By Peter Budig

Long-standing SPIEL ESSEN visitors who appreciate challenging expert games may still remember seeing a tall, wiry, calm man with dark curly hair exhibiting for the first time at this trade fair for fans of board games twelve years ago: "Our stand was two metres by five metres in size. We couldn’t afford anything bigger. It really helped us that we could not only showcase our games but also sell them to the general public, as is customary at SPIEL ESSEN", recalled Frank Heeren, founder of Feuerland Spiele. 

Successful launch in a packed market

The Terra Mystica game from Helge Ostertag, Jens Drögemüller and graphic designer Dennis Lohausen was Frank Heeren’s launchpad for entering the publishing business in 2011. Uwe Rosenberg, already a successful game designer at the time, came across the game and turned to Heeren. Terra Mystica is still in demand now, long after its initial release, and has sold over 100,000 copies.

Heeren and Rosenberg go back a long way. They both whiled away many a boring hour as classmates in Aurich, a town in East Frisia, sat their school-leaving exams together there and then went on to pursue very different but successful careers. Heeren had spent more than ten good years as an IT consultant after graduating from university with a degree in geophysics and was eager for this entirely new challenge. Together, they worked on Terra Mystica until it was ready for release and then ventured into "a packed market" (as per an article on Heeren in the FAZ newspaper in December 2019). Now, looking back, the gamble has been proven an unmitigated success. The Feuerland Spiele stand at SPIEL ESSEN 2024 will cover 200 m² in the upper area of Hall 3 – "We’ve packed over 2,000 games for sale and will have almost 40 people working at our stand", explained Heeren. 

Friendship with Uwe Rosenberg

Successful board game inventors often have a special aptitude for maths. And Frank Heeren – who does not really invent board games but instead, as a publisher, further develops, improves and optimises prototypes so that they are ready for series production – also has an entrepreneurial gene: "I inherited that from my mother, who worked in the hotel and catering industry. She was really assertive and always prepared to go the extra mile for her customers to ensure a successful outcome", he explained. He initially benefited from the experience of Uwe Rosenberg, an ingenious, self-taught game designer who received the Deutscher Spielepreis (German Game Award) for Agricola in 2008, published by Lookout Games. Together they founded the Feuerland publishing company, of which Rosenberg is now solely a silent partner. 

Gloomhaven – a big hit with the publisher and players

Following its initial success, the publishing company continued to go from strength to strength with each new game: Gloomhaven, Fields of Arle, Gaia Project, Arche Nova, Scythe and Viticulture are just some of the interesting titles for fans of expert games. Heeren set his sights on the American market at an early stage with a view to acquiring licences and releasing the company’s own games there. Gloomhaven, the brainchild of US game designer Isaac Childres, attracted major attention. This truly deluxe game – costing around EUR 180 – boasts nine kilograms of game material, including some 1,700 cards, and has built up a loyal fan base. Frank Heeren has therefore gained an excellent reputation as a publisher of challenging and lavishly designed games. He has managed to establish himself despite the essentially limited target group of people who enjoy playing complex games that require a certain amount of familiarisation and perseverance initially and rarely cost less than EUR 60. So, what’s his secret? "We appeal to people who can and want to treat themselves to something beautiful. With a price point of EUR 60 to EUR 80, they know they are getting a high-quality, deluxe game that looks great. This is also reflected in the challenging ruleset", says Heeren. "Persistence and the willingness to put in that extra bit of concentration, effort and dedication" are what pay off in Heeren’s eyes.

Risk and reward

In addition to all of the secondary virtues, the hard work and entrepreneurial spirit, Heeren also simply loves to play games. "My favourite – besides Arche Nova – is still Glass Road (Feuerland). Although not one of our biggest sellers, it’s a game of enduring appeal to me from my friend Uwe Rosenberg. With its mechanism of unpredictability, it’s good for throwing up surprises." 

In the same vein, visitors to Feuerland at SPIEL ESSEN will be offered a "golden throw" that will net them either a little game or, with a bit of luck, one of Feuerland’s deluxe games worth over EUR 100. This is sure to prove popular, as everyone who loves board games also enjoys a bit of risk and reward!

SPIEL Essen from 3 to 6 October 2024

Publishers showcase their new additions and further game collections at SPIEL ESSEN. Industry insiders and fans can explore the entire game scene in the halls of the Messe Essen exhibition centre. Merz Verlag, the organiser of SPIEL ESSEN, is part of the Spielwarenmesse eG portfolio of trade fairs. 

See you in Essen! Find out more at SPIEL ESSEN 2024 

About the author:

Peter Budig studied Protestant theology, history and political science. He worked as a freelance journalist, headed up the editorial department of a large advertising paper in Nuremberg for ten years and was the editor of Nuremberg’s Abendzeitung newspaper. He has been freelancing again since 2014 as a journalist, book author and copywriter. Storytelling is absolutely his favourite form.