Blue Orange Games is a board game company based in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. 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 Games 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 The final of a competition is the match or round in which the winner of the entire event is dec ...

.'' 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

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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: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...

titled The Earth is Blue Like an Orange. The company is known for its tree planting campaign and commitment to

environmental responsibility Environmentalism or environmental rights is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement regarding concerns for environmental protection and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health se ...

. 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

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. ''Spot it!'' is now available in many different editions and has a

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license and a

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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.

Awards

The company has won notable industry awards for the management of their business. In 2011, Toy Collection and Learning Express presented Blue Orange Games with their Vendor Award and The American Specialty Retailer Association named Blue Orange Games Vendor of the Year in June 2012. A large part of their success has been attributed to their style of business and good relationships with retailers.

Blue Orange groups

Blue Orange has 3 main divisions: * Blue Orange Edition (France), the engineering/consulting firm of the group. Three

project managers A project manager is a professional in the field of project management. Project managers have the responsibility of the planning, procurement and execution of a project, in any undertaking that has a defined scope, defined start and a defined ...

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 Gobblers'' * ''Pengoloo'' * ''Tell Tale'' * ''Fastrack'' * ''Double Shutter'' * ''Yamslam'' * ''Go Go Gelatos'' * ''Bluff You'' * ''

Bendomino ''Bendomino'' is a tabletop strategy game similar to dominoes, created by Thierry Denoual and published by Blue Orange Games in 2007. It is a set of double-6 dominoes with a 120-degree curve. The main difference from dominoes is the curved shap ...

'' * ''Dr. Eureka'' * ''Zimmbos'' * ''Dr. Microbe'' * ''Brix'' * ''

Photosynthesis Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that, through cellular respiration, can later be released to fuel the organism's activities. Some of this chemical energy is stored i ...

'' * '' Kingdomino'' * ''Fantastic Park'' * ''Vikings on Board'' * ''Bao Bab'' *''Sushi Draft'' *''Battle Sheep''

References

{{reflist Board game publishing companies Companies based in San Francisco 2000 establishments in California