Jim Butcher, author of "The Dresden Files", was an old friend of some of the founders of Evil Hat Productions. When Butcher's agent, Jennifer Jackson, started receiving queries about roleplaying rights to the series, Butcher contacted Evil Hat to create and publish a "Dresden Files" RPG. Evil Hat brought in Genevieve Cogman to do the research on the six "Dresden Files" that had been written by that time in 2004, as well as the ten more that were written by the time Evil Hat decided to put a cap on what the game would cover several years later. They also announced in 2006 that they'd needed to discard the alpha version of "The Dresden Files" Roleplaying Game and go right back to the drawing board, and that "Spirit of the Century" would use the first version of the engine they'd created for "The Dresden Files" RPG.