Pegasus Spiele

50°19′08″N 8°44′58″E / 50.31889°N 8.74944°E / 50.31889; 8.74944

Pegasus Spiele Verlags – und Medienvertriebsgellschaft mbH (English: Pegasus Games Publishing and Media Distribution Company mbH) is a German board game publisher and distributor. Pegasus was founded in 1993 by Karsten Esser and Andreas Finkernagel in Friedberg, Germany, and has remained there even since. The company has won 10 Spiel des Jahres awards and published or distributed over 5,000 games. Pegasus also has a distribution branch in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Finkernagel has said that he was inspired by his English teacher to start a board game company.^[1] Pegasus Spiele was founded by the two friends, Esser and Finkernagel in 1993 as a fantasy shop in downtown Friedberg.^[2][3][4] The founders, 19 and 20 at the time, had dropped out of college to establish the store.^[5][6] The original store was in a location vacated by their parents, next to the former Joh department store.^[1][7] The founders also started a fantasy club, Die Gemeinschaft des Rings (English: The Community of the Rings),^[3] and published a gaming magazine.^[4] The business first evolved into a game wholesaler, and in 1994, Pegasus expanded into publishing.^[4][5] Their first published game was GURPS, a pen-and-paper role-playing game (RPG).^[3] Pegasus adopted the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering early, being one of the first distributors of it, but lost the rights for the game 4 years later.^[4][8] The company hosted the first Magic championship in Germany in Friedberg.^[6]

The game Munchkin, published in 2003, contributed greatly to the company's growth in the 2000s and remains the company's bestseller.^[3][9] Pegasus began publishing the cooperative game Pandemic in 2008, which Esser described as a "game changer" for the company.^[4][10] They received their first Spiel des Jahres nomination in 2009 for Pandemic and their first win in 2012.^[9] Pegasus had to relocate their store several times for space, but wanted to remain in Friedberg.^[6] The company first moved to the western industrial park, but after running out of room again, they built a new building in the southern industrial park in 2014.^[5][6] In 2018, the publisher entered into a licensing agreement with Games Workshop for Talisman.^[8][11] During the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, sales of Pegasus games boomed as families across the world began playing more games.^[7] In 2021, Pegasus opened its North America branch in Minneapolis, Minnesota.^[1][12] For Friedberg's 800th anniversary, the company released The Tsar is Coming for the city.^[13] This game was inspired by Tsar Nicholas II's 1910 visit to Hesse.^[13] For a few months in 2023, Pegasus operated a pop-up store in downtown Friedberg.^[5] In 2023, construction started on a new adjacent building, dubbed "Pegasus 2".^[4][14] The expansion, completed in April 2024, includes a new office building and warehouse and doubled the business's capacity.^[14] The new building was built by the same company, Goldbeck, that built the main building in 2014.^[14] Their first original development to win the Spiel des Jahres was Dorfromantik, in 2023.^[1]

As of 2023, Pegasus has 5–6,000 games in their catalogue, although not all are published by Pegasus, just distributed.^[7][9] Pegasus publishes about 500 games themselves.^[9] The company is not open about profits but says it makes "tens of millions" of euros in revenue and sells about 1 million games per year.^[1][6][7] On average, a Pegasus sells 3,000 copies of a game, although Spiel des Jahres winners receive a significant boost.^[1] In Germany, Pegasus has a brand awareness of 17%.^[7] Pegasus participates in the "Get to the Center" downtown initiative (German: Ab in die Mitte) as well as the Bad Nauheim- and Friedberg Plays festivals.^[15][16]

As of April 2023, Pegasus employs 58 people, as well as over 100 freelancers.^[9][17] Both Esser and Finkernagel remain as joint CEOs of the company.^[5] Esser primarily manages finances while Finkernagel manages marketing and sales, although they collaborate on other aspects of the company.^[5]

Pegasus has "alliances" with smaller publishers across Germany and the world.^[4] The company has distribution or licensing agreements with Games Workshop^[11], Deep Print Games^[18], Portal Games (in Germany), Matagot, Steve Jackson Games, Abacus Spiele, White Goblin Games, MeterMorphosen, and WizKids.^[19]

Pegasus's first game was GURPS, which they published in 1994.^[3] They also distributed the popular card game Magic: The Gathering for four years before losing its rights.^[4] The publishing of Munchkin (2003)^[3] and Pandemic (2008) led to significant growth for the company, with Esser calling the latter a "game changer".^[4][10] Other bestselling games include Kingdomino, Azul, MicroMacro, and Dorfromantik.^[9][20]

As of 2024, Pegasus only develops directly with developers family games, lower-expert games ("Kennerspiele"), and card games.^[21] Pegasus also publishes RPGs and fantasy books.^[6][22] The company releases 100-150 games per year on average.^[17]

As of 2025, Pegasus-published games have won the Spiel des Jahres 10 times and been nominated 13 times.

Sources: ^{[9][20][23][24]}