The publisher known for creating and developing the board game, Settlers of Catan, is shutting its doors for good. Mayfair Games has sold its remaining games catalogue to Asmodee North America, a massive games distributor that’s responsible for products from publishers such as Fantasy Flight Games, Days of Wonder, and, now, Catan Studios. Yeah, Asmodee handles a lot of products. For example, Fantasy Flight Games is a publisher that releases content for its games regularly. Games such as A Game of Thrones: The Card Game, a number of Star Wars tabletop games–such as Star Wars: Legion and Star Wars: The Card Game–and much more.
Mayfair Games released this statement: “As of today, the management team at Mayfair Games, Inc. announces we will wind down game publishing. 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.”
Mayfair Games released an updated version of Settlers of Catan, titled Catan, back in 2015. This fifth edition release came equipped with more than a new name, though. It included a revised rulebook which was aimed at easing new players into the game and, more noticeably, a huge overhaul of how the game’s various pieces appeared to players. In 2016, Mayfair Games sold the North American license for the franchise to Asmodee North America. As of today, though, Mayfair games has sold its entire product line to Asmodee.
But Asmodee didn’t stop there. As they were acquiring Mayfair Games’ assets, they were also doing the same with Lookout Games, the German publisher behind games such as Caverna, Agricola, and, most recently, Isle of Sky. With these two acquisitions, Asmodee North America is looking a lot like the Disney of tabletop games. Their distribution of the numerous titles from the publishers that they’ve acquired over the years (i.e. Fantasy Flight Games), as well as games that they distribute internationally–like Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh!–is almost all the proof you need to make that deduction.