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| Company type | Privately held company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Role-playing |
| Headquarters | United States |
Key people | Rob Donoghue andFred Hicks |
| Products | Fate,The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game,Blades in the Dark,Thirsty Sword Lesbians |
| Website | www.evilhat.com |
Evil Hat Productions is a company that producesrole-playing games and othertabletop games. They are best known for the freeindie RPG systemFate,Blades in the Dark, andThirsty Sword Lesbians, all of which have won multiple awards.
Fred Hicks had been working with Lydia Leong,Rob Donoghue, and others to runLARPs at AmberCon NorthWest starting in 1999, and came up with the name Evil Hat for themselves.[1]: 421 While on a trip to Lake Tahoe, friends Hicks and Donoghue developed a new game based on a conversation about running anotherAmber game and fixing some problems withFUDGE; the result wasFate which Hicks and Donoghue would publish under the name Evil Hat.[1]: 421 Donoghue and Hicks released a complete first-edition ofFate through Yahoo! Groups (January 2003) then cleaned up the technical writing and slightly polished the system for a second edition (August 2003).[1]: 421 Hicks and Donoghue began work on the licensedDresden Files Roleplaying Game in 2004, but publication was held up because they decided to useSpirit of the Century (2006) to introduce theFate 3.0 system instead.[1]: 423 While working on these other games, as a side-project Hicks worked onDon't Rest Your Head (2006), which would be Evil Hat's first published game.[1]: 423 Don't Rest Your Head was critically acclaimed and quickly sold through Evil Hat's shortprint-on-demand print run.[1]: 424
In 2005, the company began producing a series of commercial role-playing games using an updated version of the Fate system, each focusing on a different genre. These include the 1920spulp adventureSpirit of the Century and the hard sci-fiDiaspora. In 2010, they releasedDresden Files Roleplaying Game, based on theDresden Files series of novels by authorJim Butcher.[2] The FATE system had also been licensed toCubicle 7 Entertainment who used it forStarblazer Adventures, based on the BritishStarblazer comic.[3]
Evil Hat Productions is a part of the Bits and Mortar initiative and was one of the original founding companies in August 2010.[4]
In January 2016, Evil Hat Productions announcedprint-runs for some of itsFate Core System games such as[5]Venture City (2014)[6] andDo: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple (2011).[7] The company then announced in September 2016 that they would be bringing bothBlades in the Dark (2017) andKarthun: Lands of Conflict (2017) to trade in 2017; both games were funded via successfulKickstarter campaigns in 2015 and 2014, respectively.[8]
In October 2018,ICv2 reported that Evil Hat was scaling back with "a total of a dozen projects [...] postponed or cut in the immediate future" along with staff reductions such as the Head of Marketing Carrie Harris and the Head of Business Development Chris Hanrahan leaving that month and Senior Art Director Brian Patterson beinglaid off "at the end of 2018".[9] Game designerAlex Roberts toldPolygon that her gameFor the Queen (2019) was "the last boxed game" released by Evil Hat as the publisher shifted to exclusively releasing books and that originally, the game was "almost on the chopping block" as it was "80% done" when the publisher made their change.[10]
In 2019, Hicks revealed that the role-playing gameMonster of the Week (2015) had a surge in sales after being featured onThe Adventure Zone podcast in 2018. Hicks informed ICv2 that "interest in that same month surged to a level similar to our initial product release spike; in practically every month since, sustained interest in the game has vastly outstripped what we were able to achieve ourselves. Only one month, October 2018, dipped below the highest interest level we saw immediately following release in 2015, and was promptly followed by November 2018 where we saw our strongest sales-month ever for the product (possibly due to retailers stocking up for the holiday gifting season)".[11] Hicks highlighted that whileFate Core System "achieved a big sales surge" after being featured in May 2017 onGeek & Sundry’sTableTop "the impact was shorter than it was forThe Adventure Zone" impact onMonster of the Week.[11] Lin Codega ofRascal highlighted that "while it was never out of stock during its four-year run at Evil Hat, afterFor the Queen was featured onShut Up, Sit Down, it became exceptionally hard to find at physical distributors, according to a spokesperson from Evil Hat".[12]
Don't Rest Your Head was a runner-up for Indie Game of the Year at the 2006Indie RPG Awards, losing to Evil Hat'sSpirit of the Century.[1]: 424 In 2007, Evil Hat won a silverENnie Award for Best Rules and an Honorable Mention for Best Game, both forSpirit of the Century.[13] In 2008, the game supplementDon't Lose Your Mind won the Indie RPG Awards for Indie Supplement of the Year.[14] In 2009,Don't Lose Your Mind won the Silver ENnie for Best Writing andSwashbucklers of the 7 Skies won the Silver ENnie for Best Setting; both games were also nominated for Product of the Year.[15]
The company won twoOrigins Awards in 2010 forThe Dresden Files Roleplaying Game: Best Role-playing Game and Best Supplement for two books in the line. In 2011, the same game won gold ENnie for Best Game, Best New Game and Best Writing, and silver ENnies for Best Production Values and Product of the Year.[16] The company also won the silver ENnie for Fan Favorite Publisher in 2012.[17]
The company was nominated for the 2014Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming; the committee wrote that:
Ever since the release ofFate as a free RPG in 2003, Evil Hat Productions has aimed at two usually difficult goals: skill and elegance in game design, and professionalism and transparency in publishing. Honesty and openness about business realities, and excitement and perfectionism about game possibilities, built the Evil Hat audience from a corner of the Internet to a loyal horde numbering in the tens of thousands. [...] By co-creating Bits and Mortar, Evil Hat pioneered PDF-retailer cooperation; using the Open Game License and Creative Commons, Evil Hat built on a tradition of trusting players and designers to build better games. In 2013, Evil Hat hit both its design goals and its deadlines withFate Core: five books Kickstarted, printed, and delivered, and over 60,000 copies sold. AndFate Core is still a free RPG.[18]
Also in 2014, Evil Hat'sFate Core System nearly swept the ENnies, with Gold awards for Best Game and Best Rules and Silver for Product of the Year, while the relatedFate Accelerated Edition won Gold for Best Family Game and the supplements and accessoriesStrange Tales of the Century, theFate System Toolkit, theFate SRD andEldrich Fate Dice, won silver ENnies for Best RPG Related Product, Best Supplement, Best Website and Best Aid/Accessory, respectively.[19]
In the Best Family Game category, the company won the silver ENnie in 2015 for theAtomic Robo RPG[20] and the gold ENnie in 2017 forBubblegumshoe.Designers & Dragons: A History of the Roleplaying Game Industry won the gold ENnie for Best RPG Related Product in 2015, and theDresden Files Cooperative Card Game received the silver ENnie in the same category in 2018. Evil Hat won "Best Setting" in both the 2018 and 2019Indie Groundbreaker Awards fromIndie Game Developer Network, forArecibo andThe Way of Pukona.[21]
In 2022, the team of six writers for the role-playing gameThirsty Sword Lesbians won theNebula Award in the "Best Game Writing" category; it was the first tabletop game to win a Nebula Award.[22][23] The game also won the 2022 ENNIE Awards[a] for "Best Game"[24] and for "Product of the Year".[25]
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