[OT-ish] ICE is Dead

Hey, everyone.

I heard this a few days ago and just assumed that everyone on this list had
heard. Iron Crown Enterprises, publishers of the _Rolemaster_ and
_Middle
Earth Roleplaying Game_ RPGs, as well as the _Silent Death_
miniatures/board
game, is dead. Toast. Fini. Gone.

They were in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, but recently went into Chapter
7. The company has closed its doors and is in the process of dissolving.

There have been a number of posts on rec.games.frp.misc about ICE's demise.
The reasons are pretty involved but the "straw that broke the camel's back"
seems to be some legal problems against some companies that owed them money. A
case of too much work for too little return made them decide to fold up. ICE
has been around for more than 20 years.

The reason I thought the list might be interested in this is that a lot of
people here use _Silent Death_ ships in their FT fleets. I personally
bought a
number of _SD_ flight stands to mount some of my ships. _Silent Death_
is also somewhat popular among some list members. I haven't heard anything yet
as to
what will happen to the miniatures or the game books for _Silent Death_.
Perhaps the miniatures will still be around, as RAFM produced them under
license, but that's just speculation.

Anyway, thought everyone would like to know...

I've seen the plastic ship minis packaged under another name (which escapes me
at
the moment - something like XXX Century Games - Anyone? ).

> Allan Goodall wrote:

> Hey, everyone.
A
> case of too much work for too little return made them decide to fold

[snipped sad stuff about ICE]

ICE has produced good quality stuff for many years. Unfortunately, a
combination of a mercurial CCG market, and a couple bad calls on
print runs had put them in semi-dire straights some time back. After
that, the slowing of the RPG market in general didn't help matters.

I, for one, will miss their presence in the gaming community.