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GMT Games is a California-based
wargaming A wargame is a strategy game in which two or more players command opposing armed forces in a realistic simulation of an armed conflict. Wargaming may be played for recreation, to train military officers in the art of strategic thinking, or to s ...
publisher founded in 1990. The company has become well known for graphically attractive games that range from "
monster game A monster game is a game that is either very large, very complex, or both. One criterion sometimes adopted is the number of pieces; a game which puts greater than 1000 counters into play at once may be considered to be a monster game. This classif ...
s", of many maps and counters, to quite simple games suitable for introducing new players to wargaming. They also produce
card games A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games (such as poker). A small number of card ...
and family games. The current management and creative team includes Tony Curtis,
Rodger MacGowan Rodger B. MacGowan (born 1948) is an artist, game developer, art director and magazine publisher who has been active in the board wargame industry since the 1970s. MacGowan is a prolific artist of cover art for wargames, and the wargaming magazi ...
,
Mark Simonitch Mark Simonitch (born December 30, 1957) is an American wargame designer and graphic artist. His game designs include ''Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage'' and ''Ardennes '44'', and he has made maps for ''Wilderness War'' and ''Empire of the Sun'' among ...
, and Andy Lewis.


History

GMT's name comes from the first name initials of founders Gene Billingsley, Mike Crane, and Terry Shrum. Crane and Shrum later left GMT and founded the Fresno Gaming Association. In the 1990s GMT pioneered a pre-order system called "Project 500" or "P500", where customers pre-order a title and production does not begin until a set minimum of orders had been reached. This system has been adopted by other wargame publishers. GMT was successful during the 1990s, when other war game publishers were failing, which has been credited in part to their innovative P500 system. GMT is known for publishing the
COIN A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order t ...
series of games, which started with ''Andean Abyss: Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Colombia'' by Volko Ruhnke, a CIA instructor. Most COIN titles feature four playable factions commanding guerrilla forces or conventional
military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
forces, both trying to win the hearts and minds of the local population. The games focus on historical conflicts such as the
Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution ( es, Revolución Cubana) was carried out after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in cou ...
,
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
,
Gallic Wars The Gallic Wars were waged between 58 and 50 BC by the Roman general Julius Caesar against the peoples of Gaul (present-day France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland). Gallic, Germanic, and British tribes fought to defend their homela ...
,
American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...
,
War in Afghanistan War in Afghanistan, Afghan war, or Afghan civil war may refer to: *Conquest of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great (330 BC – 327 BC) * Muslim conquests of Afghanistan (637–709) *Conquest of Afghanistan by the Mongol Empire (13th century), see al ...
, and others. GMT's best-known game may be ''
Twilight Struggle ''Twilight Struggle: The Cold War, 1945–1989'' is a board game for two players, published by GMT Games in 2005. Players are the United States and Soviet Union contesting each other's influence on the world map by using cards that correspond to ...
,'' a card-driven strategy game about the global
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
. Wit
prototype map
In 2018, GMT began creating
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and
mobile Mobile may refer to: Places * Mobile, Alabama, a U.S. port city * Mobile County, Alabama * Mobile, Arizona, a small town near Phoenix, U.S. * Mobile, Newfoundland and Labrador Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Mobile ( ...
adaptations for some of their titles, including ''Twilight Struggle'' and ''Labyrinth: The War on Terror''. GMT was about to publish ''Scramble for Africa'' in 2019, but pulled the title after controversy erupted about its subject matter, as reported in the ''New York Times''. ''The Washington Post'' called GMT "the modern hobby's highest-profile wargame publisher" and characterized P500 as a "
Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...
before Kickstarter that allowed fans to vote with their wallets on which GMT games should come to market". ''Wargamer Magazine'' called them a "house-name in table-top wargaming". ''
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'' said they published "some of the best wargame design of the last twenty years."


Published games

Some of the better-known games produced by GMT Games include: * '' 18XX'' series - strategy economic board games about railway construction and investing in railroad companies. * ''
Battle Line The line of battle is a tactic in naval warfare in which a fleet of ships forms a line end to end. The first example of its use as a tactic is disputed—it has been variously claimed for dates ranging from 1502 to 1652. Line-of-battle tacti ...
'' * '' Chandragupta'' * '' Dominant Species'' * ''
COIN A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order t ...
'' series - a card-driven action board game series based on counterinsurgency and irregular warfare. * ''Combat Commander'' series - a card-drive game, simulating tactical warfare usually in World War 2. * '' Commands & Colors: Ancients'' - a block game with card-driven action, based upon tactical combat in the Classical Period. * ''Europe Engulfed'' * '' Fields of Fire'' * '' Here I Stand'' * '' MBT'' series - wargame series that is modeling the hypothetical clash set in 1987 between US and Soviet forces in Germany. Later expansion added British, West German, and Canadian forces. * '' Next War'' series - wargame series that is based on hypothetical war on modern times. * ''Panzer'' series - a detailed, tactical-level, World War II game based in the European theater, currently with 4 expansion sets. * ''
Paths of Glory ''Paths of Glory'' is a 1957 American anti-war film co-written and directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on the novel of the same name by Humphrey Cobb. Set during World War I, the film stars Kirk Douglas as Colonel Dax, the commanding officer of ...
'' *''
Space Empires 4X Space Empires 4X is a 4X science fiction board wargame developed by Jim Krohn and published by GMT Games in 2011. It has received two expansions: Close Encounters (2012) and Replicators (2018), with a third one, All Good Things, in developmen ...
'' * '' Sword of Rome'' * ''
SPQR SPQR, an abbreviation for (; en, "The Roman Senate and People"; or more freely "The Senate and People of Rome"), is an emblematic abbreviated phrase referring to the government of the ancient Roman Republic. It appears on Roman currency, at t ...
'' * ''
Twilight Struggle ''Twilight Struggle: The Cold War, 1945–1989'' is a board game for two players, published by GMT Games in 2005. Players are the United States and Soviet Union contesting each other's influence on the world map by using cards that correspond to ...
-'' card-driven board game, based on the Cold War. * ''Wing Leader'' series - aerial combat wargames series with side-scrolling views, mainly based on World War II era aircraft.


References


External links

* * {{Authority control Board game publishing companies Wargame companies American companies established in 1990