Schmidt Spiele

Schmidt Spiele was founded by Josef Friedrich Schmidt in Munich, Germany in 1905. One of the first — if not the first — games published was Mensch ärgere Dich nicht, a variant of Pachisi (similar to Parcheesi) with a simplified rule set still popular today in Europe.

The logo of the publisher used to be the initials of the founder plus the letter M representing the location of the company, Munich: J.F.S.M.

His son Franz Schmidt later on ran a publishing company in Nuremberg, Franconia/Bavaria, Germany, under the logo F.S.N. (Franz Schmidt Nuremberg). The company moved to Munich using F.S.M. (Franz Schmidt Munich) first then using the graphical logo with the double towers of the Marienkirche (also named Frauenkirche), the cathedral of Munich.

After Josef Friedrich Schmidt died the company in Munich continued using J.S.F.M. managed by his wife and daughter.

In 1970 both companies joined and the modern well known Schmidt Spiele moved to Eching, Bavaria, Germany. Since 1997 the Schmidt Spiele went bankrupt and company name and logo were bought by investor and publisher Blatz, thus consolidating Blatz and Schmidt (and probably others). Schmidt and it's logo is still used and yet main settlement is Berlin, Germany.

While Schmidt Spiele has published most of their games available in Finland by themselves, in the 1980's they were in solid cooperation with the Finnish publisher Kirjalito and especially their games brand Pelito which re-licensed many popular Schmidt Spiele games. There were even special logos for those games which combined the "S" of Schmidt Spiele with that of Kirjalito/Pelito.

Schmidt Spiele makes big games for little kids and little games for big kids – and vice versa. That’s what the Schmidt Spiele logo represents. Since our best ideas don’t cater to each and every game maniac, Schmidt Spiele has been in very successful cooperation with two brilliant game companies for many years. Ever since, they only have to focus more on what they do best: developing really good games.

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