I’ve been a long time fan of HERO, having been introduced to the game by the Armchair Gamer, who ran a few campaigns using the system for me a long time ago. I picked up the 6th edition, and while I’ve not run anything with it, I was still determined to use it sometime for a supers campaign. As such the recent news article in HERO games is quite troubling for me:
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.
—Jason Walters
General Manager
HERO has been one of the oldest supported systems around, and I feel bad that they’d have to scale down. Steve Long is a machine when it comes to writing, and while some people consider the level of rules crunch in HERO to be enough to kill people with, I still feel that it is one of the most reliable generic systems in the market.
Good luck to the people of HERO games, and I hope that they manage to get back on their feet again soon.
Life and Times of a Philippine Gamer 
There are a lot of hobbyist that think people in the gaming hobby industry are raking in cash, doing math in their head like they know the cash flow. We can’t all be AEG, Gamesworkshop, Wizards etc. In truth, a lot of modellers, artists, and writers in a hobby company work with very lean staff or more often than not, alone. So if someone complains about quality of paper or art, those who make these games may not necessarily have the leverage to go for better suppliers or better equipment, and may need time to address the consumers needs.
So my suggestion to all the gamers and hobbyists, if there is a particular group whose work you’re a fan of, or you know does good work, please support and promote them. Trust me, most in this industry are no Bill Gates.
If you have the name like Wizards of the Coast, AEG,FFG, or Games Workshop it is easy to know that you definitely will get sales.
If you have a loyal fanbase to the long-time traditional game such as Dungeons&Dragons, Shadowrun, Battletech, Magic the Gathering, anything Warhammer, or Legend of the Five Rings it will be granted that whatever you put out will sell like hotcakes laced with crack and heroin.
On the other hand, less popular games like Eclipse Phase, HERO, Cthulhutech (BTW, AFAIK, WildFire is having trouble again), and the like…
That sucks. Wish them the best of luck. I have 5th Ed and 6th Ed books currently, but got into Champions when it was 3rd Ed and love the whole toolkitting concept of Hero System. GM’s who put in the effort to set up their campaigns with the appropriate rules and system will get a lot of enjoyment out of Hero System with its versatility.