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Mayfair Games Shuts Down After 36 Years of Board Games (polygon.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the end-of-an-era dept.

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."

5 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. Quite a portfolio by tgibson · · Score: 4, Informative

    A listing of games (sorted by rank) that BoardGameGeek shows as published by Mayfair Games

  2. Re:Asmodee by damnbunni · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well, they don't own Hasbro, which is the biggest board game company in the world.

  3. Re: Asmodee by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Monopoly, Guess Who, Operation, Game of Life, Risk, Clue, Trivial Pursuit...yes, they are a totally niche board game producer.

  4. Re:Very poorly managed (or not) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  5. Re:Marketing by CronoCloud · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm taking your nerd card.

    Didn't you ever play D&D and other tabletop RPG's? Didn't you read the various tabletop RPG magazines? Mayfair ads were common in them.

    They did the DC Roleplaying game for goodness sake! They were even one of the many publishers of Cosmic Encounter. Their version supports 10 players.