Every year as July approaches I get a little glum about the summer of
1998 when West End Games filed for bankruptcy and pulled the rug out
from under numerous employees, creative freelance writers and
artists, and fans of the company’s groundbreaking Star Wars
roleplaying game. “Consider yourselves unemployed,” was how the
company’s owner initially broke the news to the puzzled editors,
graphic designers, and sales personnel unexpectedly summoned to his
office. These annual, bittersweet recollections send me into a spiral
of memories from which I can usually extricate myself by focusing on
the positive aspects of that time. During my five years at West End I
worked on many projects that still make me smile with a proud sense
of satisfaction: certainly The Official Star Wars Adventure
Journal; Platt’s Starport Guide; the
revised and expanded version of the game’s second edition; the
Star Wars Introductory Adventure Game (and similar products
for the Men in Black and Hercules & Xena game
lines); numerous solitaire tutorial adventures (including the
standalone book Imperial Double-Cross); and a revision of the
roleplaying game’s Star Wars Style Guide that helped authors
with all aspects of the submission and writing process (which notably
resurfaced a few years ago on the interwebzes as the guide George
Lucas supposedly ignored when making the prequels, certainly not
its original intention). It was a dream job, despite constant
anxiety, vicious office politics, and what I expect are the general
idiocies that plague any modern American workplace. But the occasion
also gives me an opportunity to reflect on the many good things West
End brought into my life and other people’s lives.
