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Mayfair Games Shuts Down After 36 Years of Board Games (polygon.com)
damnbunni writes: Longtime board game publisher Mayfair Games (English-language publisher for Settlers of Catan, Agricola, and many more) has shut down after 36 years. All of their games have been sold to Asmodee, who also owns Fantasy Flight Games, Z-Man Games, Rebel, Edge Entertainment, and a host of other board game companies they've picked up over the years. "As of today, the management team at Mayfair Games, Inc. announces we will wind down game publishing," the company said in a statement. "After 36 years, this was not an easy decision or one we took lightly, but it was necessary. Once we had come to this conclusion, we knew we had to find a good home for our games which is when we reached out to Asmodee."
A listing of games (sorted by rank) that BoardGameGeek shows as published by Mayfair Games
Does this mean that Asmodee now own all North American board game publishers? They must be getting close.
Yep. The various members of the gaming industry were just waiting for this.
Asmodee has been on a *Throw Money* kick for the last couple years now.
They "merged" with Fantasy Flight a while back (2014?), but the writing was pretty much on the wall. FF was only kept around until Asmodee had a handle on their properties. Then, *snip!* out goes the middleman.
Settlers is still very popular, isn't it? How'd they fold? Must have been major business mistakes. Expansion without contraction.
Basically the game itself IS free.
What you're paying for are just some cheaply produced pieces to play with.
Or you could make your own.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Saving between $2-$5, less the cost of cardboard and stuff. Or you could make your own.
They aren't really competing with the likes of Asmodee, Hans im Glück, Pegasus, Ravensburger, Kosmos, etc.
Hasbro is the American publisher of the Ravensburger game Memory.
This is the part of private companies that really bothers me. After enjoying protection of copyright and various other social constructs, they have now gotten all they wanted from our society.
After using our exclusivity protections to help drive out other competitors, they have no onus whatsoever to continue actually operating and providing the public the very goods they prevented others from providing using the Public's Goodwill.
I think they should be required to operate proportionally as long as the protections they've received otherwise their property should be devoid of copyright protection and free for public consumption due to a violation of their construct. I would even call it a violation of copyright just in reverse.
Asmodee was bought by the European investment company Eurazeo in January 2014. Since then Asmodee has been buying up all of the most profitable hobby board game properties that were not already owned by Mattel and Hasbro. It seems that they are targeting any game they believe has the possibility of transitioning from the hobbyist/enthusiast market to the broader consumer market (Target, Walmart, Toy-R-Us, etc.).
The hobby board game industry is tiny compared to the video game industry, but it has been growing at a double-digit rate for at least the last 5-10 years. Asmodee wants to acquire the next "Monopoly" game before it makes the jump into the big consumer market.
Asmodee caused a lot of controversy in 2016 or 2017 when they instituted a "minimum advertised price" policy for their games. They said that it was to protect brick-and-mortar stores from predatory pricing by online sellers, but many in the hobby believed it was just a big cash grab by the company.
There's something very wrong if a company can't make money selling Settlers of Cataan. That alone, is a wildly popular game, retailing for $50, with about $5 worth of materials in it. I can only imagine how much they could have made off all of those other games, as well, if they were run properly.
I don't respond to AC's.
Mayfair sold Catan to Asmodee in January 2016.
If you read stories from other sources you might learn that the owner of Mayfair wanted to retire. Since he had already done a deal with Asmodee for Catan it makes sense that he approached them when he wanted to sell the rest of the company.
There's no need to speculate that Mayfair was poorly managed.
Oh, that makes sense.
I don't respond to AC's.
It must have been their marketing strategy. I have never heard of Mayfair Games, and have never played any of their games.
You jerking only at half mast?
BeauHD prefers the tight anus of a little boy.
Summary is wrong.
As TFA says: "In 2015, Mayfair Games refreshed Settlers of Catan with a new, fifth-edition release, simply called Catan. The following year, it sold the North American license for the franchise to Asmodee North America."
And links to this article from from Jan 7, 2016:
https://www.polygon.com/2016/1/7/10729416/the-island-of-catan-is-under-new-ownership
"The island of Catan is under new ownership
One of North America's most popular board games changes hands"
Mayfair Games has not been the English-language publisher of the Settlers of Catan since 2016.
So they sold the licence off to their biggest franchise, and couldn't sustain their business without it.
BTW: I have Sheep, I need Wood:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LboidvGP7XQ
There was a time bored games made sense, video games were either non existent or not quite par. Today that is not the case and in fact are now relics of an time long past. Today FPS have taken over and even the RPGs are finally shedding themselves from the bored game past. Mayfair is just one of many bored game manufacturers that is closing, soon all will discontinue stupid ass bored games.
There is of course the big management hassle of digitising leading boardgames, to increase market share, even shifting them to the mobile market. Not as easy as it sounds, lots of usability and networking issues to solve and creating hard copy board games and digital board games at the same time is more complicated. Realistically they could even sell you a digital file which you with a printer and even a 3d printer with the right materials, make your copy. On the fly gaming network with mobile devices for playing digitised boardgames could be quite the thing with the right games. Board games are much better for casual gaming, against other players or against the device or mixes there of.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
So MANY clever and well done games too!
A sad time indeed.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc