Bringing Down the House

How Gamewright Created a New Kind of Family Game

- Skip Maloney

Family games have been around for centuries, though they have always posed an inherent dilemma. Game selection, invariably an adult decision, is governed by the need for such a game to be appropriate for the children. Beyond the not-insignificant joy of playing with and teaching the children, adults find themselves engaged in a game that doesn’t offer them a lot of entertainment or challenge value.

It’s an ancient dilemma, one that in the latter part of the 20th century, two sets of parents from Massachusetts decided to address. They did so by founding Gamewright in 1994.

The four parents were the McNays (Joe and Beth; the finance and admin team) and the Stamblers (Monty and Ann; more aligned with game design), who — according to Gamewright’s current VP of Marketing and Development, Jason Schneider — “looked around the world of casual games back in the 90s and wanted higher quality games for their kids to play than what was being offered by some of the major publishers.”

“The industry was so nascent in 1994,” said Schneider, “that there was a ripe opportunity to step into the arena and be a vanguard for high-quality family games.”

Finding and Publishing Games in the Pre-Internet Age

Gamewright was founded at an auspicious time. While the Internet was not new in 1994, it had begun to hit its full stride as a means of instant, worldwide communication.

“The first game ever commissioned for publication by Gamewright was 1994’s Eagle Kingdoms,” said Schneider, “a medieval gamer’s game that was ahead of its time, but not right for the market at that time. America wasn’t ready for it, so it died on the vine.”