Bill Slavicsek was one of the honchos at WEG when the Star Wars RPG was created. He has written a book about his experience there and the creation of what I think is a contender for the best roleplaying game of all time.
I thought I'd provide a few notes on the book as I read it. If you are interested in the topic, I do recommend that you buy a copy as it has loads of detail about the creation of this amazing RPG. (I also recommend Timothy Zahn's behind-the-scenes commentary on his writing of the original Heir To The Empire trilogy of books, it is fantastic, too.)
So, my first notes?
-- Negotiations for the license were long and drawn out. WEG honchos kept the talks extremely secret so that even people at the company didn't know about the negotiations. Only those who needed to know were let on the possibility that WEG would get the license.
-- WEG found it important to publish games that were fun, had easy to read material, where the designers took a cinematic approach to roleplaying and the writers kept a deep and abiding respect for the source material.
-- The first release was Star Wars The Roleplaying Game hardback in October, 1987.
-- The second release was: Star Warriors, a boxed board game for starfighter battles in the Star Wars universe, also in October, 1987.
-- The third release was: Star Wars Sourcebook, November, 1987.
-- The fourth release was: Star Wars Campaign Pack, December, 1987.
The fifth release was the first adventure published by itself (not included in the any of the above products), and interestingly, this was designed out-of-house by a freelancer named Daniel Greenberg. I'm talking about Tatooine Manhunt, released January, 1988.