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| Formerly | The Avalon Game Company |
|---|---|
| Company type |
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| Industry | Game |
| Founded | 1952; 73 years ago (1952) inBaltimore, Maryland |
| Founder | Charles S. Roberts |
| Headquarters | , United States |
| Products | Board games |
| Parent |
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| Website | avalonhill.com |
Avalon Hill Games Inc. is a game company that publisheswargames andstrategic board games. It has also publishedminiature wargaming rules,role-playing games and sports simulations. It is a subsidiary ofHasbro, and operates under the company's "Hasbro Gaming" division.
Avalon Hill introduced many of the concepts of modern recreationalwargaming, including the use of ahexagonal grid (a.k.a.hexgrid) overlaid on a flat folding board,zones of control (ZOC), stacking of multiple units at a location, and board games based upon historical events.[2][3]
Avalon Hill was started in 1952 outsideBaltimore in Catonsville,Maryland, byCharles S. Roberts under the name of "The Avalon Game Company" for the publication of his gameTactics. It is considered the first of a new type of war game, consisting of a self-contained printed map, pieces, rules and box designed for the mass-market.[2][4] Other war games published over the prior half-century, from which Roberts drew inspiration, were either not designed for the commercial market and/or used miniatures with self-made maps/terrain.[5] Roberts soldTactics by mail from his home in the Avalon neighborhood of Catonsville; his house overlooked thePatapsco River valley andB&O Railroad for which Roberts, his father and grandfather worked.[4]
Following the success ofTactics, Roberts changed the name upon incorporation from "The Avalon Game Company" to "Avalon Hill" in 1958 because of a naming dispute with another company, and the Avalon house was on a hill.[4][2] The number of games released per year was erratic until 1964 as the company released anywhere from 1 to 7 games.[4]5-8
The first game published by the company under the name of "Avalon Hill" wasGettysburg, published in 1958, it was also the first board wargame to simulate a historical battle. AH published two other games that year, the second edition ofTactics, titledTactics II, and the railroad gameDispatcher.[6]
In 1959, Roberts moved Avalon into an office space on Gay Street in Baltimore and took on its first outside designed game,Verdict, by two corporate lawyers. After another office move, inAugust 1960 Thomas N. Shaw, a high school friend of Roberts, was hired to design games.[2][4]6
In 1960, Avalon published the first mostly dice-less sports game inFootball Strategy designed by Thomas N. Shaw which was followed by two sister games,Baseball Strategy andBasketball Strategy.[7][8] Of this sports strategy line, the football and baseball versions were previously privately published by Shaw in 1959.[4]7 With a recession occurring, debt began to pile up starting in 1961.[2]
Avalon launched a pre-school children's line in 1963 with four games,Imagination,What Time Is It?,Doll House andTrucks, Trains, Boats & Planes, which flopped. Roberts gave up and planned to file bankruptcy onDecember 13, 1963.[4]p7 Instead his creditors, Monarch Office Services and J.E. Smith & Co., interceded and took over. Monarch had printed all but the boxes, which were done by J.E. Smith.[9]: 175 The company was reorganized by retaining only one staff member, Shaw, moving, cutting costs and appointing J.E. Sparling as president.[4]p7,8 In 1964, AH set a two-game per year release schedule.[4]5-8
Avalon Hill publishedBlitzkrieg in 1965. This game was an abstract combat game, featuring two sides (red and blue) and some neutral countries. Many rules variants were created forBlitzkrieg. The company also published simulations of actual battles and campaigns, such asMidway,Afrika Korps, andThe Battle of the Bulge.
Avalon Hill publishedPanzerBlitz in 1970, designed for the company byJim Dunnigan'sSimulations Publications, Inc. (SPI) on a royalty basis from SPI'sTac Force 3 game.[4]p9
Monarch bought out J.E. Smith & Co., Avalon Hill's co-owner, onNovember 30, 1971. Thus the company became a division of a renamed Monarch Office Services, Monarch Avalon.[4]p10 Coinciding with the purchase, an additional warehouse was opened in historic downtown Baltimore at1501 Guilford Ave., complementing the original building at4517 Harford Road.[10]Don Greenwood joined in 1972.[10]
The company acquired several successful games includingAcquire,TwixT, andFeudal from the purchase of3M Games inFebruary 1976.[4]p5,12[11] TheSports Illustrated (SI) line of sports games were purchased inDecember 1976. Both lines increased the retail outlets that would take AH games. The Aladdin Industries game line was another acquisition inMarch 1977. With the SI line, the company started a sports game division inMay 1977 with Bruce Milligan hired to head the division and launchAll Star Replay sport games magazine. While from the 3M line,Facts in Five became its top selling game.[4]p5,12
During the 1970s, Avalon Hill published a number of popular games such asOutdoor Survival,Panzer Blitz,Squad Leader, theStatis Pro sports line, andTobruk: Tank Battles in North Africa 1942.[2]
Avalon Hill also purchased many games from smaller companies and republished them. Heritage Models sold AH itsBattleline Publications inOctober 1979.[4]p5,15 Many of the Battleline products, includingWooden Ships and Iron Men andMachiavelli (a variant ofDiplomacy set in Renaissance Italy), was republished by Avalon Hill, along with the popularDiplomacy. AH also acquiredJedko Games'The Russian Campaign andWar at Sea, andHartland Trefoil'sCivilization. The railroad building game1830 was developed by Avalon Hill, based onFrancis Tresham's European game1829; the AH version was so successful it spawned an entire18XX genre of games.
Gulf Strike was introduced by the company in1983. It was based on theIran–Iraq War, then updated after the cease-fire in 1988.Dr. Ruth's Game of Good Sex was released in 1985.[12][13] A Baltimore distributor said: "I'm going to have to compare this toTrivial Pursuit. The orders overshadow anything we've had in our company's 100-year history."[14] It then dropped off.[15]
Facing an economic downturn in 1990 and a three-year period of losses, Monarch Avalon closed its New York office, sold its toy division, and reduced inventory. AH also published its timely game expansion,Desert Shield, that sold out in weeks after itsOctober 1990 release such that a second print run hit the market inDecember 1990.[16][17] In 1991, Hobbycraft Canada was sharing office space with Monarch Avalon.[15]
The AvalonCon World Boardgaming Championships was first held by AH in 1991, in the Baltimore area.[18]
In 1974, a new game developer attempted to pitch his concept to Avalon Hill.Gary Gygax andDave Arneson had co-developed a new type of co-operative game that usedrole-playing. But when Gygax pitchedDungeons & Dragons to AH, the largest company in wargaming did not understand the concept of role-playing, and turned down his offer.[19] Gygax responded by foundingTSR Inc to self-publish his game. In less than five years, TSR would be the dominant player in the new RPG market.
Avalon Hill entered therole-playing game market a decade later by publishingPowers and Perils in 1983 andLords of Creation in 1984.[20] The licenses toRuneQuest and the board gamesWhite Bear & Red Moon (republished asDragon Pass) andElric, were acquired in a complex agreement in 1983 withChaosium, and Avalon Hill published the 3rd Edition in 1984.[21][22] None of these role-playing games achieved the popularity of the long-established competitor,Dungeons & Dragons.
Avalon Hill became an early publisher ofcomputer games in 1980[23] with its video game division Microcomputer Games, adapting some of itsboardgame titles to various computer platforms (TRS-80,Vic-20,Commodore 64,Apple II, etc.) on several data formats (cassette tape and5¼" disk). Sales of these products were decent, but the only outstanding success wasAchtung Spitfire!, published relatively late in the company history.
In December 1992, AH hired Jim Rose to lead its computer game division,[24] with the goal of reviving this part of the business in the face of flagging board game sales.[25] AH reentered the computer game market in 1994 with a good review of "Flight Commander 2". The company addedPogs to its game line up in 1995.[26] By June 1995, Rose had left the company to foundTalonSoft.[27] In 1995, Monarch Avalon placed Avalon Hill up for sale but it was later withdrawn.[28] Avalon Hill's return to computer games proved unsuccessful: Terry Coleman ofComputer Gaming World reported in late 1998 that "no AH game in the past five years [had] sold even 50,000 units worldwide".[29]
Monarch sold Avalon Hill to Hasbro on August 4, 1998, for $6 million.[30] Coinciding with the purchase, Hasbro laid off AH's entire staff.[31] Hasbro, seeking popular board games that could be converted to computer versions, purchased the rights to the Avalon Hill trademarks, copyrights, inventory, tooling and divisions, Avalon Hill Software and Victory Games,[28] and placed them under its video game subsidiary,Hasbro Interactive. Avalon Hill Games, Inc. was incorporated by Hasbro onMarch 2, 1998.[1][3]
In 2001, Hasbro Interactive was sold toInfogrames;[32] Avalon Hill was not included in the sale and Hasbro later transferred control of the company to its subsidiary,Wizards of the Coast, in 2004.[3]
Hasbro has released new titles under the Avalon Hill name, and added the Avalon Hill imprint to older titles such asAxis and Allies that were not originally made by Avalon Hill.
On September 8, 2020, Hasbro announced that it would move the management of Avalon Hill from Wizards of the Coast to Hasbro Gaming in January 2021.[33][34][35][36]
The rights to many of Avalon Hill's more complex games have been licensed or sold to other game publishers, or have reverted to their original owners and been republished by other companies:
One of Avalon Hill's competitors,Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI), produced wargames that were more complex and realistic simulations than those that Avalon Hill published.[37][38] In 1982, after SPI's assets were acquired byTSR, Avalon Hill hired away some of SPI's design staff and formed them into a subsidiary company, Victory Games. When Victory Games released a line of SPI-style games, it met with critical and commercial acclaim.[37][38][39] In 1989, Victory Games brought on Leonard Quam, a veteran from West End Games, and hired Kevin Boylan as a product developer. Victory Games continued to develop and release new products, including3rd Fleet,5th Fleet,Sixth Fleet, andCarrier. The New York office closed in early 1991 after Quam left the company. Victory's final two games,Flashpoint Golan andAcross Five Aprils, were developed by Boylan alone, who worked remotely in collaboration with Avalon Hill's art department.[40]
In addition from 1983 to 1987, the imprint also published an officially licensedtabletop role-playing game of theJames Bondspy fictionmedia franchise,James Bond 007: Role-Playing In Her Majesty's Secret Service.
Avalon Hill also had its ownhouse organ which promoted sale and play of its games,The General Magazine, which was published regularly between 1964 and 1998. The magazine offered a wide array of features, including articles on both strategies of play and tactics for specific situations, historical analyses, semi-regular features devoted to individual games, columns on sports and computer games by AH, listings of vendors and opponents, answers to questions on game rules, ratings for both games and players, discount coupons for mail orders, and insider information on future AH projects.
This magazine was for Avalon Hill's sports games. A total of 19 issues were published quarterly (later bi-monthly) from 1977 to 1981.
In early 1984, on the occasion of the release of third editionRuneQuest, Avalon Hill included in allRuneQuest boxes a singleadvertising flyer announcing the launch ofHEROES, its own role-playing magazine.HEROES ran for ten issues from 1984 to 1986[41] and had the main purpose to promote all four of Avalon Hill's role-playing games:James Bond 007,Lords of Creation,Powers and Perils, andRuneQuest.
Incorporated in 1958 Avalon Hill's first games were Gettysburg, Tactics II and Dispatcher (chronological appearance on the market for each game is indicated by the code number printed on the box; Gettysburg - 501, Tactics II - 502, etc.)
This year, we'll bring the relaunch of the AVALON HILL brand within the Hasbro Gaming portfolio
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