Fast Forward Entertainment of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin has reached an agreement with Human Head Studios of Madison, Wisconsin that will allow Fast Forward to handle all the sales, marketing, shipping, and invoicing of Human Head's paper game line.  Human Head Studios is a computer game developer best known for its computer action game Rune, which is available in Windows, Mac, Linux, and Playstation 2 versions.  Human Head has added Origins Award winner Matt Forbeck to its staff in order to create a line of roleplaying games, the best of which will be adapted for future computer game offerings (see 'Human Head Hires Forbeck').  A veteran RPG creator with numerous awards to his credit, Forbeck was heavily involved in the development of Pinnacle releases Deadlands and Brave New World, as well as in the creation of the Lord of the Rings RPG, and he will have two new Forgotten Realms sourcebooks coming out from Wizards of the Coast in the next few months.   As interesting as the new games that Forbeck may come up with is the possibility of what he can do with a property like Rune, which has a built-in fan base.

 

Fast Forward, which publishes two magazines, Games Unplugged  (see 'Fast Forward Acquires Games Unplugged') and Campaign (see 'Fast Forward Takes Over Campaign'), has reached similar agreements to take over sales and marketing, fulfillment, and collections for a number of other companies including Sovereign Press (see 'Fast Forward to Distribute Sovereign Press'), Pinnacle (see 'Fast Forward and Pinnacle Form Alliance'), and the remnants of FASA's  RPG line (see 'Fast Forward to Distribute Battletech, Shadowrun, Dark Eye'). 

 

This kind of consolidation of publisher services is the natural outgrowth of the tremendous proliferation of publishers brought on by WotC's open licensing of its d20 RPG system.  In the Darwinian world of d20 publishing joining forces to lower the cost of sales, marketing, and distribution makes a lot of sense.