Decipher, Inc.
| Private | |
| Industry | Role-playing, CCGs, TCGs, card games and board games publisher |
| Founded | 1983 |
| Founder | Warren Holland |
| Headquarters | Norfolk, VA, US |
|
Key people
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Warren Holland, Cindy Thornburg |
| Products | Star Trek, Lord of the Rings role-playing games, How to Host a Murder board game |
| Website | decipher.com |
Decipher, Inc. is an American gaming company based in Norfolk, Virginia, US. They began with three puzzles called "Decipher" then moved on to party games and Pente sets, but since 1994 produced collectible card and role-playing games. Their longest-running offering is the How to Host a Murder Mystery series. Other popular works have included many different card games. Since 2002, Decipher has released two licensed role-playing games: Star Trek RPG and The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game.
Decipher was originally founded by Warren Holland in 1983 as a games producing company. Their first project was to launch the successful How to Host a Murder line of party games. Shortly after that, they purchased the license for Pente from Parker Brothers, and started to produce that game as well, maintaining a position in the games market.
Ten years later, a new market of gaming was beginning with the introduction of collectible card games (CCGs). Seeing the opportunity in this market, game designers Tom Braunlich and Rollie Tesh (both former Pente world champions) conceptualized a media license-based CCG, and in November 1993 approached Decipher with the idea. The following month, Decipher acquired the license from Paramount to create a CCG based on Star Trek: The Next Generation. In August 1994, the new game was previewed for the first time at Gen Con, and in November 1994 it was officially released.
Following an early success by the Star Trek: TNG CCG, Decipher looked for another popular media license to base another game on. And so the following year in December 1995, after acquiring the rights from Lucasfilm, Decipher released the Star Wars Customizable Card Game. Both games became extremely popular and were ranked among the top five CCGs for the majority of their production runs (Star Wars often placing second behind only Magic: The Gathering). Despite an initial planned three-year run for the Star Trek:TNG game, in November 1996 Decipher announced that based on the game's success they'd negotiated a new agreement with Paramount to continue producing the game for longer, and to expand the license agreement to include not only Star Trek:TNG, but also all of the other live action Star Trek licenses (including Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and all of the Star Trek films).
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