The Ideas Factory

La Factoría de Ideas was a Spanish publishing house based in Madrid. It specialized in publishing role-playing games until 2006, the year in which it ceased production in that field. It was one of the most important, in the Spanish language, of fantasy, horror and science fiction novels. The company was officially dissolved in December 2015 after entering bankruptcy.

History

Founded in 1993 by Juan Carlos Poujade and Miguel Ángel Álvarez Blanco in the city of Madrid, La Factoría de Ideas became the most important publisher specialized in role-playing games in Spain. Until the first years of the 21st century it was known, above all, for its extensive catalog of translations of the role-playing games that The American publisher White Wolf has created for the fictional universe known as World of Darkness. In his last years he barely published two or three role-playing games a year compared to the 150 he published in his best years, in the late 1990s.

In the field of periodical publications, La Factoría de Ideas brought four specialized magazines with somewhat irregular periodicity to specialized stores and kiosks throughout Spain: Solaris, dedicated to literature; Nemo, with comics as the central theme; Dosdediez, focused on role-playing games; and Urza, started in November 1994 and dedicated to collectible cards, especially those from the game Magic: The Gathering. Since 2006 he had no longer published any of them, having focused on publishing books. After almost a decade with a policy of editorial expansion focused on fantasy and science fiction with series such as Malazan: The Book of the Fallen, Harry Dresden and Honor Harringtonor the books by Peter F. Hamilton and Alastair Reynolds, the company ceased its activity in December 2015 after a year with increasingly less communication in the media or social networks, the end of the collaboration with the publishing house Debolsillo and rumors about financial problems.

Activity

Although it was not one of the largest Spanish publishers, it was one of the most important in that country, along with Minotauro, in the publication of science fiction, horror and fantasy literature in Spanish. It was known for the publication of bestsellers, crime novels, young adult novels, romantic novels, thrillers, etc., covering a wide spectrum of topics, having become a medium-sized publisher., with a turnover of more than four million euros.