Mayfair Games was founded in 1981 by
Darwin Bromley in
Chicago,
Illinois,
United States. The company was created to publish
Empire Builder, a railroad game designed by Bromley and
Bill Fawcett. In 1982, Mayfair Games expanded its focus to include
Role Aids, a line of
role-playing game supplements. In 1993, Mayfair was sued by
TSR, Inc., who argued that
Role Aids violated their 1984 trademark agreement, being advertised as compatible with
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. The court found that some of the line violated the trademark, but the line as a whole did not violate the agreement, and Mayfair continued publishing the line until the rights were bought by TSR. The company shut down for financial reasons in 1997 but was subsequently bailed out by
Iron Crown Enterprises (ICE), who purchased most of their assets and restarted operations as Ironwind, Inc. This new company operated publicly under the Mayfair Games trademark.
Pete Fenlon became the CEO of Mayfair Games in 2007 to oversee a major reorganization with a refocusing on core brands, most importantly the
Catan family of games. In 2013, Mayfair reported selling more than 750,000 Catan-related products. In January 2016, Mayfair transferred all publishing, commercial, and brand rights for all English-language
Catan products to Catan Studio, a newly created subsidiary of the
Asmodee Group. Former CEO
Pete Fenlon left Mayfair Games to become the CEO of the new company. On February 9, 2018, Mayfair announced it had sold all of its assets to the North American branch of
Asmodée Éditions, and would be shutting down. Rights to some Mayfair titles are no longer retained by Asmodée. == Notable games ==