Daydream Software
Their first game was "Safecracker", a point and click adventure game published by DreamCatcher Interactive. The game had a tumultuous production, starting when GT Interactive bought initial publisher Warner Interactive Europe. Daydream Software went public in late 1996. The company's goal was to increase its economic and decision-making freedom, and to secure the ability to select a publisher at the end of each game's development rather than at the beginning. President Jans Phersson-Broburg argued that self-financing Daydream's future games with money from Swedish investors, instead of obtaining "funding linked to specific projects" from publishers, would offer the developer more stability, flexibility and room for growth. For Daydream's public launch, roughly 20 million kr worth of shares, or 45.5% of the company, were offered to investors in Sweden. The initial public offering was a success, and Daydream opened on the Stockholm Stock Exchange's Stockholm Börsinformation (SBI) list in January 1997. Daydream was eventually able to buy back the rights to "Safecracker".
Scott Bizar
Scott Bizar, dissatisfied with TSR's "Dungeons & Dragons" (1974) and "Warriors of Mars" (1974), founded his own company, Fantasy Games Unlimited (FGU). The company's first two products were Hugh McGowan's "Gladiators" (1975), a man-to-man miniatures combat system, and "Royal Armies of the Hyborean Age" (1975), a first-of-its kind wargame set in the world of Conan, was co-designed by Bizar's roommate, Lin Carter. At Gen Con IX in 1976, Edward E. Simbalist and Wilf K. Backhaus met Bizar, who was interested in their role-playing game "Chevalier" they had brought with them but decided not to sell to TSR; Bizar and helped guide the game to print over the next year as "Chivalry & Sorcery", the first RPG from FGU. In the late 1970s, Bizar was looking for a new science-fiction roleplaying game to act as one of FGU's flagships, and contacted Simbalist and Phil McGregor to produce the game, which was published in 1980 as "Space Opera". During the process, Bizar never met Simbalist or McGregor, or A. Mark Ratner, and the project was completed over more than two years entirely by correspondence. In the early 1980s, Bizar started picking up product lines from defunct publishers, which brought "Bushido" and "Aftermath!" to FGU in 1981. FGU purchased the rights to "Swordbearer" (1982), and also bought Heritage's old stock, something that Bizar felt was a necessary part of such a deal; FGU published their own edition in 1985. In 1987, Bizar was considering new locations for FGU that could offer him reduced warehousing costs, and decided on Arizona, the home of friend Rick Loomis and his gaming company, Flying Buffalo. Bizar rented office space and warehouse in Tempe, but since FGU was having difficulties Bizar took jobs as first a car salesman and then a school teacher. Bizar was intent on staying in the hobbyist industry, and founded a game shop in Gilbert, Arizona called Waterloo, using stock from his parents, who were running their own Waterloo game stores in New York; the FGU offices and warehouse were soon moved to this new location. After founding a second store in Phoenix, Arizona, Bizar was hit by massive fraud at the Gilbert store, when an employee took out credit cards in Bizar's name, opened fake bank accounts, and fraudulently offered up Bizar's stores as collateral; Bizar lost money due to the fraud and was also forced to fight lawsuits over the next years originating from it, and eventually had to close down the Phoenix store in 1996. Bizar had been getting some older FGU books back into print, while preparing new books for publication, but the fraud put an end to all that.