Hotz worked for First Encounter Magazine (DELF) from 1983 to 1984, for Columbia Games Inc. from 1984 to 2000,[1] and was the in-house illustrator, production editor, and cartographer.
[3]: 14 Hotz eventually also worked freelance for companies/publishers like: TSR, Inc. (Dungeons & Dragons), Wizards of the Coast (Talislanta and Dungeons & Dragons), White Wolf Publishing (Vampire: The Dark Ages and Werewolf: The Apocalypse), Atlas Games, Avalon Hill, and many other RPG/Game publishers.
In 2005, he founded his own company, Hotz ArtWorks, and also began a line of silk-screened felt game mats from his studio in Canada.
[8] In his 2023 book Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground, RPG historian Stu Horvath reviewed Hârn by Columbia Games, and noted, "The art is a significant contributor to the world's sense of cohesion, a secret truth of RPG world building ... Eric Hotz provided just about every illustration for every Hârn product from 1984 to 2000, creating a remarkably consistent visual representation of the world through sepia toned drawings that alternate between gritty realism and a flattened, faux medieval style — a clear forerunner of the single artist approach to campaign settings that TSR would adopt in the '90s.
Most RPGs focus on epic clashes, but Hotz routinely favored domestic scenes and depictions of every-day objects that do so much to breathe life into the world.