By the early 2000s it was becoming increasingly clear that German- style games were not merely a passing fad but had captured a sustainable portion of the global hobby gaming market. Although the genre had originated in
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Germany, designers from other European countries had long been active in the design community.38As still more designers continued to adopt the general style, what were once “German games” were now commonly referred to as
“eurogames.”
As Rio Grande continued to leverage established business relationships to adopt a model of simultaneous publication (Alden and Solko, 2005), new companies began to spring up to cater to the growing demand for the genre.
In 2002 U.S./French based Days of Wonder began publishing original European- style games simultaneously in English, French, German and Korean.39 In 2004 the company was awarded the Spiel des Jahres for Alan Moon’s Ticket to Ride (2004a), a rail- themed set collection and connection game that has subsequently seen enormous international success, spawning a number of sequels40and expansions.41In 2003 Utah- based Überplay Enter-tainment began publishing direct translations of popular European titles including Ra (Knizia, 1999a), Alhambra (Henn, 2003), China42 and Hoity Toity, a re- issue of Teuber’s Adel Verpflichtet.43 Z- Man games, a U.S. company originally created to resurrect an out- of- print collectible card game, began publishing translations of successful German games in 2004,44later incorpo-rating titles by U.S. designers that were heavily influenced by the European style.45Designers working in the USA increasingly opted to incorporate ele-ments of both design approaches in the production of hybrid games that blended the Anglo- American taste for highly thematic gameplay with the per-ceived elegance of European mechanics.46 Hobby games generally began to reflect the European design style as the influence of the genre spread through the gaming industry. Even mainstream U.S. manufacturers were not immune to this influence; in 2006 Mattel released two European- style designs,47while Hasbro revised the classic Risk, shortening the playing time and removing the emphasis on player elimination.48
As eurogames increased in popularity among gaming hobbyists, designs became increasingly more complex, straying from the family- oriented fare that had typified early German games. Exemplar of this is Andreas Seyfarth’s game of colonization and development in the new world, Puerto Rico (2002). Although too complex to be awarded the 2002 Spiel des Jahres, which for the first time went to a dexterity game, Villa Paletti (Payne, 2001), Puerto Rico easily claimed the Deutscher Spiele Preis and, surprisingly, proved more popular with the inter -national gaming community than that in Germany (Alden and Solko, 2009b).
The Spiel des Jahres continues to award those games that are at the lighter end of the complexity scale, with winners such as the family- friendly Niagara (Liesching, 2005); Karen and Andreas Seyfarth’s Thurn und Taxis (2006), a set collection and connection game themed on the early German Post Office; and Michael Schacht’s Zooloretto (2007), a board game expanding on the mechan-4. From German Games to Eurogames 77
ics of his earlier card game, Coloretto (2003a). Although the jury has always favored less complex games, more involved games were recognized through a separate award for best complex game (Sonderpreis Komplexes Spiel ), awarded in 2006 and 2008 to William Attia’s Caylus (2005) and Uwe Rosenberg’s Agricola (2007), respectively. The need for a permanent award that acknowl-edges the increasing complexity of emerging eurogames was met in 2011 with the establishment of the Kennerspiel des Jahres.
In 2009 the influence of European designs came full circle, with the Spiel des Jahres awarded to the American- designed and published Dominion (Vaccarino, 2008), a game that draws heavily on the deck- building mechanics of collectible card games while also incorporating the broader aesthetics of eurogame design.49At the same time, popular eurogames such as Die Siedler von Catan and Carcassonne began to make substantial in- roads into the main-stream U.S. board gaming market (Muller, 2009). The most popular of eurogames, The Settlers of Catan, received coverage in The Washington Post (Eskin, 2010), The Wall Street Journal (Tam, 2009), The Atlantic (Keys, 2011) and Wired Magazine (Curry, 2009). In June 2011, versions of the game occu-pied two out of the top ten spots on Amazon’s list of top selling board games — a list that was notably devoid of staples such as Monopoly or Risk (Keys, 2011).
Throughout the late 2000s, a number of eurogame titles were successfully ported to video game consoles. More recently, the rise of touch- enabled mobile devices, and the concurrent industry shift towards socially- oriented games, has proven an ideal match for a wide variety of European- style games. In the space of fifteen years, games that had initially only been of interest to a small number of hobbyists now seem set to enter the mainstream.
As dedicated gaming hobbyists became aware of the design style emerging in Germany, it was largely through word of mouth, community uptake and small start- up companies that these games spread to the broader gaming com-munity. The fact that awareness of these games was spread in such a way sug-gests a revolution inspired by the games themselves rather than by the companies who produced them. Emerging from a cultural context and market that was geared to produce innovative games for the family demographic, the aesthetic that originated in Germany has spread to become a significant force in the niche hobby of board gaming. Not only is this manifest in the genre now commonly referred to as eurogames, but more generally in the broader field of tabletop game design. While many hobbyists continue to look to Europe for the latest releases, the extent of the genre’s influence is seen in the way it has transformed hobby board and table gaming globally.
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