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'Mech Franchise
By Earl P. Thayton
The BattleTech universe, of which the beloved
MechWarrior and MechAssault video games are but
one part, had its genesis in the fevered brain of one Jordan
Weisman. Weisman and his partner Ross Babcock founded FASA
Corporation in 1980, and by 1984, they had produced the very first
tabletop game of giant fightin' robot tactics:
BattleDroids.
Droids?
That's right—the original name for BattleTech was
BattleDroids, but to avoid any possible legal
unpleasantness with the George Lucas empire, FASA changed the name
with the second edition in 1985.
The BattleTech pen-and-paper games continued to do well
over the years, and slowly FASA began to move closer to realizing
Weisman's original dream—not the publication of strategy
games, but the development of networked computer
games.
It's been a long road from tabletop
to video game.
Back when MIDI Maze was the hot thing in networked games,
Weisman's vision of location-based video games with advanced
graphics was, to say the least, ambitious. But, the vision became a
reality in 1990, when the first Virtual World Entertainment complex
opened in Chicago, featuring 16 networked BattleMech
cockpits. Driven by state of the art, custom-built hardware and
software, the Virtual World experience put players right in the
middle of a thirty-first-century battlefield, complete with a
simulated 'Mech cockpit—and they loved it.
The next five years saw the continued success of the tabletop game
lines, the Virtual World centers, and the emergence of the first
BattleTech games for personal computers. The popular
roleplaying game (RPG) Shadowrun also emerged in this
period; the first edition was printed in 1989, and the line remains
popular even today.
From Paper to PCs
In 1995, Weisman's FASA
Corporation and Denny Thorley co- founded FASA Interactive, which
focused on BattleTech games for personal computers and
location-based entertainment for Disney and Virtual World
Entertainment. From 1995 to 1999, FASA Interactive released
MechCommander and started what would become
MechWarrior 4 and Crimson Skies for the personal
computer.
Come 1999, history was made when Microsoft Corporation purchased
FASA Interactive, thereby securing the rights to all future video
games based on FASA properties. Now known as FASA Studio, the
tradition of excellence continues with a new generation of games
like Crimson Skies:
High Road to Revenge and the MechAssault series,
developed in partnership with Day 1 Studios.
Through some licensing legerdemain, rights to the "classic"
BattleTech tabletop game and the Shadowrun RPG
line are currently owned by FanPro (AKA Fantasy Productions LLC), which continues
to support them. WizKids Inc. (another Weisman gig) maintains the
rights to another BattleTech spinoff, the MechWarrior:
Dark Age game line, one of their popular "Clix" games (a
collectible miniatures game system).
Can you believe it's been 20
years?
Good old FASA, the pen-and-paper game company, no longer exists
as it once did, but it has certainly made its mark on the
entertainment industry. By any measure, BattleTech is one
of the most popular sci-fi properties, with more than 20 years of
history, millions of players in multiple mediums, and a myriad of
spin-off products. Here's to another 20 years of heavy-metal
mayhem!
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