Asmodee is a French publisher of board games, card games and role-playing games. Founded in 1995 to develop their own games and to publish and distribute for other smaller game developers, they have since acquired numerous other board game publishers, and as of 2018, has become the second-largest publisher of board games, following Hasbro.
History
Asmodée was founded in 1995 by Marc Nunès, with the idea to not only develop their own board games but to reach out to other smaller publishers of board games and offer to publish and distribute for them, primarily in France. One of the company's early successes was Jungle Speed, which they acquired in 1998 and promoted heavily to various toy stores and retail outlets in France, selling over 4 million copies. In 2003, the company obtained the rights to publish the French version of the PokémonTrading Card Game, which further helped in their sales outreach. Around 2007, Nunès decides to direct Asmodée towards more of the European and international market. The company gained a 40% investment from Montefiore Investment, which helped them to seek and acquire additional small publishers. Among acquisitions during this period include Esdevium, the largest hobby games distributor in the UK, in 2010. In 2013, Asmodée was acquired by the French private equity firmEurazeo for. Under ownership of Eurazeo, Asmodée became more active in its acquisitions of other board game publishers and developers. Asmodée is currently distributing games under the imprints Descartes Editeur and Eurogames, acquired when they purchased Descartes. However, they have not used these imprints for any original publications since the purchase. On August 25, 2014 and November 17, 2014 it was announced that Asmodée had agreed on a merger with American board game publishers Days of Wonder and Fantasy Flight Games. On January 7, 2016 it was announced that Asmodée had acquired the English language rights to the Catan™ games from Mayfair Games, creating a new company Catan Studio, Inc.. Asmodee obtained the rights to publish the Spot-It!casual games series in 2015, It was announced on July 22, 2016 that Asmodee also acquired F2Z Entertainment. On January 2, 2017 Asmodée and the german board game publisher Heidelberger Spieleverlag announced their merger. On January 3, 2017 it was announced that Asmodéé Editions has acquired the Spanish editor Edge Entertainment. In January 2018, Asmodée announced they were acquiring Polish games publisher Rebel. In October 2018, Asmodée announced the acquisition of European distributor ACD Blackfire Entertainment. Mayfair, which had previously sold rights to Catan to Asmodée in 2016, announced they were closing down in February 2018 and selling their remaining assets to Asmodée. Eurazeo began searching for a potential buyer for Asmodée in early 2018, and announced by July 2018 that it was selling the company to another French private equity firm, PAI Partners at a price of about. Asmodee launched a new studio, Atomic Mass Games, with its initial game, Marvel Crisis Protocol Miniatures Game Core Set, in fall 2019.
Asmodée holds the French publishing rights to the WizKids and Pokémon lines of games.
Digital games
In addition to its physical publishing rights, Asmodee has begun developing video games based on their board game properties for personal computers and mobile gaming. Many of these games are built atop the software libraries that Days of Wonder had crafted for their digital version of Ticket to Ride. As of January 2017, the company has published digital versions of Mysterium and Potion Explosion in addition to existing titles published by their acquired companies. Philippe Dao, the chief marketing officer for Asmodee Digital, stated they anticipate to have 20 more games out by the end of 2017. In October 2017, Asmodée and Fantasy Flight announced the formation of Fantasy Flight Interactive, a division of the merged companies to bring more of Fantasy Flight's physical board games to digital implementations. However, as part of company-wide layoffs, the Fantasy Flight Interactive division was closed down in January 2020. Following the closure of Fantasy Flight Interactive, by February 2020, Asmode announced that it was opening up its library of board games to be made into digital versions through licensing options to any developer.
