Mystery of the Abbey

Quinns: Almost forgot about this! Board game publisher Days of Wonder last month declared that Ticket to Ride, their family train game, had overtaken Settlers of Catan in monthly sales. There’s a new biggest board game in town! I set up a phone interview to see what DoW do differently, then loaded it all into my monthly Kotaku column, slipping fact after fact into that hot gaming skillet.

“Part of our brand,” explains the sonorous French voice on the phone, “is coming from the fact we do very few things. Porsche is the most successful car company in the world from the business standpoint, but they do very few models… we take the same approach in the board game business.”

Founder Eric Hautemont also talked about vinyl records, the role of mobile devices in boardgaming and how his company works the exact opposite way from America’s other big publisher, Fantasy Flight. Really interesting stuff. Go read!