JimSelzer | 19 Apr 2014 7:41 p.m. PST |
I am not sure if this the right spot here but I was wondering if anyone know who owns /retains the rights to older Avalon Hill titles such as Kingmaker or LeMans or any of the other classic board games that served as the gate way to this hobby for many of us? |
RInhoff | 19 Apr 2014 8:01 p.m. PST |
Hasbro purchased the rights in 1998 and some titles went to other publishers; Squad Leader ended up at Multi Man Publishers. You might want to check Consimworld site if it is still active. That is a sort of TMP for the pushing cardboard folks. |
Coelacanth | 19 Apr 2014 8:06 p.m. PST |
Avalon Hill belongs to Wizards of the Coast now, which in turn belongs to Hasbro. Presumably Hasbro therefore owns most of AH's catalogue. Kingmaker was first printed in the UK, so it might belong to its original creator, I'm not really certain. Ron P.S. Somebody really needs to rescue Kingmaker! |
darthfozzywig | 19 Apr 2014 8:49 p.m. PST |
None are in public domain. Games from external designers reverted to their original owners, the rest are retained by Hasbro. It was quite the mess sorting all of it out as the Dotts weren't really clear on what they actually did/did not own at the time of the Hasbro deal. |
Ivan DBA | 19 Apr 2014 9:56 p.m. PST |
And the real shame is Hasbro will never have any interest in re-releasing hex-and-counter games, but is too massive to have any interest or incentive to sell them to a company that would. |
Whirlwind | 19 Apr 2014 10:04 p.m. PST |
On a related theme, is that what happened to Victory Games' titles too? Regards |
CraigH | 19 Apr 2014 10:12 p.m. PST |
FWIW, I was at Origins a few years ago where a vendor was telling me that the AH titles were sold / auctioned off. His wish was as well to 'get Kingmaker' but I'm not sure AH ever owned the rights to that game as wasn't it a licensed reprint from a UK publisher ? (as per Coelacanth's comments) There are definitely some titles that would likely still sell today – Speed Circuit would be interesting competition to Formula D and would be nice to see Circus Maximus back in print. |
Space Monkey | 19 Apr 2014 10:50 p.m. PST |
Kingmaker back in print would definitely sell me a copy
unless they porned it up visually and gave it 'toy value'
ala something from Fantasy Flight. |
darthfozzywig | 19 Apr 2014 11:26 p.m. PST |
On a related theme, is that what happened to Victory Games' titles too?
Yup. The real pity of it might be that Hasbro acquired AH really just for Diplomacy and Civilization; nothing else in the library was of interest to them. They also bought Microprose (holder of another branch of the Civ property) to sew up their control of the title, as there was a legal battle involving Activision at the time. Hasbro Interactive then spent several years and several million dollars on poor PC versions before Hasbro gave up. Avalon Hill is still dead, though, except as a logo, and I don't get to work there anymore. :( |
daubere | 20 Apr 2014 2:57 a.m. PST |
The original publisher of Kingmaker was a British company called PhilMar. I believe the last publisher of the game was TM Games, but it doesn't appear in their current catalogue I've got a Gibsons Games long box copy from the late 70s which was published in Britain after they bought the game from PhilMar. There's an article here by the original author of the game, Andrew McNeil, from 1979 that discusses the AH version and the changes they made.. link |
elsyrsyn | 20 Apr 2014 5:21 a.m. PST |
Your best bet for thd classic AH games is eBay. They can occasionally be found in decent condition for decent prices. I've picked up several there that I had wished I'd bought back in the day. Doug |
Dynaman8789 | 20 Apr 2014 5:47 a.m. PST |
Hasbro has sold/licensed the rights to a bunch of AH titles. It appears there is someone at Hasbro that wanted to see these titles back in print. |
Huscarle | 20 Apr 2014 6:08 a.m. PST |
A great game "Kingmaker", and one that we played to death. I'll have to rescue my copy from the loft if I can persuade anybody to play it again. |
jameshammyhamilton | 20 Apr 2014 3:43 p.m. PST |
Kingmaker was a great game in its day but it is now IMO very dated. There are several far more modern boardgames covering the War of the Roses which are I believe far better games. link link Are both very good games. |
Rogues1 | 21 Apr 2014 7:05 a.m. PST |
"Kingmaker was a great game in its day but it is now IMO very dated. There are several far more modern boardgames covering the War of the Roses which are I believe far better games." Yeah but you can't send Scrope in to stab Percy in the back just when he looked like he was going to be king. Many fun nights of trash talk and death dealing with that great game. |
(Phil Dutre) | 22 Apr 2014 3:13 a.m. PST |
Whenever you think game such-and-so was great back-in-the-day, go to boardgamegeek.com, look at some pictures of the game, and the bout of nostalgia is over after 5 minutes. No need to buy any of these old games and let them sit unused on your gaming shelf for the next 20 years. |
OSchmidt | 22 Apr 2014 6:36 a.m. PST |
Dear Phil I disagree. I buy old games all the time. But it's not for nostalgia or a romantic involvement with the game. I buy the games if they have significant design concepts in them which I was intrigued by. This is still no antiquarian pursuit. I use these games as resources for making rules for my miniature gaming, or in making campaign or special purpose games. I go to the shelf and say "hmmm How did they handle this in "Bulge" or "Kingmaker." Thus I don't have all the AH hex games, but those which had a different approach, scope, or concept. Kingmaker is there, U Boat too, and so are things like cosmic Encounters, as well as Monopoly, Life, and all the way out-- "The Barbie Game." I'll take these out, lay them out and examine how they did things like turns, phasing, inputs of resources into play etc. If I've heavily played the game in the past then all the memories, good or bad, come flooding back and I know where a concept they used which seems neat fell short or didn't work, or where it was basically sound, or in many cases good, but "too fluffed up" that is, ruined with too many special modifiers. The old games are good thus simply as a resource. You also know what has been tried in the past, often two or three times, and what worked and what didn't. I think there's a value in old games from this standpoint, but again, many people like old games even board games. Otto |