In the eighties, Klaus Teuber was working as a dental technician outdoors the industrial city of Darmstadt, Germany. He was sad. “I had many problems with the company and the profession,” he informed me. He began designing elaborate board games in his basement workshop. “I developed games to escape,” he stated. Teuber, now sixty-one, is the creator of The Settlers of Catan, a board recreation through which gamers compete to establish the most successful colony on a fictional island known as Catan, and the managing director of Catan GmbH, a multi-million-dollar business he runs together with his household. First revealed in Germany in 1995 as Die Siedler von Catan, the game has sold more than eighteen million copies worldwide. It was released within the United States in 1996; last 12 months, its English-language publisher, Mayfair Games, reported promoting more than seven hundred and fifty thousand Catan-related merchandise. Big-box chains like Target, Walmart, and Barnes & Noble carry the game and its offshoots, akin to Catan playing cards, Catan Junior, and Star Trek Catan.

Including all the spinoffs, expansions, and special editions, there are about eighty official forms of Catan-more in the event you include digital versions-and Teuber has had a hand in creating all of them. Paraphernalia in the web Catan shop contains socks and custom-designed tables. Rebecca Gablé, a German historical-fiction author, has written a Viking-period Settlers of Catan novel. Pete Fenlon, the C.E.O. Teuber is still somewhat baffled by the recognition of his creation. “I by no means expected it would be so profitable,” he mentioned. Almost all board-game designers, even probably the most profitable ones, work full time in other professions; Teuber is one in all a tiny handful who make a dwelling from games. “Going Cardboard,” a 2012 documentary in regards to the board-game business, consists of footage of Teuber appearing at main gaming conventions, the place he’s greeted like a rock star-followers whisper and level after they see him-but seems sheepish whereas signing bins. Teuber left his dental lab in 1998, “when I felt like Catan could feed me and my family,” he said.

He and his wife, Claudia, have three kids. In 2002, they integrated Catan GmbH and made it the family enterprise. Teuber and his sons, Guido and Benjamin, each hold the title of managing director; Guido focusses on the English-talking market and Benjamin controls the worldwide aspect and helps with sport growth. Claudia is responsible for bookkeeping and testing new video games. “Luckily, she loves Catan as I do,” Teuber said. Die Siedler von Catan is on the market in over thirty languages. Catan licenses the thought and prototype to publishers, who then produce and market the sport and pay Catan GmbH about ten per cent in royalties. Catan’s relationship with Mayfair goes deeper than a typical licensing deal: the companies have grown together, and, at this point, their fortunes are thoroughly intertwined. Catan GmbH is a shareholder in Mayfair, and Catan merchandise make up a large portion of Mayfair’s revenue. “Collectively, all the remainder of our portfolio doesn’t add as much as Catan,” Mayfair’s Fenlon advised me.

The corporate originally sourced the entire supplies for the sport from Europe, however, when demand began to take off, the manufacturers didn’t have sufficient wood to sustain. Mayfair expanded to American companies for extra assets. Today, each field of Catan that Mayfair produces is a world affair: the dice are tooled in Denmark; the more intricate picket items are performed in Germany; different wood components are made in Ohio; the cards are from Dallas; the packing containers, Illinois; the cardboard, Indiana; the plastic parts, Wisconsin; lastly, every part gets put collectively on an assembly line in Illinois. Here’s how The Settlers of Catan works: There are nineteen hexagonal tiles, often called “terrain hexes.” Each hex represents certainly one of five resources: brick, wool, ore, grain, or lumber. To start out the game, the tiles are shuffled and laid out to create the game board, which is the island. Every hex then will get assigned a quantity between two and twelve; these numbers are evenly distributed throughout the board.

Players take turns rolling the dice, and the number that’s rolled determines which terrain hex produces assets. By collecting various combinations of assets, you possibly can construct roads and settlements across the borders of those hexes, placing little picket houses on the board to mark out turf. More assets allow you to build more or to upgrade your settlements into cities. There’s also a robber in Catan, a token that moves around to different terrain hexes. When the robber’s on a hex, that terrain can’t produce its sources, and every time a seven is rolled gamers with too many resources have to give some back. The robber is crucial: it forces gamers to trade with opponents as an alternative of hoarding goods. A board game with economic theory, land improvement, and cute little buildings: one is naturally reminded of one thing else. The Washington Post hailed Catan because the Monopoly “of our time.” Wired known as it the “Monopoly Killer.” Meanwhile, Monopoly itself has begun to answer the shifting tides.