Hachette Boardgames seals US, UK distribution deals for MicroMacro publisher Edition Spielwiese
Hachette Boardgames has added another publisher to its ever-growing distribution business, scoring a deal to distribute MicroMacro publisher Edition Spielwiese‘s games in the US and UK.
Edition Spielwiese has scored significant success with cartoon map-based deduction game MicroMacro since the launch of its debut title MicroMacro: Crime City, in 2020.
That game went on to win the Spiel des Jahres in 2021, as well as a string of other prizes including Most Innovative Board Game and Light Game of the Year in BoardGameGeek’s 2020 Golden Geek Awards, and the French As d’Or game of the year in 2021.
More MicroMacro titles are set to be announced next year, with the line falling under Hachette’s distribution in the second half of 2025.
Edition Spielwiese games have been distributed in its home market of Germany by Pegasus Spiele since 2017, with the publisher’s North American arm handling US and Canada distribution in recent years.
A spokesperson for Hachette Boardgames told BoardGameWire that although exclusivity is not part of the contract, the company is “effectively the preferred partner for any titles coming out Edition Spielwiese, and for any titles we sign we will be the exclusive distributors”.
Other existing Edition Spielwiese titles will join Hachette’s roster in 2025, including Wolfgang Warsch design The Same Game, Uwe Rosenberg’s ‘puzzle trilogy’ Cottage Garden, Spring Meadow and Indian Summer, and Matthew Dunstan and Brett Gilbert’s Prey Another Day.
Edition Spielwiese founder Michael Schmitt said, “After working with Hachette’s subsidiary BlackRock as my international partner in France, I am now even more pleased to become a bigger part of the Hachette family.”
Hachette, a French book publisher created almost 200 years ago, began a heavy push into board games in 2019 by picking up French tabletop publisher and distributor Gigamic, French distributor Blackrock Games, and by founding in-house publishers Studio H and Funnyfox.
The company now owns publishers including Le Scorpion Masqué, Sorry We Are French, Catch Up Games, La Boîte de jeu and Hiboutatillus, Canadian board game distributor Randolph, and runs Hachette branded board game operations in the US, UK and the Benelux region.
Other distribution deals signed by the company in the last year have included taking over US distribution rights for Super Meeple from Asmodee USA and the UK rights for Trefl games in October.
BoardGameWire understands Hachette is also preparing to work with newly-launched Canadian publisher No Loading Games, which in the last year has picked up board game licenses for designs based on classic French comic Asterix, The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red’s Netflix show Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, and a Monster Hunter: Rise game based around the game’s doglike and catlike companions Palamutes and Palicoes.
