Asmodee Acquires Catan English Language License From Mayfair

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Big news out in the larger world of tabletop gaming, as Mayfair Games announces that Asmodee North America has acquired the English language license for Catan from Mayfair Games. Asmodee North America is the umbrella company that consolidates the productions of previous Asmodee acquisitions Fantasy Flight Games and Days of Wonder.

As of today, Asmodee North America has acquired the license for the English language publishing and sales of Catan from Mayfair Games, Inc.. From this, Catan Studio, Inc. has formed and becomes the newest creative unit in the Asmodee group. Mayfair Games will continue to do business as an independent company publishing both Mayfair and Lookout Games products.

Mayfair Games (MGI) will assist Catan Studio, Inc. and Asmodee North America in the promotion of the Catan brand including but not limited to the continued coordination of the 2016 Catan tournament schedule, Catan Day 2016 and the 2016 Catan World Championship.

MGI carries a strong and skilled team moving into the new year. Its staff includes Larry Roznai, who will continue as President and take on the role of CEO previously held by Pete Fenlon, Alex Yeager will take on an expanded position as VP of Acquisition & Development, taking on responsibilities previously held by S. Coleman Charlton. Daniel Decker, as the new VP of Sales, and Julie Yeager, as Director of Marketing, will manage department responsibilities previously held by Robert T. Carty, Jr.. Loren Roznai will serve as MGI’s Executive VP. Jim Miles becomes MGI’s Director of Event Management.

MGI continues to retain a controlling interest in Lookout GmbH and Mayfair GmbH, providing a wide range of games worldwide, and distribution to the European marketplace. These efforts will be expanded with a new focus on multi-language and international products.

MGI is also pleased to announce the acquisition of several Martin Wallace games as permanent additions to the Mayfair game library. Those titles include Steam, Aeroplanes, Automobile, Test of Fire and Clash of Wills.

In 2014, Asmodee acquired Days of Wonder, publisher of Ticket To Ride, Memoir 44 and Small World, and Fantasy Flight Games, publishers of board games like Arkham Horror, and role-playing games like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and the Star Wars line of role-playing games. This newest acquisition cements Asmodee's position as the leading producer of tabletop games in the world.

 

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This is not good news. Asmodee is in the process of going all Games Workshop on the board game marketplace with extreme limitations to control prices:

http://icv2.com/articles/news/view/33314/asmodee-fantasy-flight-days-wonder-consolidate

If you're talking about the restrictions in online sales, that is almost the opposite of GW. There is a growing push amongst companies to restrict online sales to better favor Brick & Mortar game shops, rather than these weird Amazon retailers who seem to push tons of discount product.

 

[innerdude]

So is this good or bad for us consumers? I don't see where it helps us. It seems like a consolidation like this doesn't bode well for us consumers, am I wrong?

As with most acquisitions like this, it's probably both good and bad.

Consolidation usually (not always) gives greater resources to the original company to create more stuff. So in that way it's probably good. Production values for products usually goes up, budgets are more consistent and stable, etc.

The bad part is that in most cases the parent conglomerate is much more bottom-line sales oriented. As such, more "niche" or out-of-the-ordinary projects are often scuttled in favor of more "proven" moneymakers. If the subsidiary company doesn't have strong leadership, the ensuing product roadmaps can become filled with stale-yet-likely-to-sell product.

The best of both worlds is to combine the greater resources of the conglomerate, while allowing the subsidiary leadership the creative autonomy it needs to remain innovative.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I wonder if this was a way for the owners of Mayfair Games to "cash in" some of the value of their company, because I would think that Catan would account for a large proportion of the value of Mayfair Games.

 

[Vigilance]

Hi guys. I'm Chuck, and I work in marketing for Mayfair Games. I have also been a member of this awesome community since 2002.

I'll try to answer some of the salient points raised so far.

1. If you look at the people involved in this deal from the Mayfair side, I would hesitate to feel anything but awesome about the future of Catan. Pete Fenlon and Coleman Charlton are giants in the history of hobby games, since they created Rolemaster and MERP. They have also been shepherds of the Catan brand since they joined Mayfair (along with other executives at the company).

They know what they're doing, they know how to build giant enduring game brands and they're going to continue to work on that as part of Asmodee.

2. The price of Catan was already controlled with Mayfair. Again, this is because of our commitment to growing the hobby games industry. The viability of brick and mortar stores is absolutely critical to growing and nurturing game brands. No existing hobby game is monopoly or scrabble, or even Magic the Gathering. You need B&M stores to grow them.

As I understand it, GW is both the manufacturer and the retailer. That's not the case here. No one wants to own the whole retail chain. They just want to manage it in such a way that components critical to its survival can continue to thrive.

Hope this answers some questions.

 

[Zaruthustran]

Chiming in to say that I'm delighted to learn that a marketing manager at Mayfair is a longtime ENWorld member. Too often, the folks in charge of game marketing aren't actual gamers/don't play games. I see it all the time in the video game industry, where marketing decision-makers often come from the consumer packaged goods industry and have no interest in games or gamers. Glad that's not the case with Mayfair.