or CMG). The game was designed by founder Jordan Weisman along with ...

and

HeroClix HeroClix is a collectible miniatures game that uses the Clix system that centers on the world of superhero comic books, especially the DC Comics and Marvel universes like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, the X-Me ...

. FanPro's decision to maintain a small staff meant that they could not do their own warehousing and shipping, and so they instead used the fulfilment company Fast Forward Entertainment. When Fast Forward went under, they took with them many earnings they had collected for FanPro's books and had not paid out. Fantasy Productions in Germany were having problems of their own, and as a result, in April 2007 they started divesting themselves of their gaming properties by selling ''Das Schwarze Auge'' and soon all the others. Fantasy Productions were helping to support themselves via gaming stock taken from the FanPro LLC warehouses, which meant not only that FanPro LLC wasn't getting support from its German parent in hard times, but in fact FanPro were supporting them. Boyle and Bills tried to buy FanPro LLC from Fantasy Productions and when that did not work out they threatened to leave and implied that they would be bidding for the WizKids licenses, which were just coming up for renewal. WizKids stepped in to mediate; although they were not willing to let Boyle and Bills create a new company, they were willing to give the licenses to InMediaRes. The license for ''Das Schwarze Auge'' went to Ulisses Spiele. Since then the company focuses on publishing novels only, although it continued its preexisting novel series for ''Das Schwarze Auge'' ; the ''Shadowrun'' and ''BattleTech'' series ceased publications in 2008, following disagreements between WizKids and Fantasy Productions concerning the German licence for those properties.

References

External links

German website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fantasy Productions Book publishing companies of Germany Companies based in North Rhine-Westphalia Publishing companies of Germany Role-playing game publishing companies Publishing companies established in 1983