Asmodee USA has announced that it will not release any new games until May 1st. The company, which owns the game studios that made Pandemic, Settlers of Catan, and Marvel Champions, has delayed all of its upcoming titles due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “We believe revisiting these delayed titles will be beneficial to stores and the industry when people can begin shopping at their stores once again,” Asmodee said in a statement to retailers. While Asmodee won’t be publishing any new titles, they are keeping their warehouse open to fulfill orders of their currently released games, in part due to heavy demand as families prepare for a lengthy quarantine. Many of Asmodee’s other employees have transitioned to working from home when possible.
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The news comes as most board game retailers in the United States have either shut their stores down or scaled back their operations due to public health guidelines about social distancing and gathering in large groups. Many game companies have shut down their organized play operations and some stores have shut down their public play areas to help minimize the spread of COVID-19.
Asmodee USA owns a number of game studios, including Fantasy Flight Games, Catan Studios, Z-Man Games, Days of Wonder, and Atomic Mass Games. Several of Asmodee USA’s more popular games, such as Star Wars: Legion or Marvel: Crisis Protocol comes out with new products on a monthly basis. By delaying new releases, Asmodee USA keeps retailers from choosing either to find a way to sell those new games to customers in the midst of Stay at Home orders and other public health guidelines, or risk losing customers to retailers like Amazon who are still shipping products during the quarantine.
Asmodee USA has promised weekly updates to retailers to keep them informed of the evolving situation, particularly in regards to the status of their warehouse.
