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West End Games
West End Games (WEG) was a company that made board, role-playing, and war games. It was founded by Daniel Scott Palter in 1974 in New York City, but later moved to Honesdale, Pennsylvania. Its product lines included Star Wars, Paranoia, Torg, DC Universe, and Junta.
Scott Palter received a JD from Stanford in 1972 and joined the New York State Bar before he began work at the family firm, Bucci Imports. Drawing on this financial connection, Palter was able to found West End Games, named after the bar in which the meeting that finalized its founding occurred: the West End Bar near Columbia University.
Initially a producer of board wargames, In 1983, Palter hired Ken Rolston, Eric Goldberg and Greg Costikyan as game designers, and WEG's focus turned away from traditional wargames. Costikyan's 1983 game Bug-Eyed Monsters brought WEG into the science-fiction and fantasy genres. Then Costikyan and Goldberg brought Palter a manuscript for a role-playing game that originally had been conceived by their friend Dan Gelber. Palter agreed to buy the rights to the game, and after some editing and polishing by Rolston, it was released at Gencon in 1984 as WEG's first role-playing game, Paranoia. In 1985, Paranoia won WEG an Origins Award for "Best Roleplaying Rules of 1984".
The high production values demanded by the wargames industry made them one of the few companies who could compete with TSR, and they were able to acquire the license from Columbia Pictures to produce an RPG based on the film Ghostbusters. This game, Ghostbusters: A Frightfully Cheerful Roleplaying Game, formed the basis of the D6 System which was to be heavily used in many of their licensed products.
In 1987, the company released their Star Wars role-playing game. Since the films had been released some years previously, and there was (at the time) no new media forthcoming, the success of these books came as a surprise. The game established much of the groundwork of what later became the Star Wars expanded universe. Lucasfilm considered their sourcebooks so authoritative that when Timothy Zahn was hired to write what became the Thrawn trilogy, he was sent a box of West End Games Star Wars books and directed to utilize the background material presented within. Zahn's trilogy, in turn, renewed interest in the franchise and provided further sales for West End Games, which released sourcebooks for Zahn's three novels from 1992 to 1994.
1990 saw the release of the Torg roleplaying game, followed in 1994 by the Masterbook system, which was mostly used in licensed RPG adaptations: Indiana Jones, Necroscope, Species, Tales from the Crypt, Tank Girl, and The World of Aden. Another licensed game, the Hercules & Xena Roleplaying Game, was the last title released by the initial version of the company: in July 1998, West End Games went into bankruptcy, following mismanagement between West End Games and its then-parent company, shoe importer Bucci Retail Group. When the parent company filed for bankruptcy, West End Games was forced to go under as well, despite an attempt by Palter to perform a Chapter 11 reorganization of the company's finances. As a result, former WEG designers Costikyan and Goldberg took Palter to court over ownership of Paranoia, and in 2000, the courts ruled that the license should revert to Costikyan and Goldberg.
The bankrupt West End Games became WEG / Creative Design Group while a new West End Games (D6 Legends, Inc.) was formed in partnership with Yeti, a French design house and publisher and subsidiary of Humanoids Publishing, in March 1999. Under court supervision, WEG/Creative Design Group sold off product and assets to pay off debt. WEG/Creative Design Group sold to the new company intellectual property, the Paranoia licensing contracts, and the trademarks. Licensing contracts for Indiana Jones, Star Wars and Xena remained with Creative Design Group, though the Star Wars license was soon lost to Wizards of the Coast, who released their own Star Wars game in 2000.
At the 1999 GAMA Trade Show, the new West End Games announced a third edition of Paranoia for late June or early July of that year, followed by a Bug Sector supplement, but these were never released. The DC Universe license was acquired and a new RPG was also announced at that time, which was published in 1999.
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West End Games
West End Games (WEG) was a company that made board, role-playing, and war games. It was founded by Daniel Scott Palter in 1974 in New York City, but later moved to Honesdale, Pennsylvania. Its product lines included Star Wars, Paranoia, Torg, DC Universe, and Junta.
Scott Palter received a JD from Stanford in 1972 and joined the New York State Bar before he began work at the family firm, Bucci Imports. Drawing on this financial connection, Palter was able to found West End Games, named after the bar in which the meeting that finalized its founding occurred: the West End Bar near Columbia University.
Initially a producer of board wargames, In 1983, Palter hired Ken Rolston, Eric Goldberg and Greg Costikyan as game designers, and WEG's focus turned away from traditional wargames. Costikyan's 1983 game Bug-Eyed Monsters brought WEG into the science-fiction and fantasy genres. Then Costikyan and Goldberg brought Palter a manuscript for a role-playing game that originally had been conceived by their friend Dan Gelber. Palter agreed to buy the rights to the game, and after some editing and polishing by Rolston, it was released at Gencon in 1984 as WEG's first role-playing game, Paranoia. In 1985, Paranoia won WEG an Origins Award for "Best Roleplaying Rules of 1984".
The high production values demanded by the wargames industry made them one of the few companies who could compete with TSR, and they were able to acquire the license from Columbia Pictures to produce an RPG based on the film Ghostbusters. This game, Ghostbusters: A Frightfully Cheerful Roleplaying Game, formed the basis of the D6 System which was to be heavily used in many of their licensed products.
In 1987, the company released their Star Wars role-playing game. Since the films had been released some years previously, and there was (at the time) no new media forthcoming, the success of these books came as a surprise. The game established much of the groundwork of what later became the Star Wars expanded universe. Lucasfilm considered their sourcebooks so authoritative that when Timothy Zahn was hired to write what became the Thrawn trilogy, he was sent a box of West End Games Star Wars books and directed to utilize the background material presented within. Zahn's trilogy, in turn, renewed interest in the franchise and provided further sales for West End Games, which released sourcebooks for Zahn's three novels from 1992 to 1994.
1990 saw the release of the Torg roleplaying game, followed in 1994 by the Masterbook system, which was mostly used in licensed RPG adaptations: Indiana Jones, Necroscope, Species, Tales from the Crypt, Tank Girl, and The World of Aden. Another licensed game, the Hercules & Xena Roleplaying Game, was the last title released by the initial version of the company: in July 1998, West End Games went into bankruptcy, following mismanagement between West End Games and its then-parent company, shoe importer Bucci Retail Group. When the parent company filed for bankruptcy, West End Games was forced to go under as well, despite an attempt by Palter to perform a Chapter 11 reorganization of the company's finances. As a result, former WEG designers Costikyan and Goldberg took Palter to court over ownership of Paranoia, and in 2000, the courts ruled that the license should revert to Costikyan and Goldberg.
The bankrupt West End Games became WEG / Creative Design Group while a new West End Games (D6 Legends, Inc.) was formed in partnership with Yeti, a French design house and publisher and subsidiary of Humanoids Publishing, in March 1999. Under court supervision, WEG/Creative Design Group sold off product and assets to pay off debt. WEG/Creative Design Group sold to the new company intellectual property, the Paranoia licensing contracts, and the trademarks. Licensing contracts for Indiana Jones, Star Wars and Xena remained with Creative Design Group, though the Star Wars license was soon lost to Wizards of the Coast, who released their own Star Wars game in 2000.
At the 1999 GAMA Trade Show, the new West End Games announced a third edition of Paranoia for late June or early July of that year, followed by a Bug Sector supplement, but these were never released. The DC Universe license was acquired and a new RPG was also announced at that time, which was published in 1999.