Avalon Hill

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**Avalon Hill Games Inc.** is a game company that specializes in wargames and strategic board games. Its logo contains its initials "AH", and the company is now often referred to by this abbreviation. Before its takeover by Hasbro, it was known as The Avalon Hill Game Company and the initials TAHGC. It has also published miniature wargaming rules, role-playing games and sports simulations. It is now a subsidiary of the game company Wizards of the Coast, which is itself a subsidiary of Hasbro.

Avalon Hill pioneered many of the concepts of modern recreational wargaming. These include elements such as the use of a hexagonal grid (a.k.a. hexgrid) overlaid on a flat folding board, zones of control (ZOC), stacking of multiple units at a location, an odds-based combat results table (CRT), terrain effects on movement, troop strength, morale, and board games based upon historical events. Complex games could and did take days or even weeks, and AH set up a system for people to play games by mail.

## History

### The Avalon Game Company

 File:Avalon Hill house.jpg
Avalon Hill was started in 1952 outside Baltimore in Catonsville, Maryland by Charles S. Roberts under the name of "The Avalon Game Company" for the publication of his game *Tactics*. 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. Other war games published over the prior half-century, which Roberts drew inspiration from, were either not designed for the commercial market and/or used miniatures with self-made maps/terrain. Roberts sold *Tactics* by mail from his home in the Avalon neighborhood of Catonsville; his house overlooked the B&O railroad for which Roberts, his father and grandfather worked. Following the success of *Tactics*, Roberts changed the name upon incorporation from "The Avalon Game Company" to "Avalon Hill" in 1958 because of a naming dispute with another company. The number of games released per year was erratic until 1964 as the company released anywhere from 1 to 7 games.5-8

The first game published by the company under the name of "Avalon Hill" was the second edition of *Tactics*, titled *Tactics II*, published in 1958. AH published two other games that year, *Gettysburg* and the railroad game *Dispatcher*.

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, in August 1960 Thomas N. Shaw, a high school friend of Roberts, was hired to design games.6

In 1960, Avalon published the first mostly dice-less sports game in *Football Strategy* designed by Thomas N. Shaw which was followed by two sister games, *Baseball Strategy* and *Basketball Strategy*. Of this sports strategy line, the football and baseball versions were previously privately published by Shaw in 1959.7 With a recession occurring, debt began to pile up starting in 1961. (A computer game version, *Computer Football Strategy*, was published by Avalon Hill in 1983.)

Avalon launched a pre-school children's line in 1963 with four games, *Imagination*, *What Time Is It?*, *Doll House* and *Trucks, Trains, Boats & Planes*, which flopped. Roberts gave up and planned to file bankruptcy on December 13, 1963.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.Template:Rp The company was reorganized by retaining only one staff member, Shaw, moved, cut costs and appointed J.E. Sparling as president.p7,8 In 1964, AH set a two-game per year release schedule.5-8

Avalon Hill published *Blitzkrieg* in 1965. This game was an abstract combat game, featuring two sides (red and blue) and some neutral countries. Many rules variants were created for *Blitzkrieg*. The company also published simulations of actual battles and campaigns, such as *Midway,* *Afrika Korps,* and *The Battle of the Bulge.*

Avalon Hill published *PanzerBlitz* in 1970, designed for the company by Jim Dunnigan's Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI) on a royalty basis from SPI's *Tac Force 3* game.p9

### Monarch Avalon division

Monarch bought out J.E. Smith & Co., Avalon Hill's co-owner, on November 30, 1971. Thus the company became a division of a renamed Monarch Office Services, Monarch Avalon.p10

The company acquired several successful games including *Acquire*, *TwixT* and *Feudal* from the purchase of 3M Games in February 1976.p5,12 Sports Illustrated (SI) line of sports games were purchased in December 1976. Both lines increased the retail outlets that would take AH games. The Aladdin Industries game line was another acquisition in March 1977. With the SI line, the company started a sports game division in May 1977 with Bruce Milligan hired to head the division and launch *All Star Replay* sport games magazine. While from the 3M line, *Facts in Five* became its top selling game.p5,12

During the 1970s, the company's golden years, Avalon Hill published a number of popular games such as *Outdoor Survival*, *Panzer Blitz*, *Squad Leader*, and the *Statis Pro* sports line.

Avalon Hill also purchased many games from smaller companies and republished them. Heritage Models sold AH its Battleline Publications in October 1979.p5,15 Much of the Battleline line, including *Wooden Ships and Iron Men* and *Machiavelli* (a variant of *Diplomacy* set in Renaissance Italy), was republished by Avalon Hill, along with the popular *Diplomacy*. AH also acquired Jedko Games' *The Russian Campaign* and *War at Sea*, and Hartland Trefoil's *Civilization*. *1830* was developed by Avalon Hill, but based on Francis Tresham's *1829*.

In 1974, a new game developer attempted to pitch his concept to Avalon Hill. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson had co-developed a new type of co-operative game that used role-playing. But when Gygax pitched *Dungeons & Dragons* to AH, the largest company in wargaming did not understand the concept of role-playing, and turned down his offer. Gygax was forced to form TSR Inc in order to self-publish his game. In less than five years, TSR would be the dominant player in the new RPG market.

Avalon Hill finally entered the role-playing game market a decade later by publishing *Powers and Perils* in 1983 and *Lords of Creation* in 1984. The licenses to *RuneQuest* and the board games *White Bear & Red Moon* (republished as *Dragon Pass*) and *Elric*, were acquired in a complex agreement in 1983 with Chaosium, and Avalon Hill published the 3rd Edition in 1984. None of these role-playing games achieved the popularity of the long-established competitor, *Dungeons & Dragons*.

Avalon Hill became an early publisher of computer games in 1980 with its video game division Microcomputer Games, adapting some of its boardgame titles to various computer platforms (TRS-80, Vic-20, Commodore 64, Apple II, etc.) on several data formats (cassette tape and 5¼" disk). Sales of these products were decent, but the only outstanding success was *Achtung Spitfire!*, published relatively late in the company history.

*Gulf Strike* was introduced by the company in 1983 and was based on the Iran–Iraq War then updated after the cease-fire in 1988. AH published *The Dr. Ruth Game* in 1985 which sold initially well then dropped off.

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 its October 1990 release such that a second print run hit the market in December 1990. In 1991, Hobbycraft Canada was sharing office space with Monarch Avalon.

AvalonCon World Boardgaming Championships was first held by AH in 1991.

In December 1992, AH hired Jim Rose to lead its computer game division, with the goal of reviving this part of the business in the face of flagging board game sales. AH reentered the computer game market in 1994 with a good review of "Flight Commander 2". The company added Pogs to its game line up in 1995. By June 1995, Rose had left the company to found TalonSoft. In 1995, Monarch Avalon placed Avalon Hill up for sale but it was later withdrawn.

### Hasbro subsidiary

Monarch sold Avalon Hill to Hasbro Games on August 4, 1998 for $6 million. Hasbro, largely seeking a computer gaming software company and known games to convert to interactive computer games per an Arcadia Investment Corp. investment analyst, purchased the rights to the Avalon Hill trademarks, copyrights, inventory, tooling and divisions, Avalon Hill Software and Victory Games. Avalon Hill Games, Inc. was incorporated by Hasbro on March 2, 1998.

Avalon was transferred to the control of Wizards of the Coast, another Hasbro subsidiary, in 2004.

In 2000, Avalon released a redesigned edition of *Cosmic Encounter* in cooperation with its owner/developer Future Pastimes. This edition was not well received by players and Avalon did not follow up with any of the expected expansion sets.

Hasbro has released new titles under the Avalon Hill name, and added the Avalon Hill imprint to older titles such as *Axis and Allies* that were not originally made by Avalon Hill.

## Game rights

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:

* Multi-Man Publishing acquired a license to *Advanced Squad Leader* and the *Great Campaigns of the American Civil War* series, and has since published new materials for these. (It also had the rights to *Up Front* for many years, but never released a new version of the game.)
* Valley Games published new versions of *Titan*, *Hannibal: Rome versus Carthage*, and *Republic of Rome*.
* GMT Games published new editions of Avalon Hill's early card-driven wargames *We the People* (retitled *Washington's War*), *Successors*, and *For the People*, and a descendant of *Advanced Third Reich*/*Empire of the Rising Sun* named *A World at War*.
* Mayfair Games now has the rights to *1830* (one of several 18XX games they publish).

## Victory Games

In 1982 Avalon Hill hired some of the design staff from Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI) after that company was purchased by TSR, Inc, and formed them into a subsidiary company, Victory Games. SPI had specialized in wargames that were more complex and realistic simulations than those that Avalon Hill published. It also published games more frequently than Avalon Hill, which stayed with its two-a-year schedule of releases long after SPI began publishing boxed games monthly and as inserts via the magazine *Strategy & Tactics*. When Victory Games released a line of SPI-style games, it met with critical and commercial acclaim. As employees gradually departed for other game companies or more lucrative careers in defense analysis and government wargaming, the staff of Victory Games's New York City office on East 33rd Street shrank dramatically. But contrary to some accounts, Victory Games was not "disbanded" in 1989. Rather, West End Games veteran Leonard Quam was brought aboard to breathe new life into the firm and hired Kevin Boylan as a product developer. Victory Games continued to develop and release new products (including 3rd Fleet and Carrier) for another three years, though the New York office closed in early 1991 after Quam left the company. Victory's final two games, Flashpoint Golan and Across Five Aprils, were developed by Boylan alone working remotely in collaboration with Avalon Hill's art department.

## Magazines

### *The General*

 File:Heroes advertising flyer.jpg
*Main article: The General Magazine*
Avalon Hill also had its own house 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.

### *Heroes*

In early 1984, on the occasion of the release of third edition *RuneQuest*, Avalon Hill included in all *RuneQuest* boxes a single advertising flyer (see image, right) announcing the launch of *HEROES*, its own role-playing magazine. *HEROES* ran for ten issues from 1984 to 1986 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*, and *RuneQuest*.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Business Entity Summary: AVALON HILL GAMES, INC.". Massachusetts Secretary of Commonwealth. Archived from the original on September 23, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150923060001/http://corp.sec.state.ma.us/CorpWeb/CorpSearch/CorpSummary.aspx?FEIN=050497148&SEARCH\_TYPE=1. Retrieved August 5, 2015.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Template:Cite book
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Rienzi, Greg (May 2009). "Baltimore Observed: Encounter". *The Urbanite Magazine*. Urbanite Baltimore. p. 35. Archived from the original on June 8, 2009. https://web.archive.org/web/20090608191106/http://www.urbanitebaltimore.com/sub.cfm?issueID=72&sectionID=4&articleID=1214. Retrieved 2009-05-11.
4. ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 Template:Cite journal
5. ↑ Template:Cite book
6. ↑ Arneson, Erik. "Tactics II". About.com. http://boardgames.about.com/od/gamehistories/p/tactics\_ii.htm. Retrieved August 5, 2015.
7. ↑ "Football Strategy", *About Board Games*, About. Retrieved on July 15, 2015.
8. ↑ Arneson, Eric. "Best Football Board Games". About. http://boardgames.about.com/od/football/tp/best\_football.htm. Retrieved 15 July 2015.
9. ↑ Template:Cite book
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Arneson, Erik. "Hasbro - Brief History". About.com. http://boardgames.about.com/od/companies/a/hasbro\_history.htm. Retrieved July 15, 2015.
11. ↑ Template:Cite book
12. ↑ Kim, John H.. "RPG Company List: A: Avalon Hill". http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/companies/alphabetical/A.html#avalonhill. Retrieved August 5, 2015.
13. ↑ Kim, John H.. "R: RuneQuest". http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/encyclopedia/alphabetical/R.html#runequest. Retrieved August 5, 2015.
14. ↑ "Chaosium: 1975-Present", *A Brief History of Game*, RPG.net (September 4, 2006). Retrieved on August 5, 2015.
15. ↑ Wilson, Johnny L. (November 1991). "A History of Computer Games", *Computer Gaming World*, pp. 10. Retrieved on 18 November 2013.
16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 "Games on war, debt aimed at capturing public mood", *Baltimore Sun* (New York) (February 13, 1991). Retrieved on August 6, 2015.
17. ↑ "Local firm's games sales aided by war", *Baltimore Sun* (March 20, 1991). Retrieved on August 6, 2015.
18. ↑ "Surviving tough economic times is no child's play for toy-makers Companies search for new markets", *Baltimore Sun* (December 9, 1990). Retrieved on August 6, 2015.
19. ↑ "Game maker makes right move with convention", *Baltimore Sun* (August 7, 1994). Retrieved on August 5, 2015.
20. ↑ Template:Cite journal
21. ↑ Template:Cite journal
22. ↑ "Monarch Counts On Pc Games", *Baltimore Sun* (February 17, 1995). Retrieved on August 5, 2015.
23. ↑ Template:Cite journal
24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 "Monarch Avalon to sell game unit to Hasbro In wake of loss, local company to get $6 million in cash", *Baltimore Sun* (August 5, 1998). Retrieved on August 5, 2015.
25. ↑ "The Fall of Avalon Hill". http://home.earthlink.net/~pdr4455/fah.html.
26. ↑ The Complete Wargames Handbook Template:Webarchive Chapter 5: History of Wargames - Into the 1980s
27. ↑ *HEROES* review from Shannon Appelcline's website

## External links

* The Avalon Hill Home Page at www.wizards.com
* Web-Grognards: Avalon Hill Ludography
* The Fall of Avalon Hill from GIS.net

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