Everett, WA, May 17, 2007 - InMediaRes Productions, LLC, is currently negotiating an agreement to acquire the world-wide RPG publishing rights for the Classic BattleTech and Shadowrun Intellectual Properties from WizKids, Inc. To facilitate this, InMediaRes Productions, LLC, is forming a new publishing division, Catalyst Game Labs, to produce and publish products for both properties.

The personnel directly responsible for producing the Classic BattleTech and Shadowrun lines for almost a decade will continue their support of these fantastic properties under the Catalyst Game Labs imprint. The same people who developed Shadowrun Fourth Edition, the EN World RPG Award ("ENnies�) winner for Best Rules and Best Product, and who also developed Total Warfare for the Classic BattleTech line to much acclaim; in less than six months the rulebook has gone back for a second printing.

“Bringing onboard the talented people responsible for such successes with Classic BattleTech and Shadowrun was a natural decision,� said Loren L. Coleman, Acquisitions Editor and one of the managing owners of InMediaRes Productions, LLC. “Catalyst Game Labs will quickly demonstrate our dedication to providing high quality products—licensed and original—in a timely manner to the community.�

InMediaRes Productions, LLC, has dedicated itself to immediately addressing recent problems, such as missed release dates. The formation of Catalyst Game Labs, which will focus on operations and production, is a necessary first step.

“I’m very pleased with this new development,� said Joe Hauck, VP of Marketing at WizKids, Inc. “Maintaining our Classic BattleTech and Shadowrun properties is a priority for WizKids, and we look forward to working with InMediaRes Productions to strengthen both brands.�

www.CatalystGameLabs.com has already launched, and will be developed rapidly in coming weeks and months as Catalyst Game Labs prepares to release its first products this summer. Keep an eye on the website for more details!

About InMediaRes Productions, LLC
InMediaRes Productions LLC has developed BattleCorps.com as the premiere on-line fiction source for Classic BattleTech. BattleCorps.com actively supports the Classic BattleTech community, their BattleShop offers everything from poster maps to PDF sourcebooks, miniatures to software, and is the one-stop-shop for any fan of the BattleTech/MechWarrior universe. Their subscription-based services also take the Classic BattleTech experience to a whole new level, featuring a stable of authors from national best sellers to great new talent, new art, unique product previews, faction specific message boards and moderated chats with authors and developers.

About WizKids, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of the Topps Company (TOPP), WizKids is a Seattle-based game developer and publisher dedicated to creating tabletop games driven by imagination. Its HeroClix® and Pirates brands are among the most successful games on the market today, with over one hundred million miniature game figures sold worldwide. For additional information, visit www.wizkidsgames.com.

David, am I correct in assuming that you'd like this to get as much distro as possible? (Translation: Will it irk anyone if I cut-and-paste it into my blog? )

Well now that makes for some interesting news I guess things are moving forward pretty well.

Awesome, the site looks good.

So does anyone know if www.shadowrpg.com is staying the same? And is the Catalyst site basically replacing the FanPro site as far as SR and BT are concerned?

EDIT: Vairdic, that link to "Introductory Products" on the http://www.catalystgamelabs.com/shadowrun/ page leads to a horribly outdated Introductory Products page.

Patrick: yes, it's a press release; feel free to repost/link back.

You guys have got to get rid of that color, it is awful. Otherwise, nice site.

I'm not dissatisfied with that color. Green is a great color. IT definately fits well with the erlenmeyer flask/chemistry image.

CatalystGameLabs - greener than Ruby Rhod.

Kinda reminds me of Rob's hair...

hmm, kinda reminds me of snot...

still, shadowrunrpg.com is the place to get ones fix still i guess...

Good to see movement. Gives us all hope. Am standing by, ready to buy any 4th edition core books the moment they come out.

But the colour of that website is disgusting!

-K.

Agreed

PUBLISH MORE BOOKS!

Please?

::puppydog face:: Please?

So, it appears from the website that freelance artists will be welcome (Squinky?), but that freelance writers will not be used?

Catalyst will absolutely be using freelance writers; the current writing guidelines on shadowrunrpg.com still hold true, although you should mail submissions to the Catalyst address.

Seeing as it's only been ten days I will not ask if the transfer is complete yet. I will ask if there is any word on the various books we have all been salivating over? Are you guys getting plenty of sleep, eat your vitamins etcetra?

So any word yet? Now? how 'bout now?

There's been some movement forward it would seem. Over on classicbattletech.com they put up a new news anouncement on the 1st. Talking about new product going to print.

So would that mean that talks have been concluded or have they just gone forward enough so material that has already been layed out can move on to the next step? If BattleTech product has moved forward what does that mean for Emergence and Arsenal?

Don't really know. What I do know is Technical Readout 3050 Upgrade went to the printer on the 1st (according to http://classicbattletech.com/index.php?act...log=BattleBlog).

In that it's mentioned that they should be able to announce the release dates of the first books to be done by Catalyst Games. This leads me to think that things should be wraped up shortly. I just hope that we SR fans get an update on things soon.

Just noticed today that the FanPro Logo is gone from the classic battletech web site and has been replaced with the one for Catalyst Game Labs. Yet for some reason this hasn't happend to the SR web page yet.

Shadowrun webmaster is busy sending BattleTech books to press...

Can you share some of that love with some of the other lines?.....

Love coming soon.

*blows kisses*

Get a node!

best things come to those who wait - like games where you have to wait 2 weeks for the next run.

Actually, the situation is a little simpler than that: There were a ton of BattleTech books almost ready to go to press, and some of them were related [the Box Set ties into a book called Starterbook: Sword and Dragon, so releasing them at the same time is a good thing], and three of them were going to the same printer in Thailand ... so printing/shipping them at the same time saves money.

There was only one Shadowrun book near ready to go to press [Emergence] -- we'll start posting previews this week.

Both Shadowrun, Fourth Edition sales and Classic BattleTech Total Warfare [new core rulebook released in 2006, for those who don't know] sales have been very strong. The differences in speed between SR and CBT releases under FanPro is generally due to the SR developer also being in charge of running FanPro, while the BattleTech developer had more work-time to devote to actual game development. That problem has been fixed with Catalyst [although things are still young and crazy enough that we're obviously not going to see *instant* results.]

*Hugs Adam* Thank you mighty sirs! We loves you forever, we do. Not like the other nasty hobbits, noo, good hobbits. *runs away, hides in cave* Yessss precious, we have more precious, soon we promises, gollum, gollum.
*grovel*

any remote ideas on when we might see Armory? (im a gun nut)

uhh..yeah, what he said.

I think Arsenal is the book you guys are looking for.

Those of you that haven't read this update should do so: http://www.shadowrunrpg.com/wordpress/?p=172

Well as Adam said read the site but if you can't seem to pull that off......

It says you can pick your Arse up around Nov. which means at the least you can have a new Arse for Christmas.

Any chance that Arse or Aug will have any magic love? Personally I doubt Augmentation will (It being teh cyber book ) But might Arsenal have any magic goodies? My adepts are feeling unloved.

Um ok Street Magic is the book for magic.

Augmentaion is Cyber/Bioware and other stuff.

Arsenal is for the most part all about weapons.

I'm guessing Aug will have something similar to cybermancy in it...

Oh ye mighty powers that be,

Having read the news of the deal with Alliance for distribution I’m curious if Catalyst will continue to distribute through ACD as well, or if the Alliance deal was in some way exclusive. One of my local game shops deals with ACD exclusively since he doesn’t do enough volume to use Alliance.

Will he be able to get new SR and CBT products through ACD? Is that just something in the works and not finalized? Was the alliance deal exclusive?

Best regards,
Your humble servant...

Our agreement with Alliance is not exclusive; we’ll be selling product to other distributors, although we’re still hashing things out with many of them. We’ll be posting a full list of who our products will be available from soon, and it should include the “usual suspects.�

Kaiser Soeze will be a distributor?

On a serious note: Glad to hear it Adam, thanks for the update.

Hay Adam Thanks for the Update. Mad Wiz props to all you for keeping my favorite game alive.

Another random question, but what if any difference is this going to make to the program of releasing the old books in electronic format? I know that it pretty much shut down after the main guy doing it suffered a heart attack or something similar IIRC so was wondering if Catalyst was going to be doing anything with it.

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Use Character Map on your computer.