“Board game distributor Asmodee has acquired Time’s Up, 7 Wonders and Cash ‘n Guns publisher Repos Production”

If it’s like Days of Wonder, Mayfair Games, etc., what will happen is that the acquired company will no longer produce its lesser selling games, and only sell its best-selling ones.

“Original Repos founder Cédrick Caumont is leaving the company to found independent studio Captain Games. As such, the publisher will now be headed up by Thomas Vermeir, who has 15 years of experience working with Repos as an external consultant.”

As much as we mourn the loss of a game company (or predict gloom-and-doom), game designers don’t disappear. When WotC was acquired by Hasbro, many employees left — with a nice amount of money — to found their own game companies. This doesn’t always happen (and I evidently doesn’t happen after once the cost-cutting begins) but isn’t restricted to game companies.

Speaking of gloom-and-doom predictions :/ I’m thinking we’re seeing maturation in the market, as “investors” are pushing money into an industry that was better known for “creativity”. Yet, if owners of game companies are being paid well for their companies, it’s much like a startup industry, where owners create a company, cash out, then begin again. It’s not like Caumont’s going to stop creating quality games just because it’s a new game company. Meanwhile, the “investors” push proven games into the mass market, exposing mainstream customers to a new type of game that goes beyond Risk and Apples to Apples. (Oh, wait. Apples to Apples was Out of the Box’s best-selling game line. Out of the Box’s founders comfortably retired, but the company went under.) Also, meanwhile, we’re still seeing new games and products come out to the hobby market — just look at all those lovely unpainted miniatures in the sidebar there… (: