Paul: Hello and welcome to this week’s Games News!
Quinns: paul why are you welcoming me i am always here-
Paul: I was welcoming them! Our readers! Quick, let’s get going, I’m writing my parts of this in a café that’s playing weird dance music at 1pm. I don’t know why it wants to be a club, but also a place that serves French toast. Anyway MONSTERHEARTS 2.
Quinns: HERE COMES MONSTERHEARTS 2!
Let’s have awkward sex again, like we did last summer
Paul: Quinns I am so sorry I have not been well recently please can you do most of the news please I have had some energy and did some shopping and even went out today to a Halloween gathering but my nose is some weird tap for strange goo that I can’t control and-
Quinns: Paul shh shh. It’s okay.
Paul: All right, everyone, please stand back. Yes, there has been an explosion of games news, but we’re handling the cleanup and you don’t need to panic. Stay inside your homes, keep your windows closed and don’t eat anything off of the floor. As much as you can avoid eating things off the floor, anyway. We know what you’re like.
So! Talking of explosions, let’s begin with Armageddon!
Quinns: Could our top story be anything other than the first details emerging of Pandemic Legacy: Season 2, the sequel to one of the greatest board games ever made?
Paul: No. I mean, I put it right at the top of the docu-
Quinns: Prior to this week all we knew was that “Season 2” would be a new standalone game that would once again turn the excellent co-operative puzzle Pandemic into a surprising campaign. Now we know… that it’s going to be a little more ambitious.
Quinns: It’s the week of Spiel, Germany’s largest board game convention! Break out the bratwurst.
Paul: Keep calm and curryworst… on?
Quinns: I wonder which games will have stollen our hearts by the end.
Paul: Let’s talk card games over kartoffelpuffer. Print runs and fischbrötchen!
Quinns: Are you just looking at the Wikipedia page on German food?
Paul: Yes.
Quinns: Well nevermind that! I want to tell the people about my most-anticipated Spiel releases!
Quinns: Paul, do you remember in the last Games News when I accidentally broke the embargo for Mechs Vs. Minions (the new League of Legends board game) and had to scrub all trace of it from this site in a terrified panic?
Paul: Do you know, I don’t remember that.
Quinns: Neither do I.
Moving swiftly on, the embargo on this gigantic box has now been lifted. If people would like to learn more they can head to the official site or read this lovely Polygon article on how it came about. Mechs vs. Minions will be available to order direct from Riot on the 13th of October and will cost $75 plus shipping, a price that means – purely in terms of components – this box is the best value for money that the board game scene has ever seen.
Quinns: Paul, it’s time for a dance as old as time. Put on this lycra onesie and take my hand.
Paul: But… there’s no music?
Quinns: Ah, but there is! The news dance is performed to the rhythm of the world’s news, to the crashing rhythm of current events and the harmony of headlines.
Paul: I do sometimes wonder if these contrived scenarios in which we read the news do anything for the site. But…
Quinns: But?
Paul: But not today! Olé!
Quinns: Games News is EXPLODING into action today with news so exciting that the entire team is under doctor’s orders to lie down for a week. Why? WHY? There’s only the success of the Dear Leader Kickstarter. That’s all! And they’re still accepting late pledges!
Paul: Yes! Terrific! What good news! This isn’t propaganda at all and we’re very excited to see this game do so extraordinarily well! Oh God-
Quinns: KEEP SMILING.
Paul: You know what they call the city that never sleeps?
Quinns: New Yo-
Paul: That’s right! The city of Games News! Even while we and half of the rest of the industry were away at GenCon, the games news just came coming. It flowed like liquid, a wave rushing across the internet, a great deal of it gushing straight out of a valve left open by Fantasy Flight. The peak of that tsunami was surely Runewars, their tremendous miniatures game announcement.
And make no mistake, this is a big deal. Runewars (not to be confused with the board game of the same name) is Fantasy Flight striding boldly into the fantasy miniatures battleground, building on their experience with smaller scale games like X-Wing and Armada. There will be similar movement templates and command dials, but this time combined with the regiments and magic of, well, of Warhammer.
Quinns: OK. Wow. Who wants to play a game of real-life Monopoly! None of you? Well, you’re out of luck. Put on this top hat and climb into my weird, narrow car.
News emerged last week that Asmodee, the largest conglomerate of designer board games publishers in the world, was acquiring F2Z Entertainment, the second largest publisher. This will make them such a big company that their rivals will realistically be Hasbro and Mattel.
Does this sound like inside baseball? It’s not. You’re about to personally feel the impact on your wallet.
After this merger goes ahead, Asmodee will be in control of the following designer board game companies: Asmodee, Fantasy Flight, Days of Wonder, Z-Man Games, Plaid Hat, Catan Studio, Windrider Games, Space Cowboys, Pretzel Games and Filosofia Éditions. Asmodee and F2Z’s combined publishing rights for tons of other games (including those of Bombyx, Repos Productions, Matagot, Carcassonne and Spot It!) will also be brought together under one roof.
That’s some 75% of the companies SU&SD regularly deals with, the others being Stronghold Games, Portal Games, AEG, Iello and Czech Games Edition. But of course, Asmodee isn’t done acquiring board game publishers yet.
Until this week I’d have said that Asmodee’s corporate game of Hungry Hungry Hippos wasn’t detrimental to the hobby. With this latest merger, though, I think Asmodee are going to be a lot more comfortable dictating the price of designer board games, starting… oh god it’s already happening