Blue Orange Games is a board game company based in
San Francisco, California
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
. They have been publishing and promoting award-winning games for over 18 years. The company was founded in 1999 by Thierry Denoual and Juilen Mayot. The company is known to use recyclable materials in its games. It has won numerous awards.
History
The first Blue Orange Game to be designed was ''
Gobblet
''Gobblet'' is a board game for two players designed by Thierry Denoual and published in 2001 by Gigamic and Blue Orange Games. Gobblet was a finalist for the 2004 Jeu de l'année The Jeu de l'année (French for ''Game of the Year'') was a Fre ...
.'' The creators were hit with a flash of inspiration for the game while in a coffee shop in California. This game was an instant success all over the US and helped build up the company. A
San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. ...
review prompted the game to sell out locally. Co-founder Mayot took a three-month road trip across the country, covering 22,000 miles and visiting 500 stores with a jeep packed with 1,000 ''Gobblet'' games. The trip and the subsequent 10,000 games sale marked the official start of the business.
The name Blue Orange Games comes from a poem by
Paul Eluard
Paul may refer to:
People
* Paul (given name), a given name, including a list of people
* Paul (surname), a list of people
* Paul the Apostle, an apostle who wrote many of the books of the New Testament
* Ray Hildebrand, half of the singing duo P ...
titled
The Earth is Blue Like an Orange. The company is known for its tree planting campaign and commitment to
environmental responsibility
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement about supporting life, habitats, and surroundings. While environmentalism focuses more on the environmental and nature-related aspects of green ideology and politics, ecologi ...
. The games are typically made out of wood, tin, resin and recycled or recyclable materials. Blue Orange Games released the best-selling game, ''Spot It!'', in 2010, and it has since maintained its position in the top 100 of the toys & games category on
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc., doing business as Amazon, is an American multinational technology company engaged in e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in Bellevu ...
. ''Spot it!'' is now available in many different editions and has a
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...
license and a
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League (NHL; , ''LNH'') is a professional ice hockey league in North America composed of 32 teams25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. The NHL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Cana ...
license.
Part of the company's philosophy is a belief in the social and developmental benefits of playing offline games instead of spending time engaged with electronic devices.
Blue Orange groups
Blue Orange has 3 main divisions:
* Blue Orange Edition (France), the engineering/consulting firm of the group. Three
project manager
A project manager is a professional in the field of project management. Project managers have the responsibility of the Project planning, planning, procurement and execution of a project, in any undertaking that has a defined scope, defined star ...
s of Blue Orange Edition "look for the playful pearls of tomorrow". They are connected with the authors of games around the world and test more than 1,000 games a year.
* Blue Orange Games (United States), the distributor of Blue Orange's games in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
*
Blue Orange Europe (France), which approves, validates and distributes Blue Orange's games in the rest of the world.
Blue Orange's games are sold on 5 continents and in 59 different countries.
Products
Blue Orange Games products include:
* ''
Gobblet
''Gobblet'' is a board game for two players designed by Thierry Denoual and published in 2001 by Gigamic and Blue Orange Games. Gobblet was a finalist for the 2004 Jeu de l'année The Jeu de l'année (French for ''Game of the Year'') was a Fre ...
''
* ''Gobblet Gobblers''
* ''Pengoloo''
* ''Tell Tale''
* ''Fastrack''
* ''Double Shutter''
* ''Yamslam''
* ''Go Go Gelatos''
* ''Bluff You''
* ''
Bendomino''
* ''Dr. Eureka''
* ''Zimmbos''
* ''Dr. Microbe''
* ''Brix''
* ''
Photosynthesis
Photosynthesis ( ) is a system of biological processes by which photosynthetic organisms, such as most plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, convert light energy, typically from sunlight, into the chemical energy necessary to fuel their metabo ...
''
* ''
Kingdomino
''Kingdomino'' is a 2016 tile board game for 2-4 players designed by Bruno Cathala and published by Blue Orange Games. In this 15-20 minute, family-oriented game, players build a five by five kingdom of oversized domino-like tiles, making sure ...
''
* ''Fantastic Park''
* ''Vikings on Board''
* ''Bao Bab''
*''Sushi Draft''
*''Battle Sheep''
References
{{Tabletop game industry
Board game publishing companies
Companies based in San Francisco
2000 establishments in California
American companies established in 2000