Thoughts on Catan, Asmodee, Fantasy Flight & Origins

Hey all.  Sorry for the lack of bloginess lately, raising a kid and all that.  At any rate, I saw a few articles in the past month and had some thoughts I wanted to get down.

While most of you came here for painting/terrain making tutorials, you know I occasionally feature a board game review.  In reality, for a long, long time, board games were a much bigger part of my gaming than anything else.  In fact, while I was dating my future wife, she introduced me to The Settlers of Catan.  Most of you, even if you don't particularly care for board games, have probably heard of it.  It was the game responsible for introducing most people to the concept of "Eurogames", games that are very different than the type we grew up with (Monopoly, Scrabble, etc).  Although it's been a couple of years since I've played a game of Catan or any of it's variants, it still has a special place in my heart.

It's also no secret that boardgames have exploded in popularity in the past several years, especially among millennials. This trend is so prevalent that my city has had several new stores open that deal almost exclusively in board games, and even supports a dedicated board game parlour. The popularity of Catan means you can even buy gaming tables that are made just for playing Catan.  A few years ago, there was a glut of articles talking about how Silicon Valley had been overtaken by Catan-mania.

So imagine my surprise when I read that Asmodee had acquired the rights for Catan from Mayfair Games.

See, board games are handled similarly to books - the publishing rights can be bought or sold (and in fact are all the time).  And the rights are usually separate for each language/country.

But the English-language rights for Catan are arguably the most valuable cash cow in the entire gaming industry.  This is the board game industry equivalent of J.K. Rowling selling the rights to all the Harry Potter books, or George Lucas selling off Star Wars.

The rights were bought by Asmodee, a french company that also recently merged with one of my favorite publishers, Fantasy Flight, and just a couple of months before that, bought another of my favorite publishers, Days of Wonder.

While this undoubtedly makes Asmodee the new 800-pound-gorilla of the board game industry, what does it mean?  Is it a good deal? Will Mayfair survive?

I don't know.

It's impossible to say without knowing what Asmodee paid for the rights to Catan, and even then, I probably don't know enough to speak with any authority on the subject.

A lot of those articles about the "board game craze" are five or six years old at this point.  One point of view is that Mayfair made a fortune, and was smart to get out before the bubble popped.  The other side could say that Catan is a cash cow that hasn't even begun to be milked, and Asmodee made a smart buy.  Like I said, without in-depth info about the financials, it's all speculation.

One of my main concerns is a bit more personal - Mayfair Games was the premiere sponsor of my favorite annual convention, Origins Game Fair.  Will Mayfair still take this role at Origins?  And will the fans respond to them if they don't have Catan in their portfolio anymore?  This article says:

Catan Studios, Inc. is the name being given to the team that is part of Asmodee. Mayfair isn’t just cutting all ties, though, as they will still help with the coordination of all official events listed for Catan this year, as well as CatanDay, and the Catan World Championship.

This change is part of a management change happening at Mayfair. Such changes include Larry Roznai becoming both President (which he already was) and CEO (formerly held by Pete Fenlon). Alex Yeager will now be the VP of Acquisition & Development, which had been done by S. Coleman Charlton. Various other VP and Director positions have new people in charge of them as well.

A lot of Mayfair's involvement with Origins will probably hinge on Larry Roznai - he's kind of a fixture at Origins.  I have to admit I've talked with him, attended seminars led by him, and always found him to be a pleasant guy.  But, apparently he's been at odds with Origins: a couple of years ago a well-liked member of the GAMA (the company that puts on Origins every year) staff was let go, and he shared a lot of info on Facebook:

(Names and pics obscured to protect the innocent, blah blah blah).  

I'd hate to see Origins move from Columbus, as it's local to me - it's my annual vacation, and I do the bulk of my gaming purchases every year there and at Adepticon.  It's an interesting idea presented by the former employee that Mayfair pulling out of Origins would be a non-issue - I'm not so sure that's true, simply because I don't know who would pick up the slack.  Fantasy Flight hasn't attended Origins in several years.  Rio Grande had a good showing 4 or 5 years ago, but seems to have scaled back their presence in favor of GenCon.  Queen Games has stepped up quite a bit in the past couple of years, but I don't think they have the titles or fan following to be the "major" sponsor.  Looney Labs used to be a major sponsor several years ago but stopped attending due to scheduling issues (and other unspoken but implied reasons). 

Another interesting piece of the puzzle was a recent Asmodee's announcement:

The marketplace has long been distorted by providing one-size-fits-all sales terms to every retail account, regardless of its channel of sale. The growth in demand for games over the last decade, in our view, has been fueled not only by fantastic product, but by the support of specialty retailers who incubate personal connections between players, facilitate tournaments and leagues, provide instant product availability, and increasingly provide a “third place” that is instrumental for so many gamers to enjoy and discover our products. The retailer cost of providing such channel services is significant, and so we’re now making policy changes to ensure that the sales terms provided to those retailers, relative to other channels, are positively reflective of the value they add to our distribution chain. - See more at: http://www.purplepawn.com/2015/12/asmodee-consolidating-operations-in-north-america/#sthash.6SA54g71.dpuf

What does the above marketing-speak mean?  Short short answer: no more cheap online sales of games.  While I'm more willing than a lot of people to spend a little bit more to support my local retailer or vendor at a convention, it's nice to have the option to get stuff online.  What this means as far as going up against Amazon will be an interesting scenario as well.

Origins Game Fair, Part II

The next morning, we made our way to the board room and started with an old favorite, Dominion:

It had been a while since I'd played, but it didn't take long to get back into the swing of things.  I'd forgotten how groundbreaking Dominion was when it came out, and how many games have copied it's mechanics since then.

After that, we went back to one of favorites from previous years, Wasabi!:

my only complaint about this game is that's it's been out of print for a while - I want a copy for my library!

Enough already:  Shopping time!

I picked up Risk: Godstorm because it's been on my shopping list forever, and I still loves me some Risk.  Plus lots of miniatures!

I also picked up Patchwork from the Mayfair Games booth - it was recommended to me by the guys at my FLGS, but they didn't have any in stock at the time.  It's two players (great for the wife & I) and I'm betting she'll like the theme. 

I neglected to take a picture, but I also picked up Qwirkle - another recommendation from the guys at the FLGS.

I also grabbed the most recent Pandemic expansion, The Cure.  Granted, I haven't played the last two Pandemic expansions I bought, but... hey, who asked you, anyway?

...and no convention shopping trip would be complete without buying some fresh dice - both for me:

...and for the boy:

He already rolls better than his old man:

Origins Game Fair Pt. I

A couple weeks ago the wife and I attended one of our favorite events of the year, Origins Game Fair!  This was our first year attending since the kiddo was born, which was a new experience to say the least.  While all our plans were tentative at best, we still managed to have a lot of fun.

We started out by picking up our badges - Origins moved to new system this year, where you printed out your confirmation email and scanned it at a kiosk, which then printed your badge & event tickets.  There was much raging on the Intarwebz about this new system, but for us (and pretty much everyone else I talked to in person) it worked fine.  The only glitch was that the locations of the events didn't print on your tickets, but taking five minutes to leaf through the event catalog and jotting the locations down on my tickets solved that problem.

We made our way to the Board Room, which is our group's usual base of operations during Origins - for a flat $20 fee, you can enter the Board Room anytime and check out any of the Columbus Area Boardgaming Society's 800+ games.  Since playing in an ticketed board game usually costs $2 - $4, it's really a great value.  The other motivation is that there's enough tables that our group usually just sets up camp there on Thursday, and comes and goes as needed - there's always a couple people hanging around to watch everyone's stuff, get a quick game in, or just sit and relax for a bit.

While waiting to check out a game, a couple members of our group struck up a conversation with another attendee who offered to teach them a game - it turned out to be IceTowers, a game that uses Icehouse pieces from Looney Labs:

(Icehouse pieces are abstract game pieces that can be used to play dozens of different games - there's even an entire book to give you ideas).  This game was a lot of fun, and I chatted with our new friend about Looney Labs in general - the wife & I used to spend a great deal of our time at Origins in Looney Labs "Big Experiment" (a room dedicated to nothing but Looney Labs' games), but apparently the company had some sort of falling out with Origins several years ago, and no longer maintains an official presence at the con.  Bummer.

After playing for a while, I decided to wander around and see what the convention center setup was like this year.  One of my first stops was the official convention merchandise booth - every year, I'm tempted to buy a hoodie and a messenger bag or backpack, but I never talk myself into, or if I do, they're sold out by the time I go to get it.  This year I resolved to budget for them ahead of time, and to pick them up ASAP.  I found the booth and asked - no bags this year, and no sweatshirts in my size.  Sad panda.

I wandered through the vendor hall and came across the Offworld Designs booth, who had done the official show merch in the past (although I believe Origins now does everything in house).  I talked with the employees there and after rummaging around for a bit they found one of the bags I wanted!  Hooray!

After heading back to the Board Room, I ran into some friends - one of them had purchased Boss Monster earlier that day, so we gave it a playthrough:

This was a fun game with a unique take: instead of being a hero and trying to get loot, you're an end boss of a video game level, and you're building a level to attract certain heroes to their doom.  The art is all very inspired by 8-bit Nintendo games (the box even looks like a cartridge, and the expansions are packaged in boxes that look like Game Boy cartridges).  Overall a fun, light game, even though I died in the second round.

I headed back over to our group's base camp and found them playing Pandemic: Contagion:

This is a version of the popular Pandemic family of games that uses a dice-based mechanic.  I watched them play for a while, and it looked like fun - it seemed similar in feel to the other Pandemic games.

Day II

The next day, I had a RPG bright & early - Baker Street by Fearlight Games:

Baker Street, as you might have guessed, it role-playing set in the world of Sherlock Holmes.  Our GM was Bryce Whitacre, who is actually the author of the game (and also GM'ed our amazing Masters of the Universe game last year).  This was a nice change of pace from your standard fantasy or sci-fi RPG - all the material is officially licensed from the Conan Doyle estate, and Bryce obviously has a lot of love for the material (as evidenced by the fact that he GM'ed the game while wearing a houndstooth overcoat, deerstalker cap, and carrying a pipe).  The book looked great and our group was a lot of fun.  I wasn't crazy about the mechanics, but it was a nice change of pace.  

I headed back to the Board Room and was looking to grab a quick game before my next event - someone in our group grabbed Diner by Dice Hate Me Games from the library:

While reading the instructions for the game, it mentioned that the game doesn't have turns.  No turns? to say I was skeptical was an understatement.  Turns out, this was a surprise hit.  It's one of those "hard-to-explain, easy-to-play" -type games, and our group had a lot of fun with it.  It would be easy to grasp for slightly older kids, but still fun for adults, and only takes ten or fifteen minutes to play - for ten bucks, I'd highly recommend it.

My next event was Building With Hirst Art Blocks - I had taken a similar class before at GenCon,  but I think it was $20 - this one was only $2, so I decided to give it a shot.  I figured it'd be a lecture about Hirst Arts blocks, then maybe you'd get to build a tiny accent piece of terrain or a deployment marker or something.  Turns out, it was building full size kits - there was some kind of mix up with Origins, and the only option they gave the instructor was to offer the class for the price printed in the catalog, or to cancel all the classes.  He decided to offer the class, but mentioned that donations of generic tokens would be gladly accepted.

We were offered our choice of several pre-sorted kits - I went with a cavern with pillars:

(Here's the instructor's completed set as an example):

This class was really great, and the instructor offered a lot of tips while we worked.  Needless to say, after class I ran downstairs and bought a handful of generic tokens to throw in his tip jar.

Next: Part 2!

Beyond The Board

It's no secret that boardgames have experienced a bit of a Renaissance in the past few years - my city now has a dedicated board game parlor, as well as a boardgaming club that is attended by hundred of players every other weekend.  This has resulted in a few new shops opening around town, too - for my birthday a couple of awesome friends gave me a gift certificate to one of the newer shops, Beyond The Board, so I decided to check it out:

Yay! Money that must be spent on games!

 The shop is tucked into the corner of a shopping center off of W. Bridge St. in Dublin, OH:

Unfortunately, there was no good way to get a decent picture of the store - either it was blocked by the trees, or I was under the overhang

Walking in, the shop seems nice, if a bit... unfilled, I guess?

It just feels like a much bigger space than necessary.  (Although I've never been there during a CCG tournament or event - the extra space might be nice to have on those nights).

I was mildly surprised to see that they had a corner of the store dedicated to Games Workshop & Privateer Press minis & products, but make no mistake - their main focus was definitely board games.

They also have a nice selection of games in their "library" for customers to try out:

At this point, I decided to pick out a game - while there is lots of stuff on my wishlist, in particular I was looking for something that 1.) would play well with just my wife & I, as well as with friends, 2.) was fairly "light", 3.) didn't have a theme that would instantly turn my wife off (just about all sci-fi themes & many fantasy ones are right out), and 4.) wasn't too expensive (say goodbye, Fantasy Flight coffin-box games).

This is were Beyond The Board stood out - I told the lone employee working that day, Chris, what I was looking for, and he proceeded to walk the aisles with me, point out any possibilities, and give me a brief overview of the play style & mechanics of each game.  After me telling him my personal pros & cons of some of his picks, we were able to narrow it down to four or five solid possibilities.  In the end I narrowed it down to King of Tokyo, Qwirkle, and Planes - I decided to go with Planes (although I'll probably go back and pick up Qwirkle sometime):

I also picked up a copy of Star Wars: Empire vs. Rebellion for a friends' birthday (this was a 2-player card game that Chris highly recommended - I kinda wanted a copy for myself, but the theme is a hard sell for the missus):

After making my selections, I went to pay, and found out they have a pretty cool rewards program:

I could potentially fill a scary number of these cards in record time

After paying, I chatted with Chris a bit longer before taking off.  Overall I was really impressed with the sotre and the staff - if you are in the area, check them out!

New Board Games

...it almost seems like a cosmic law that when a good deal comes around, I won't have any money.  Or, I'll have money saved for a very specific purpose, and an amazing deal will pop up elsewhere (this was the first year in recent memory, for example, where a too-good-to-say-no Craigslist deal on a new army didn't pop up a week before Adepticon).

So, I was a bit shocked when I found myself with a little bit of extra money in my bank account when this email showed up in my inbox:

(A friend recently informed me that Amazon does this sale every year to coincide with International TableTop Day).  It had been quite a while since I had added any board games to my collection, and they actually had a pretty good selection - I wound up grabbing Tsuro, Love Letter, and Forbidden Island:

...all of these have been on my wish list for a while - I was reeeeally tempted to pick up a copy of 7 Wonders, because it was crazy cheap, but I wanted to focus on games that are known to play well with two players, since it's just my wife & grabbing a quick game a lot of the time.  I was also flip-flopping on King of New York just because I've heard good things about it, but they sold out while I was trying to make up my mind, saving me from making a decision.

Once I get a few plays in with these, look for a review!

Origins 2014 Recap, Part II

Saturday

Saturday morning I hit the convention bright & early for an RPG - a Cartoon Action Hour game featuring the characters from He-Man & The Masters of the Universe.  It became fairly obvious what table my game was at when I walked into the ballroom and saw this guy:

...and of course, since it was Saturday morning and we were playing a game based on cartoons, the GM gave out sugary cereal:

...and the game was periodically interrupted by 1980's toy commercials:

Overall, this was one of my favorite events of the con.  The GM, Bryce Whitacre of Fearlight Games, did an amazing job of giving the game just the right mix of engaging action and absurd silliness, and the Cartoon Action Hour system was a lot of fun - I would have bought the book at the convention, but apparently it's in the process of being printed right now.

I had an hour or so to kill before my next event, so I wandered over to the minatures hall to see the sights:

Hey there, handsome

Some nice looking armies in the 40KOrigins area 

...my next event was a demo of Infinity - I had seen the game on blogs and at my FLGS, and had been impressed with the models, but never actually had a chance to play it.  The setup was two small teams on a 4'x4' board:

I liked the game well enough - unfortunately the team that was teaching the game was a man short, and our GM was trying to run two tables at once, and my opponent was on the phone dealing with some minor crisis involving workers at his house several states away, so... yeah.  Not the best intro to the game.  I also (out of complete blind luck) managed to stomp my opponent pretty badly, which isn't actually a lot of fun when you're trying to learn the nuances of a new game system.  I chatted with the GM for a bit afterwards to get a little bit of a better feel for the game, and it might be nice to have a small skirmish-type game around for a quick play.  And I do love me some terrain.  (I find it funny that "line-of-sight" has inspired more rage through the various versions of 40K than probably anything else over the years, and this game seems to revel in it).

After the Infinity demo, I headed back to the Board Room to meet up with my group.  I got there right as they were setting up Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries from Days of Wonder:

Ticket to Ride is one of my all-time favorites, and I had never played the Nordic Countries version.  The game incorporated two new mechanics - "ferries" and "tunnels".  I won't go into it here, but the short version is that I really liked the "ferries" mechanic, but hated the "tunnels".  There is also no hand limit in this version of TtR, which I liked a lot - overall this is one I'll definitely consider purchasing in the future.

After the game we decided to make a lap of the vendor hall before it closed - I stopped by the Mayfair Games booth and picked up the alternate maps & mini-expansions that I didn't own yet for Settlers of Catan:

I also browsed their clearance rack and found a copy of Horus for $7.00 that looked interesting:

After that, we headed over to the Paint 'N Take by Reaper Miniatures - this is something we do every year.  Everyone who buys a badge at the con gets a free miniature, plus use of paints & brushes - thanks Reaper!  I almost always choose a fantasy-themed model, but I'm still sick of them after building my Dwarfs army, so I picked a big stompy robot:

Not bad for 30 minutes, 4 colors, and a crappy brush

We finished right as they were shutting the hall down for the day, so we headed off in search of dinner...

Sunday

Sunday I was back in bright and early for a game of X-Wing Miniatures:

I've been both excited and apprehensive to try this game - excited because I'm a Gen-X male and it's frickin' Star Wars, people! And apprehensive because it looks like it could be waaaay too easy to drop a ton of money on.  Funderhammer & I have discussed this problem in the past:

...and I did have a blast:

...and I did have to talk myself out of buying the starter box in the vendor hall - the only thing that stopped me was that I checked Amazon and it was a lot cheaper there.  I think it is feasible to keep it to a modest investment, as long as you stayed with a few small ships per side, and didn't buy the Rebel Transport or any of the ridiculous-sized ships.  I've added a basic setup to my Amazon wish list, I'm hoping maybe Santa will come through this year...

After the game I made a final lap of the vendor hall (I didn't see anything I couldn't live without), grabbed some lunch, and headed home - another Origins in the bag!  See you next year!