Free BattleTech Background

Description

BattleTech is a wargaming and military science fiction franchise launched by FASA Corporation in 1984, acquired by WizKids in 2001, and owned since 2003 by Topps. The series began with FASA's debut of the board game BattleTech by Jordan Weisman and L. Ross Babcock III and has since grown to include numerous expansions to the original game, several computer and video games, a collectible card game, a series of more than 100 novels, an animated television series and more.

Overview

Chicago-based FASA Corporation's original 1984 game focused on enormous robotic, semi-humanoid battle machines battling in a science-fiction feudalistic dark age setting. The game was at first called BattleDroids. The name of the game was changed to BattleTech in the second edition because George Lucas and Lucasfilm claimed the rights to the term "droid"; the machines themselves were renamed BattleMechs from the second edition onward. After FASA Corporation closed its doors in 2000, Wizkids bought the rights to the game in January 2001. They reworked the IP to launch their MechWarrior: Dark Age collectible miniatures game, but licensed the rights to continue to publish products for the old game to FanPro . Topps bought Wizkids in 2003, but this did not change any publishing agreements at that time. Racing in Car
. FanPro held the license to the original tabletop game until 2007. Angry Birds Rio
. At that point Catalyst Game Labs acquired the license from Topps. Traffic Racer
. CGL continues to hold the license to this day; with the end of the MechWarrior: Dark Age miniatures game, the name of the traditional tabletop game has reverted to simply BattleTech. LEGO® Star Wars™: TCS
. "The Unseen" Rather than create their own original robot art, FASA decided to use already-extant designs, originally been created for a variety of different Japanese anime: Dougram, Crusher Joe, and Macross. Asphalt 8: Airborne
. The rights to these images were licensed from Twentieth Century Imports . In later years, FASA abandoned these images as a result of a lawsuit brought against them by Playmates and Harmony Gold over the use of said images. No official broke the silence until 2007. Classic BattleTech line developer Randall N. Bills explained that FASA had sued Playmates over the use of images owned by FASA, but though Playmates was ordered to stop using the images in question, FASA received no financial compensation. After realizing how the use of licensed images made them vulnerable to lawsuits and afraid that such a suit would bankrupt the company, FASA made the