In 1987, Montreal-based Ianus Publications was licensed by Harmony Gold to publish Protoculture Addicts,[1]: 271 a quarterly magazine dedicated to the Robotech TV series.
[5] The Ianus design team working on this project became known in-house as Dream Pod 9,[1]: 271 and within three years had produced 15 various rulebooks and adventure modules.
In 1993 the Dream Pod 9 design team then created Jovian Chronicles, a new setting for RTG's Mekton II roleplaying game.
[5] In 1993, the same design team was hired by Palladium Books to work on supplementary deck plans of the Macross II roleplaying game.
[5] In 1995, the Dream Pod 9 team released the first edition of Heavy Gear,[6] their first roleplaying and combat game that used the design team's roleplaying game system called "Silhouette",[5] and started using a "Dream Pod 9" logo to identify their work.
"[2] Rick Swan wrote, in Dragon #244 (1998), "I do, however, like the system, one of the smartest set of universal rules this side of the GURPS* game.
[10] At the height of Dream Pod 9's popularity in the late 1990s, despite having a staff of only nine writers, Heavy Gear was reportedly the fourth-most popular roleplaying game in the U.S.[11] In 1997, Dream Pod 9 released the second edition rules for Heavy Gear, again using the Silhouette game system.
[6] In 1998, Dream Pod 9 released their next major property, Jovian Chronicles, a rewrite of the setting they had created for the Mekton II RPG in 1993, now adapted to their own Silhouette game system.
[1]: 273 In 1999, Dream Pod 9 licensed Heavy Gear to Sony Pictures, which resulted in a 40-episode 3D-animated series that had world-wide syndication.
[7] Regardless of which system players wanted to use, they still had to purchase two books in order to play the third edition of Heavy Gear.
[1]: 273 The company then created Dream Pod Entertainment to bring the company into movies and television, including work on the 2004 film Eternal with Caroline Néron and the 2007 film 300,[14] and used this movie industry money to help fund production of Heavy Gear Blitz!, a mecha miniatures game,[1]: 273 which was nominated for a 2007 Origins Award in the category of "Miniatures Game or Expansion of the Year".
[19] In 2013, Dream Pod 9 was nominated for an Origins Award in the category of "Best Miniatures Rules" for Heavy Gear Blitz!
[26] In the February 1998 edition of Dragon (Issue 244), Rick Swan reviewed two of Dream Pod 9's game settings, Heavy Gear and Jovian Chronicles.
Swan praised the high production values of both settings, saying, "Both are beautiful games, into which a lot of effort has been invested".