We are a young publisher for board and card games based in Germany with a long history.
In 1989 Harald Bilz and Peter Gutbrod founded a game publishing company named Heidelberger Spieleverlag to realize their own game ideas. The young company had its first bigger success in 1992 with the game Neolithibum, which received a rating in the Top 10 of the Deutscher Spielepreis. A wholesale and distribution service for other smaller publishers was implemented into the company in 1994. At this time the company published mostly smaller games for families or card games with historical themes.
In 2001 Heidelberger Spieleverlag started to cooperate with international publishers to localize games for the German market. Besides worldwide known partner Fantasy Flight games, other bigger and smaller partners like Ares games, Czech Games Editions, alea Spiele, and more than 40 other international publishers became exclusively distributed by Heidelberger Spieleverlag. This made the company one of Europe’s most relevant publishers for hobby, strategy, fantasy and sci-fi games.
Heidelberger Spieleverlag kept publishing own titles, trying to focus on non-standard components, unique design or innovative game mechanics. This added more and more long-time classics to the German game market, including international publication in many languages, like A la carte (Nomination for Spiel des Jahres 2009) or Blood Bound (Recommendation by Jury Spiel des Jahres 2014).
Who We Are Now
Heidelberger Spieleverlag was acquired by the Asmodee group in 2017 and merged with Asmodee Germany. National distribution units of Asmodee usually do not carry out game development. As this is handled through independent international development studios, HeidelBÄR games was founded end of 2017 to add the experience, passion and creativity of Heidelberger Spieleverlag’s team onto the international gaming stage. The bear had had the honor to join the ranks of other fabulous studios, as Fantasy Flight Games, Z-Man Games, Days of Wonder, Space Cowboys, Ystari and Plaid Hat.
But as it is, a bear walks even better independently - and in 2019 HeidelBÄR games (also owner of the Heidelberger Spieleverlag brand) became once more independent - after 30 years of its initial foundation.
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