Mayfair Games
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The Company War (1983)
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| Industry | Board games |
|---|---|
| Fate | Acquired |
| Successor | Ironwind, Inc. |
| Defunct | 1997 |
| Headquarters | Chicago, Illinois, US |
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Key people
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Darwin Bromley |
| Products | Role Aids, DC Heroes, Board games |
Mayfair Games is a publisher of board, card, and roleplaying games. They also license German-style board games and publish them in English throughout the world. They license the worldwide English-language rights to publish The Settlers of Catan series from Catan GmbH.
| Mayfair Games | |
| Private | |
| Industry | Board games |
| Fate | Reorganized, moved 2001 |
| Successor | Mayfair Games, Inc. |
| Founded | 1997 |
| Founder | Iron Crown Enterprises |
| Headquarters | Skokie, Illinois, US |
| Products | Train games, Card games, Dice games |
| Services | Foreign and domestic game distribution |
| Website | mayfairgames.com |
Contents
History
Mayfair Games was originally founded by 1981[1] by Darwin Bromley in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Robert T. Carty, Jr., its current Executive VP, came on board in 1998. Its current president, Larry Roznai, took over in 1999 and oversees operations. Chairman since 1997, Pete Fenlon became CEO in 2007. Coleman Charlton became Director of Products that same year, the latter half of which marked a major reorganization with a refocusing on Catan and other core brands.
In 1982, Mayfair released its War in the Falklands game just as the war ended, leading the English press to accuse Mayfair of "ghoulish" exploitation.[2]
Gary Gygax had advocated arranging a licensing agreement between TSR, Inc. and Mayfair Games for their Role Aids line of game supplements, but was outvoted in the board meeting considering the question.[3]
In 1993, Mayfair was sued by TSR, who argued that Role Aids—advertised as compatible with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons—violated their 1984 trademark agreement. While the court found that some of the line violated their trademark, the line as a whole did not violate the agreement,[4] and Mayfair continued publishing the line until the rights were bought by TSR.
In 1997, Mayfair shut down for financial reasons, and was subsequently bailed out by Iron Crown Enterprises (ICE), who purchased most of the company's assets and restarted operations as Ironwind, Inc. This new company operates publicly under the Mayfair Games trademark, and was owned 30% by ICE and 70% by the principals who had arranged the bailout.[5] During the bailout by ICE, a warehouse was purchased by a dice company, and the MEGS role-playing game ended up in the hands of Janet Bromley.
In 2003, Mayfair started publishing games by daVinci Games, beginning with the card game Bang!.
In 2005 Mayfair also began distributing all of the games published by Phalanx Games.
Mayfair has worldwide English-language publication and distribution rights for the The Settlers of Catan family of games.
In 2011 Mayfair released the card games Struggle for Catan and Rivals for Catan to highlight the brand's 15th anniversary.
In 2012, Mayfair released Star Trek Catan, the first Catan game with a licensed theme—in this case, Star Trek.
| Private | |
| Industry | Board games |
| Founded | 2001 |
| Headquarters | Skokie, Illinois, US |
| Products | Train games, Card games, Dice games |
| Services | Foreign and domestic game distribution |
| Website | mayfairgames.com |
Games
This list includes both games originally published by Mayfair and games licensed by Mayfair from other publishers.
Board games
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- 18XX games: 1830: The Game of Railroads and Robber Barons, 1856, 1870, 1853
- Alchemist
- Amazonas
- Anasazi
- Anno 1503
- The Company War (1983), based on the C. J. Cherryh novel Downbelow Station
- The Castle (1981)
- Cosmic Encounter, More Cosmic Encounter, Simply Cosmic
- Empire Builder, Australian Rails, British Rails, Eurorails, India Rails, Iron Dragon, Lunar Rails, Nippon Rails, North American Rails, Russian Rails, China Rails, Agent of Change, Uncle Happy's Train Game
- Dragonriders of Pern, based on the Anne McCaffrey book of the same name
- Entdecker
- The Forever War, based on the Joe Haldeman book of the same name
- Hammer's Slammers, based on the David Drake book of the same name
- Hue
- Jerusalem
- The Keep (1983)
- The Market of Alturian
- Morgan's Rifles
- Myth Fortunes
- Nautilus, Adventure in the Deep
- Naval Battles
- Oceania
- Quo Vadis?
- The Pillars of the Earth
- Red Star Falling
- Road to the White House
- Shear Panic
- Silverton
- Settlers of Catan games:
- Test of Fire
- Tigris and Euphrates
- Toledo
- Wake Island
- War in the Falklands
- Weinhandler
- Xanth
Card games
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- Abracadabra (2004)[6]
- Alibi
- Bang!
- Elixir
- Encounters (1982)
- Express
- Family Business
- Fantasy Adventures (1995)
- Modern Art
- SimCity
- Station Master
Roleplaying games
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See also
- Going Cardboard, a documentary
References
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- ↑ TSR, Inc. v. Mayfair Games, Inc., 1993 WL 79272 (N.D. Ill.)
- ↑ A Brief History of Game #9: Ice, Part Two: 1993-Present
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
External links
- Official website
- Mayfair Games listing at BoardGameGeek
