Hero Games’ Jason Walters made the following announcement on the Hero Games website and the Hero Games discussion boards a few minutes ago:
Changes At Hero
Hero Games has been around for 30 years with ups and downs. The economy’s been pretty rough lately, as has the gaming market. With declining sales and fewer releases, Hero has reached the point where it’s no longer possible to maintain a full time staff of three, so it’s scaling back.
Darren and Steve will be departing December 2nd, with our thanks for a decade of hard work that gave us 108 books, and best wishes for their future endeavors, which may include producing new books under a Hero System license. We’ll keep you posted on that.
Jason will remain to continue shipping books and handling day-to-day matters. Existing books will continue to be available for purchase, and the company will continue in business, just a bit more slowly. The online store remains open. Steve will continue to answer rules questions on the Hero boards as “the guy who wrote the rulebook.”
We’re looking into doing a Kickstarter to print Book of the Empress, since it’s complete and ready to go.
For the near future Hero would appreciate your kind thoughts and your patience. Transition periods of this sort take time, and Jason has a lot of work cut out for him, so the support of our fans is much appreciated.
—Posted by Jason Walters, General Manager
Needless to say, this is something of a shock. Hero seemed to be going from strength to strength and, although it’s very early days, it’s hard to envisage the firm without Darren and Steve.
And the highly prolific Steve has written or co-written the vast majority of Hero’s output over the last decade.
Hello, we have a Kickstarter for Champions Complete to help get more gamers to try HERO System. Please support it if you can. Thank you!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1587114462/extinction-event-campaign-guide-for-champions-comp?ref=1x8wpx