La Boîte de Jeu is an independent French board game publishing company founded in 2013 by Benoit Bannier, Benjamin Carayon and Timothée Gibelin, and based in Arceau, France. La Boîte de Jeu has enjoyed rapid growth with games such as Cerbère and It’s a Wonderful World, but also by developing expertise in launching new products using the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. La Boîte de Jeu’s current catalogue comprises around 20 games, mainly aimed at fans of strategy games.
Together with his team, Benoit Bannier will remain at the helm of La Boîte de Jeu and will continue developing the company, working alongside Isabelle Jeuge-Maynart, CEO of Hachette Boardgames, who will become its chairman.
Hachette Livre’s acquisition of a controlling stake in this leading studio will strengthen the Hachette Boardgames division. La Boîte de Jeu will perfectly complement the product offering of Hachette Boardgames’ existing studios : Funnyfox (generalist), Studio H (strategy and family), Sorry We Are French (strategy and family), Le Scorpion Masqué (family and party), Hiboutatillus (party) and Gigamic (family). The games of La Boîte de Jeu products are already distributed by Blackrock Games, which is also part of Hachette Boardgames.
La Boîte de Jeu should also be able to capitalise on the expertise of Benoit Bannier and his team in Kickstarter to launch new projects, in order to develop consultancy services for Hachette Livre’s own studios and also other studios, to help them with their crowdfunding projects.
The transaction is subject to certain customary conditions precedent and should be completed by the end of February 2022.