Mayfair Games, publisher of the "Settlers of Catan" franchise, announced that it will be shutting down and that its assets were purchased by Asmodee North America.
In a Twitter post on Feb. 9, Mayfair Games said: "Today, we announce, after 36 years, we are closing our doors. @AsmodeeNA, has acquired all assets of Mayfair Games, including the @LookoutSpiele product line. This was not an easy decision, but it was necessary. We want to say THANK YOU for all your support over the years!"
According to Comic Book, there is no need for fans of Mayfair board games to worry because the acquisition will help make their entire product line available for publishing in the future as Asmodee has more resources to fund the newly acquired games. Moreover, Asmodee may also gain new partnership deals that may be of help in publishing specialized versions of Mayfair's board games. Comic Book also guessed that the reason why Mayfair reached out to Asmodee was due to financial issues. The site stated that Mayfair issued layoffs back in November and this may be a hint as to why the acquisition was deemed necessary by Mayfair.
According to Polygon, Asmodee has been very active in acquiring other companies' assets over the years. Alongside Mayfair, Asmodee had also acquired Lookout Games, publisher of "Agricola" and "Caverna." Asmodee had previously acquired Fantasy Flight Games, Days of Wonder and F2Z Entertainment. Asmodee is also the publisher of the popular franchises in the tabletop industry which include "7 Wonders," "Dead of Winter," "Dixit," "Splendor," "Star Wars: The X-Wing Miniatures Game," "Pandemic" and "Ticket to Ride." Asmodee also distributes "Magic: The Gathering," "Pokemon" and "Yu-Gi-Oh!" internationally.
