A Bit More Battletech

 The Battletech Mercenaries kickstarter has been one of the only such projects I've tracked in the last several years and it's been an interesting ride. At over seven million dollars pledged (and a handful of hours left), it's actually sitting close to the top 20 most-funded (specifically) Kickstarter projects of all time. This when their minimum to go forward with the base offering was fifty thousand and their previous kickstarter project for the Clan Invasion ended at around 2.5 million dollars. That seems to indicate the game, market, and awareness is growing quite respectably.

I'm happy with the performance and stretch goal unlocks, though a little worried that it may not reach 7.5 million as that would unlock Crescent Hawks swag. 8 million would be even better with Blood Asp mechs and another force pack unlock.

Through some of the streams with Catalyst Game Labs employees along the way, I've learned a few things. I knew FASA died out at Battletech (as well as other IPs like Shadowrun) were sold off and bounced around a few times. I knew CGL to be the current keeper of the tabletop game and associated lore/RPG/etc. I did not realize that Topps actually owns that IP and CGL is just licensing/running it currently. I also did not realize the video game rights were fully divorced from this quite some time back and are held by Microsoft (so the most recent Battletech and Mechwarrior video games had to be licensed from Microsoft, not Topps/CGL). And I'm given to understand any movie/TV rights are actually held by another party.

That FASA breakup really fractured the IP and it's a shame. Hearing the CGL crew talk, they avid and passionate stewards of the property and things like the kickstarter project would seem to indicate they'd doing a good job from a business standpoint as well. I think if they held the full IP rights, we could see a lot more, better products for the setting across media. For example, I really wish HBS would do another Battletech video game, though that appears unlikely anytime soon. So, with all the business stuff, that's a little sadness behind some things, but what I see speaks well of the team.

I'm also a little surprised that the Battletech rules have not greatly changed. I'll do a more detailed comparison at some point, but I've been told the core rules remain as they were 30+ years ago. It's unusual for a game like that to not undergo major revision after such a long time. And, admittedly, there was a period where Wizkids produced a clix-based version of the game. Also, there's the more recent Alpha Strike product (which seems to simplify a lot of things to make play a bit faster and more manageable with larger forces. The core "A Game of Armored Combat" rules, though, seem to be the same as what is in my boxed set from the late 80's and the manual released around the Clan Invasion. That's... kind of impressive that it still works after all this time.