The Macross/Robotech story. Harmony Gold was blah blah blah
This gets especially delicious when you learn that Harmony Gold licensed Robotech to Palladium Games (who I might say would be the legal equivalent of Harmony Gold in the RPG world as far as licensing goes) for an RPG adaptation which crashed and burned amazingly.
Yeah, RPG consumers are discerning to a fault (and can afford to be, due to high market saturation) so something like that was never gonna fly.
You know what gets even more ironic? FASA's Battletech used Macross mecha, which it actually licensed through a licensee of Studio Nue from Japan, who originally made Macross. Later, FASA actually got sued by Harmony Gold because these are also Robotech mecha. Despite, you know, Battletech actually coming out before Robotech even did.
Although, from what I've heard the Palladium Robotech RPG isn't supposed to be that bad. The thing didn't in fact crash and burn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotech_(role-playing_game)
There were 14 separate books released for it steadily from 1986 until 1995, with the original books in print up until 1998 and the license lapsed in 2001, but the lapse wasn't really the fault of the game itself, Harmony Gold was going through a rough patch due to a failed Robotech sequel, and Palladium cancelled a lot of their side stuff to consolidate work on their main RIFTS RPG, so neither side was in a position to negotiate a license extension. Palladium then re-acquired the license in 2008, and has released more stuff since then (another RPG based on the 2007 Robotech Shadow Chronicles movie and a minatures tactics game). Sure, it's not D&D or Pathfinder, but given that it's an RPG based on a TV cartoon that came out in 1985 and hasn't had any proper sequel since then, it's one of the most successful of that type: a lot of shows get an RPG or game adaptation, how many of them still have stuff being released almost 30 years after the show ended?