Classic Board Game Companies
Avalon Hill Games?
I see alot of board game fanatics talking about Avalon Hill games. I know this company has made some classic games like Axis & Allies and my personal favorite- Rail Baron. But what is it about this company that makes it special to the board game industry? Did they originate a certain type of game or specialize in thinking games?
They were a wargames company based out of Baltimore in the 70s and 80s. They made the greatest wargames of that time. These weren’t games that you could buy in a Target or ToysRUs.
The company got into financial trouble over copyright for the game Civilization. AH had a boardgame called Civilization that is one of the greatest games ever made. Microprose had it’s Sid Meier’s Civilization series. Ironic that the costs involved in the struggle killed both companies.
They did have a line of family games. Rail Baron is an excellent example.
Axis and Allies was originally a Milton Bradley company. But now both Milton Bradley and Avalon Hill are both owned by Hasbro (the Microsoft of the toy/gaming world) and Hasbro is issuing Axis and Allies titles under the Avalon Hill franchise.
Anyway, old school gamers will wax nostalgic about Avalon Hill because it was once the pinnacle of the wargame industry. Also ironic is the fact that Magic the Gathering is what killed the boardgame industry in this country in the 90s, and the company that created Magic, Wizards of the Coast, is also now owned by Hasbro.
Now, boardgames are undergoing a renaissance because of the influx of European or German style games like Settlers of Cataan, Puerto Rico, etc.
Mass market games (Monopoly, Clue, etc.) have always stood apart from true gamer’s games, except Risk, which is sort of a crossover. But Hasbro wants to sell wargames at the WalMart level, a concept that up until this time has never really worked well.
There you have it, a brief history of wargaming in the US for the last 30 years. Avalon Hill was once a pioneer in the industry, and now has been reduced to just someone else’s trademark that they issue their bad games under.
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