Pinata Games has announced that it will form an alliance with Catalyst Game Labs to produce new games, rather than to run HeroClix as they had previously hoped (see “HeroClix Bidders Join Forces”).  Catalyst will develop and distribute a new series of games with Pinata managing the production and vendor relations for those games.  The new games will be sold as Catalyst Game Lab products.

Pinata partner Jake Theis expanded on the relationship.  “With Pinata providing production, licensing, and vendor management assistance, we hope to expand Catalysts’ portfolio of products into board games, fixed card games, and potentially, collectible games,” he said.    

Catalyst holds the Battletech and Shadowrun licenses.  It made a bid for WizKids’ HeroClix line, but another company got the deal (see “HeroClix Deal Near”).  Pinata says that it is also still hoping to "...work with Topps and the new owners of the WizKids properties on upcoming projects," but that there is no new information to share on that front.