Large game companies don't want to publish designer games because they don't want to undermine their Hollywood licenses or the brands they have been building over the past 70 years. And since they won't give you the best products, North Star Games' aim is to bring fun and innovative designer games to mainstream America. The mainstream American board game market is controlled by a few large corporations. Unfortunately, the primarily goal of these companies is to maximize profits, which often comes at the expense of publishing innovative games. In order to maximize profits, large game companies like Hasbro have focused on 2 types of products.
Monopoly, which was invented 70 years ago, is now obsolete - Hasbro just doesn't want you to know it. The large game companies' first focus is long-standing game brands, most of which have become stale and incompatible with people's modern lifestyles. Here is some evidence that Monopoly is no longer appropriate to our times: the game takes hours to play, has complicated rules, forces people to wait around when it's not their turn, and results in some players being eliminated while others are still having fun. Contrary to the large game companies, we at North Star Games believe you shouldn't have to settle for 75 year old ideas.
Most board games that seem like good gifts never get played or are played only once. The large game companies' second focus is short-lived games that seem to make good one-time holiday gifts. Some of these games have Hollywood licenses, such as the hundreds of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings games that have flooded the market. Some are just variations on an old theme, such as the hundreds of versions of Monopoly that have been sold through the years (such as Dog-opoly or regular Monopoly now packaged in a special tin box!). However, the corporations don't care that these games end up sitting in the closet and gathering dust because nobody plays them. They just want to sell you this holiday season's hot new license, get if off the shelves, and then sell you another hot new license next year. The next time you buy your friends or family a board game, why not get them a game they'll want to play over and over again?
Why are the games in Europe better than the games being publiched in America right now?