Our story
In the beginning there is no nugget of gold, but a rather modest hand-glued game. And unlike the famous fairy tale, the Hans im Glück publishing house’s success curve has been steadily rising. Since the first Essen Spielertage in 1983 with the game DODGE CITY, the Munich-based publisher’s titles have become firmly established on the gaming scene and have been showered with recognition and awards. Bernd Brunnhofer and Karl-Heinz Schmiel could never have dreamed of this when they embarked on the adventure of game publishing with a garage workshop.
With GREYHOUNDS, the publishing house attracts attention from a wider audience for the first time when the game is shortlisted for Spiel des Jahres 1986. After Karl-Heinz Schmiel retired from the publishing house in 1987 to devote more time to his profession as a teacher, Bernd Brunnhofer’s work became a full-time job.The games were no longer screen-printed by hand, but the production quality seamlessly matched the high standards of other publishers.In 1990, the first major success was achieved with the Goldene Pöppel (the forerunner of the German Games Prize) for the game MAESTRO and in 1991, Hans im Glück Verlag was the first small publisher ever to be awarded the title “Game of the Year” with DRUNTER & DRÜBER by Klaus Teuber. The workload increases enormously, so that in 1992 the publishing house is strengthened by Volker Weitzel, who takes over editorial, marketing and press work.
Unfortunately, a game of the year cannot be marketed by a two-man publishing house, so with Fun Connection a powerful distributor can be recruited.. When Fun Connection got into difficulties, the Berlin-based Blatzgruppe took over distribution. As early as 1994, the next Spiel des Jahres, MANHATTAN by Andreas “Leo” Seyfarth, is celebrated together. And two years later, the time has come again: EL GRANDE by Wolfgang Kramer and Richard Ulrich is named Spiel des Jahres 1996 and is still considered one of the best games for fans of challenging games.
In 1998, Dirk Geilenkeuser joins the publishing house to relieve Volker Weitzel of office work. At the end of 2000, Volker Weitzel decides to change sectors and leave the publishing house. Once again, the publishing house is a two-man team. But in 2001, the game CARCASSONNE by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede is certainly the biggest success in the history of the publishing house. CARCASSONNE becomes Spiel des Jahres, wins the German Games Award and sells over 700,000 copies in its first year – in Germany alone. Since then, several million CARCASSONNE games have been sold and the game has been translated into over 20 languages.
Georg (Schorsch) Wild has been part of the publishing house since 2002 and has been an integral part of the test groups for many years. He is mainly responsible for the layout of game rules, materials and game boxes and, in addition to many other games, was also heavily involved in the 2006 Game of the Year – Thurn und Taxis – by Karen and Andreas Seyfarth.
Moritz Brunnhofer joined the publishing house in 2008 – initially as an intern. He quickly took on important tasks and founded the Hans im Glück Verlag online store with Carcassonne & Co. In 2017, he finally took over the management from his father.
In 2012, Jasmin Weigand and Michael Fronia join the growing team. Michael takes over the correspondence with the authors and Jasmin supports Schorsch with the ever-increasing data processing and layout. Both also take on editorial tasks. We have Jasmin to thank for such beautiful layouts as Stone Age Junior, which was voted Kinderspiel des Jahres in 2016.
And the publishing house continues to grow and change: in 2016, Johannes Natterer takes over Michael Fronia’s work, especially the collaboration with the authors. And in 2017, Freddy Diebold joins the team, who mainly takes care of the huge amounts of data that are now being generated by more and more partners abroad. Jasmin Weigand and Georg Wild leave the publishing house in 2019. Marcel Gröber, a professional illustrator and graphic designer, is also hired. Since summer 2020, our working student Réka Nagy has been supporting Johannes in creating and testing prototypes. At the end of 2020, Alena Rolinski joins the team as further support in the area of graphics. In 2022, Elmar Quiring joined in the area of game development and Carolin Mull for accounting.
Since the beginning of 2023, we have had Eve Gassner as an organizational talent for events as a team member. And since the end of 2023, Laura Leiz has also been working in the graphics team and supporting the editorial team. Finally, Hannah Schuster joined the team at the beginning of 2024 and is responsible for marketing and the publisher’s social media presence.
Of course, there are also the three employees of Carcassonne & Co, our online store: Andreas Kramer has been in charge of this since 2016, assisted by Christiane Schmidtholstein and Ron Bussenius.
Our testers and one man in particular should not go unmentioned: Dieter Hornung. He has been with us from the very beginning and has contributed his countless ideas to many games. One of the secrets of our success is certainly the weekly test evenings in Dieter’s tiny cellar, where we are surrounded by shelves of games. And last but not least, the circle closes again, because with the co-founder of the publishing house, Karl-Heinz Schmiel, the small test team is complete, which meets every few days to turn good game ideas into even better games. The regular test team also includes Klaus Knechtskern and Gregor Abraham, who have contributed many an important idea to the Hans im Glück games and will certainly continue to do so in the future.
A small team with great enthusiasm for games has grown from the idea of making great games. Many more great games are sure to follow …