The earliest known form of the Meeple was found in the 1984 game
Top Secret Spies.
Carcassonne, published by
Hans im Glück in 2000, has been credited with popularizing the modern concept and shape of the meeple. They have since become a popular component of many modern board games. The modern meeple was likely designed by , German game designer, entrepreneur, and founder of Hans im Glück. Although the figures were initially referred to as "followers", Alison Hansel, an American board-gamer, coined the name
meeples in November 2000. According to Alicia Nield, owner of the company MeepleCity, Hansel accidentally combined the words "my people" during a game of
Carcassonne. The term was popularized through the website
BoardGameGeek. Over 40 games with the word meeple in the title had been published as of 2024. Several games published by large game companies, like
AEG and
Asmodee, have even published games with the term in the titles, as well as adopting the token design commonly associated with the term, including such games as
Mutant Meeples (2012),
Terror in Meeple City (2013), the
Meeple Circus series (2017-2021), and
Meeples and Monsters (2022). This continued until 2019, when "MEEPLE" was registered as an
EU trademark owned by Hans im Glück. The 2019 trademarking was objected to by, among others, gaming company
CMON. The critics argued that the term has been used in common parlance, and the very shape of the meeple became commonplace in the industry. This resulted in the EU trademark exempting the category "toys and games"; however, Hans im Glück has since registered the term as a trademark in Germany for usage which does include toys and games, and the company also acquired the EU trademark for the shape of the ‘original’ meeple figure as used in Carcassonne. In 2024, the company Cogito Ergo Meeple received a
cease and desist for unsanctioned use of the trademark, and decided to change the name of their upcoming game from
Meeple Inc to
Tabletop Inc, and the name of the company itself to Cotswold Games. This caused concern among game developers whether the use of the word "meeple" is worth the potential litigation. Hans im Glück has since apologized for their overly aggressive action towards Cotswold Games. As the term and concept of "meeple" have not been trademarked in the United States, individuals affiliated with the US board game industry community (Corey Thompson and Marian McBrine) have decided to trademark the concept in the US, declaring that they "have no plans at all to make any profit from this..." and that they "intend to protect the US trademark from
predatory action [and] would really love for [it] to be usable by anyone". ==See also==