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December 16, 2019

F2Z Entertainment announces the acquisition of Plaid Hat Games

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F2Z Plaid Hat Games
There Will Be Games

Rigaud, Québec, Canada (July 29, 2015) – F2Z Entertaiment, Canadian game publisher of the brands Filosofia, Z-Man Games and Pretzel Games, announces today the acquisition of American publisher Plaid Hat Games. The new entity, now operating under the name F2Z USA Corp., will be operating out of Dallas, Texas.

“Plaid Hat Games has always put a strong focus on the design and development process of making board games and the skill set of the team at Plaid Hat Games reflects that focus. As Plaid Hat Games has grown, the other aspects of the board game publishing business have devoured more and more of the team’s time and attention. This acquisition by F2Z Entertainment allows the Plaid Hat Games’ team to turn their attention back to what they do best as they are bolstered by a super-star production, logistics, sales and marketing team that will have a fast impact on game players around the world having reliable access to the games we create,” comments Colby Dauch, Plaid Hat Studio Manager.

Some titles currently in the Plaid Hat Games catalog will also be gradually integrated into the F2Z Digital Media branch.

“This acquisition will give the actual and forthcoming titles a wider and deeper reach into the national and international markets over all media support,” comments Sophie Gravel, President of F2Z Entertainment inc

The bestselling titles Dead of WinterTM and Mice & MysticsTM join the F2Z portfolio of world-wide award-winning games like Carcassonne* , PandemicTM, Catane*, Terra Mystica*, Zooloretto* and Camel Up*.

“Starting next year, every Plaid Hat titles will be simultaneously released by Filosofia. That is wonderful news for our French-speaking fans !,” notes Lyne Bouthillette, marketing and communication manager at F2Z Entertainment. More simultaneous releases in German and Dutch are also in the planning.

*Published under license Filosofia or Z-Man Games.

About F2Z Entertainment Inc.

The F2Z Entertainment Team counts some forty employees located in Canada, the US, German and France. It manages the following brands : Filosofia Éditions, Z-Man Games, Pretzel Games, F2Z Digital Media and now, Plaid Hat Games.

There Will Be Games
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daveroswell's Avatar
daveroswell replied the topic: #207458 30 Jul 2015 12:02
boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/44415/plaid-h...d&utm_medium=twitter

It looks like F2Z is buying up game publishers and becoming quite a company. Also, delving more and more into game apps and French versions of games.
Ken B.'s Avatar
Ken B. replied the topic: #207459 30 Jul 2015 12:08
Given how far south Z-Man went in terms of Quality Control and Customer Service after getting bought out, I'm not optimistic about this at all.

Plus I'm really not keen on the conglomeration of all of our favorite game companies. We're reaching Shadowrun-esque levels of a handful of "megacorps" running the entire industry.

I've always really liked Plaid Hat Games. I hope this turns out well.
daveroswell's Avatar
daveroswell replied the topic: #207500 30 Jul 2015 15:48

Ken B. wrote: Given how far south Z-Man went in terms of Quality Control and Customer Service after getting bought out, I'm not optimistic about this at all.

Plus I'm really not keen on the conglomeration of all of our favorite game companies. We're reaching Shadowrun-esque levels of a handful of "megacorps" running the entire industry.

I've always really liked Plaid Hat Games. I hope this turns out well.


I loved watching Zev work when Z Man was his company alone. Now I feel game designers have to go through a "review committee" when going to any publisher under a large umbrella game publisher. I also hope the Plaid Hat deal works out for game players. I'm sure it worked out fine for Colby and Co.
Michael Barnes's Avatar
Michael Barnes replied the topic: #207512 30 Jul 2015 18:19
Well, this is definitely a win for Colby Dauch and the gang. The next time you see him, he will probably be wearing a solid gold plaid hat. Good for those guys.

Consolidation is definitely a trend right now in the industry, and frankly it's a smart trend. Because- here we go- the dispersal of revenue between smaller companies versus Kickstarter is more or less requiring this to happen in order for traditional publishers to compete with the amount of money that people are blindly throwing at junk vaporware projects. I've spoken with industry people about Kickstarter in the past and I've head the same thing from them all- "where were all of these people spending this kind of money five, ten years ago?"
daveroswell's Avatar
daveroswell replied the topic: #207516 30 Jul 2015 19:29

Michael Barnes wrote: Well, this is definitely a win for Colby Dauch and the gang. The next time you see him, he will probably be wearing a solid gold plaid hat. Good for those guys.

Consolidation is definitely a trend right now in the industry, and frankly it's a smart trend. Because- here we go- the dispersal of revenue between smaller companies versus Kickstarter is more or less requiring this to happen in order for traditional publishers to compete with the amount of money that people are blindly throwing at junk vaporware projects. I've spoken with industry people about Kickstarter in the past and I've head the same thing from them all- "where were all of these people spending this kind of money five, ten years ago?"


Question: Does consolidation of game companies increase the vetting time of worthy independent projects? I hope quality increases from the consolidated companies. I just see worthwhile projects potentially going the kickstarter route because potential designers might get tired of waiting.
ZMan's Avatar
ZMan replied the topic: #207940 04 Aug 2015 13:18
There shouldn't be any negative changes to this deal: in fact, it will increase Plaid Hat's distribution. Not only that, Colby now has the freedom to concentrate on his creativity and forget the day-to-day business administrative stuff...kinda like what I did. So you might be seeing even more and/or even better games.

I am excited by this acquisition.
Ken B.'s Avatar
Ken B. replied the topic: #207944 04 Aug 2015 14:36

ZMan wrote: There shouldn't be any negative changes to this deal: in fact, it will increase Plaid Hat's distribution. Not only that, Colby now has the freedom to concentrate on his creativity and forget the day-to-day business administrative stuff...kinda like what I did. So you might be seeing even more and/or even better games.

I am excited by this acquisition.



I hope you're right, Zev. I think you know that both Z-Man and Plaid Hat both have a sizable cheerleader section here. There was a really rough patch during those initial F2F/Z-Man days and it looks like they are shaking out some of the issues they had with customer service for a long while.

Some of that were us being spoiled as shit because if we had a bad part, we used to email Zev directly, and bam, he's hooking you up.

Hopefully they take the lessons they learned through that and make sure that Plaid Hat doesn't suffer the same rough transition.

I'll agree, this is fantastic news for Colby. Starting up a game company and have it big enough to get gobbled up by a much bigger company, for a nice sum of cash--that's living the dream, right?
Columbob's Avatar
Columbob replied the topic: #208017 05 Aug 2015 11:03
Filosofia were already doing Summoner Wars in French, so this sorta makes sense.

Regarding customer service, a couple months ago I emailed them for a Z-Man part and got it the very next day! Ok, so I live just a 1.5 h drive from their warehouse and offices, but still, I was pleasantly surprised.
Ken B.'s Avatar
Ken B. replied the topic: #208028 05 Aug 2015 11:57

Columbob wrote: Filosofia were already doing Summoner Wars in French, so this sorta makes sense.

Regarding customer service, a couple months ago I emailed them for a Z-Man part and got it the very next day! Ok, so I live just a 1.5 h drive from their warehouse and offices, but still, I was pleasantly surprised.


That is awesome news! And that eases my mind a lot.

I'm still not crazy about our favorite companies getting gobbled up into a handful of big ones, but if the change is transparent to us, that's the big thing.