Winning Moves

Winning Moves
Privately held company
Industry Board games, card games publishing
Founded 1995
Headquarters Danvers, Massachusetts, U.S.
Vincennes, France
Düsseldorf, Germany
London, England

Winning Moves Games is a maker of classic card games and board games, puzzles, action games and adult party games.

History

Winning Moves Games was founded in 1995 by four game industry professionals: Phil E. Orbanes (formerly at Parker Brothers, and the leading expert on the game Monopoly), Mike Meyers (formerly at Milton Bradley), Tom Kremer (who discovered and licensed the Rubik's Cube from Hungarian inventor Ernő Rubik), and European game designer Alex Randolph (who is now passed away.). The company then forged a close relationship with the world's largest game company, Hasbro, Inc., owner of Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley games. As a result, many long-lived Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley games have been and continue to be made exclusively by Winning Moves Games. The company continues to primarily produce family games, including both retro and original designs.

There are currently four separate Winning Moves companies in the world that function as four separate business entities: Winning Moves France, Winning Moves Germany, Winning Moves UK, and Winning Moves USA.

Games produced by Winning Moves USA

Winning Moves USA has published a number games and puzzles throughout its 20 year history. In 2015, they produced:

Family Games

Card games

Children's games

Rubik's Puzzles

Games produced by Winning Moves UK

Corporate custom games: Europe

In 2005 Winning Moves UK started producing custom games on behalf of companies in Europe. Originally their range was limited to Top Trumps; creating customized editions for companies including British Gas, Nokia and Alton Towers. In 2010, under exclusive European license from Hasbro, they increased their range to include custom editions of Monopoly. The companies who have created their own custom Monopoly include Thomas Cook, Virgin Money, Wrigley and Schroders. As of 2012, the company has also introduced custom Cluedo editions, commencing with the BBC's Sherlock and the first in a series of regionalized city editions launched with London.

Immortal Eyes Games

In 2006, Winning Moves USA began importing and creating a new line of games geared towards the hobby/Euro game consumer and named it Immortal Eyes Games.

While Alex Randolph was one of the "fathers of modern boardgame design",[1] and would therefore have certainly been qualified to vet games for this market, he died in 2004, and the remaining members struggled. They released titles such as co-founder Orbanes' own design, Conquest of Pangea,[2] which was widely considered to have more randomness than the adult strategy market tends to prefer,[3] severe mechanical flaws, and a poorly written rulebook.[4] They also released titles such as TransAmerica and Pecking Order, which was deemed by their target audience (hobby/Euro gamers) to be closer to the mainstream family market that Winning Moves serviced than the adult strategy market Immortal Eyes was aiming at.[5] The subsequent poor sales resulted in the discontinuation of the sub-label in 2009.

External links

References

  1. ↑ "Father of modern boardgame design" mention in online obituary (see also: Sid Sackson):
  2. ↑ Link to Conquest of Pangea on BoardGameGeek
  3. ↑ Written reviews of Conquest of Pangea, the majority of which are negative, and all of which mention the inherent randomness:
  4. ↑ Community user comments about the game
  5. ↑ List of Immortal Eyes releases, sorted to show the ones listed under the "family" category: