CATAN: Reid Hoffman’s favorite board game for business leaders

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/0dea4065ff167056

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Playing a game, uh especially Katan.
Makes you get
To know that person much more than endless hours of just conversing because it brings out the real nature.
This week on Masters of Scale.
I talk with Ben and Guido Toyber.
Their brothers who grew up playing the hitboard game Catan.
Because thirty years ago, their father Klaus invented it.
Now the brothers run the business of Catan, with more than 45 million games sold worldwide.
We'll talk about why I think this game, where players pretend to develop an island by gathering resources, building roads, and forming trading alliances, is the best board game for entrepreneurs.
the publishing company was so overwhelmed because they got all of these orders. They thought it was an April Fool's joke too late in the year when they got these orders, and then the retailer said, No no, we mean it. We want that order. What we didn't anticipate was
how well it would also take off in other markets and especially the United States. I did not anticipate that it would be
the global success that it is now, thirty years later.

You gotta have incredible talent at every position.
Huge push. There are fires burning when you're going out. Can you believe it? Such an idiot. And then you go back to this is totally gonna be amazing. There are so many easy ways to do it. I have no idea what it's doing. Sorry, we made a mistake. But you have to time it right. Oops. We're gonna add a free bedroom apartment.
Not ball ten years later, well that's just how you do it. We haven't made it just how you do it.
This
is masters of scale.
I'm Reid Hoffman, your host.
Ben and Guido's father, Klaus, invented the board game, originally called Settlers of Catan, when the boys were young.
They've spent a lifetime in the family business of scaling the game and its philosophy of succeeding through strategic collaboration.
players compete to cultivate an island, farming, mining, and expanding their territory.
But to do so, they need to trade strategically and build alliances.
I think we could all use more practice with that.
In our lives and businesses.
Ben Guido, welcome to Master of Scale. I've been looking forward to this for a number of years.
As you both know, I'm a
huge fan of settlers.
Probably first coming to your attention with the Wall Street Journal story, front page story about how much I like settlers. Which I thought was rather amusing, but I was perfectly happy given how much I like what you guys do.
And so why don't we start with what your earliest
Memories.
Of the game world. Well, first of all, thanks so much for having us here. It's an absolute pleasure.
Been looking forward to this for.
Very long time. My first memory with Catanas, I think one of the first prototypes must have been ninety three.
And it was handcrafted, uh, you know, the game was released in ninety five.
So it was handcrafted by our dad and he hand painted it. I do remember wanting to collect these resources, not want to give them away, but they were so nice and
Very, very vivid memory.
There's one picture that we have and it shows me with full hair, long full hair unimaginable now. And it's in a ski hut in Austria and it's been
My dad and we had family around and the prototype was on the table at a stage where I think it was nearly finished.

So one of the things I'm curious about is how did it
play a role in your family dynamic because
You know, at least my experience playing settlers, and I don't know how universal this is.
But one of the classic parts of negotiation is like no no no, don't trade with Tom. Tom's closer to winning, or Tom betrayed you on the last one, or or you know, that kind of thing. And I I'm curious, you know, obviously because it's a family business, how did settlers play a role at the dining table and the evolution of the family dynamic?
I was quite young and I I wanted to win for sure. You know, it's one of the values that you have when
growing up with a board game inventor as a dad, that you also start to lose learning very early. But back then I wanted to win and I was very ambitious. And I do know that it were tough, tough fights, uh who will win?

And it's a running gag in the family where we have the saying, Benny always wins.
And it's nearly true when you do win a lot, and it was always a fun little rivalry, especially between
You and our dad. And I have to say
For me, bringing Catan over to the United States in ninety seven.
It was quite a different cultural experience the way people play Catan in Germany versus the United States.
People take the kit gloves off here in the United States more. So Can you go into any more depth on what you found?
In the cultural parallels and dissimilarities between the US gameplay and the German gameplay?
If you ask our dad, he uh would have answered something like a katanis almost cooperative game. In the end you'll still have constructed something. And then in the comments in the US comments you could read, Well, clearly he doesn't know what game he created. He should come to the US and play with us because that's not how we play it here.
That was funny for us to uh because we really believe that. And if you go to the World Championships, we have the 60 national champions competing.
You'll discover a lot of different play styles. I don't know how many people who are listening to this have actually played. I
Highly recommended. It's one of the reasons why I'm here talking to you guys.
But a quick
Precy of what settlers of Catan is. You have an island, it's uninhabited, you build settlements, you build cities and roads, and the more you build, the more resources you gather.
You trade those resources with your opponents or fellow players, depending on where you come from and what's your cultural experience. And then you'll build with the resources. And the more you build, the
More likely you're uh reaching ten victory points first and win the game.
So the way that I got so hooked was that I thought it was the
And still think it is the best game.
that mirrors a bunch of things that are more true about like entrepreneurship.
And it's partially because
You have partial knowledge of the common set.
mean maybe you've been tracking exactly what resources are in the hands, but even then that can trade out with a robber. You have collaboration, which is an essential thing, in addition to competition. And then there were some really unique elements that I'd never seen before, like the tiles
Being randomly put out,
You never play on the same board twice.
We've been very lucky to have had such a great start in Germany, but in the United States
It was really a challenge to explain to people because you have to play it. I mean, even if you're super excited about explaining it, you have these resources and you trade them, and then once you've trade it, then you can build stuff.
And then a lot of people would have fallen asleep by the time you've gotten to build stuff.
But when you play it and you see it in action and immediately see the dopamine hit when people started trading and all of a sudden it's
so important to have the or and why does no one want your sheep? And and so it's just one of those you just have to experience and you can't really explain it.
In our family, it was interesting. We have definitely
different representation from the planners, the combative ones, the diplomats. Our dad was often in the situation where he played the game, but then also
checked out like how everyone reacted and and what sort of the vibe was. And he was thinking at the same time while he was moving the pieces,
He was thinking about, well, could this be optimized? So there was always like something in the back of his mind where he played the game and then also kind of developed or tweaked it in his mind as we were playing.
And sometimes you are different when you play a game versus how you are in life. For instance, I see myself a bit more of someone a bridge builder, someone who's a diplomat, and yet my mom has commented often that why are you so ruthless in this game? I don't I don't even recognize who you are.
It's like who are you? She she said that in one game, that's true.
Well, and this is actually one of the things that I find kind of amusing because for example a common
trait in games that I'm playing. So like for example of Ben
You and I were playing a lot, the the people I play with, they'd say, Oh, Ben wins all the time. Don't trade with him, trade with me. But like the there's a whole psychological
side that goes to it.
where the game has more of an entrepreneurial texture or real world texture because it plays into all of those dynamics. That's true. I think playing one hour a game, especially something as Catan, where you have the social
Skills also make you get
To know that person much more than endless hours of just conversing because you can, you know
represent anyone, but uh playing actually brings out you know I know this doesn't speak to your earlier example, but it brings out the real nature. Yeah, totally. Yeah.
So when did each of you get formally involved in the family business and how did that come about? Ben, we'll start with you.
So I studied psychology and then I studied management.
I love both worlds growing up and
I never
really really intended to join the family business. It was all very open and since our dad
was a little bit forced by his dad into his business. He was like, you guys do whatever you want. And Guido was in the company already by then. I I felt like this would be wonderful to work with a family. Guido and I sometimes compare it to an additional family member
Because it's now thirty years, I'm forty, so it's such a long time in our lifespan. And at some point it was just like this is right now because it contains
My love for psychology and as well for management to have this company and
kind of feels like a start up still somehow to us because we make so many new things every year.
And um actually haven't recorded
One day I lost.
Waking up.
Going to work.
Yeah, for me it was a similar experience in the sense that it had been published in nineteen ninety six by Mayfair Games. And then I emigrated to the United States, uh first uh was here to study and then
I uh became a permanent uh resident studying international relations and always wanted to do that something uh in that arena diplomacy. And I had a chat with my dad and at that time he said, Hey
Kinda looks
Like Catan is here to stay. There's different publishers in different countries and they're interested in the license and
I really need someone who can coordinate and manage the
Yeah.
So I was still in graduate school, but I said like something went off and I was like, Oh, this is actually it. This is diplomacy, this is international relations kind of just with the uh publishers. I love the game. And it was a um connection to my dad to the family. So I said like
Why don't we try it out? I I would love to do it. So that was really cool. And it I always liken Catan as a passport. It was my personal passport at conventions or in board game cafes and so on. It was really cool to connect to people that when you were immediately part of a community. So I also never regretted it and it
It fulfills me every morning I wake up, I have to pinch myself and say, This is really sort of a continued dream I'm living and we're living. And now Benny and I
can stay connected that way. It's so great to have the business that also then keeps us personally super close across the Atlantic Ocean.
When did your dad first realize that this was going to be a success? Sure. Yeah. I remember when just right out of the gate it was super successful in Germany, and there were several reasons for it. This was almost like a shock because we did not anticipate. We we always figured, well, this game would be very successful among game enthusiasts. And then the
publishing company was so overwhelmed because they got all of these orders.
They thought it was an April Fool's kind of uh joke too late in the year.
When they got these orders and then the retailers said, No, no, we mean it. We we we want that order. What we didn't anticipate was how well it would also take off in other markets and especially the United States. And that came much later. But even in those days, I did not anticipate that it would be
the global success that it is now, thirty years later.
Forty five million copies, we we would never expect anything like this to happen. Reed, we sometimes personally hold you responsible. I don't think there's any interview when they ask us about the success in the US.
Where your name doesn't come up because I think you introduced it in meetings and you said, You know, I play it with
C level job interviews because I want to get to know them.
And that is just so much the soul of the game.
Yeah, that was quite surprising for us how that developed.
Still ahead.
More with the Toyber Brothers.
on how Catan scaled into a global gaming phenomenon, and what's next for the brand.
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Welcome back to Masters of Scale. You can find this conversation and more on our YouTube channel.
So what are some of the biggest challenges?
that the company is faced in scaling.
Licensing, marketing, manufacturing
For me the most
cutting and scary one was piracy.
And that was in two thousand seventeen. So
Mayfair Games was a great steward. They brought up the game here. They brought it through the ranks like they were in colleges. Their marketing was basically from going from event to event, Gen Con and another game.
Events and just demoing one game at a time. And that strategy went really well. And then in 2017, something strange happened on
Amazon seeing the ratings for Catan plummet, where we usually
were sort of miffed if we got uh four star rating, it was like, Oh, what did we do wrong? We really have the aspiration to have five star ratings because we really want to
offer a premium game to players and what's with these one stars. And it turned out
that piracy was the culprit and there was a wave of piracy originating mostly from from China and then just coming container loads and then at some point every fourth or fifth game
was actually a pirated copy from China.
It took us two years to sort it out and it was really
For me personally the biggest
Gar and something that set us back for a little bit. We've recovered from it. And it's
It's sort of an
Forever problem, but it's something that's manageable.
Yeah, I think that was one of the biggest threats.
One of the biggest challenges.
Was maybe
The organic growth?
As just mentioned in ninety five, we didn't expect this game to grow as much, and Katan grew constantly. It was the first time that he
We experienced something like that. And
More countries came and wanted to publish Catan. And one of the reasons why we took away settlers of Catan is
that there are declinations in different languages. So in some languages, I think in Czech it needed to be called Katanu
And in French they added an E so that the pronunciation is Catane.
Otherwise it would have been Catan.
But they were like, Well, you know, we can do what we want. So like
Bringing all this back together has been a really big challenge.
We have now
Forty four languages.
It's a constant learning curve, but that challenge was really
A remarkable one.
Well that reminds me. Congrats on the thirtieth anniversary of the game and the new sixth edition.
There's a ton of expansions. Right. So
There's Seafarers, there's cities, nights, um there's some branded ones, you know, like Star Trek.
How much of it was a strategy, how much is it w people coming to you? What have been the learnings of the kind of the breadth
Of how katana's
Expanded.

Yeah, would say just in general, we're very selective and we take great care to vet everything. And so for Catan, just in very general terms.
we make sure that when we
license something or even approach the idea that it has to be a good fit, right? So for example, Game of Thrones and Catan on the face of it
That is not not a an obvious fit, right? But we found actually as a team this small area and an event diagram where you had a an overlap.
And then we looked at that and then it was really intriguing.
Because on the face of it, the IP was really interesting to us. So
There is really
Great care and I would say
It's always important to
offers something, not just a a a reskin of something with a particular topic.
But then to add something that's really unique. And I think that segues well into
More the design.

something that you have taken on. So
But I think in in very general terms it's really something
Where we
excruciatingly
Carefully.
measure and that
And think and ponder.
whether it would be a right fit. And if it's not, then we've said
No to a lot of interested parties. Even on the face of it, if it
seemed attractive or it's a great brand or IP.
We did say no a lot. In some cases it's really feel sad, but then you do the right thing because it has to be an organic fit with katan.
Mm. Yeah. And I I could show you.
I'm not sure if it's dozens of boxes, but a lot of boxes of games who have not made it to the shelf because
For multiple reasons, as Guido just said, maybe the fit for the brand wasn't right. Can't imagine how many expansion suggestions we have received.
Why don't we introduce soldiers and tanks?
I was like no, that's not the philosophy of Catan. Uh so that's one like the brand fit
Which expansion gets most used?
And are there any lessons from that?
I would say the Red Box, so the base game is kind of like the core of it all. I have to say my personal favorite lately is uh Catan Connect. It's a relaunch of 2015's
Katan big game. We've been
Making a world record with most people playing Katan in the same time, the same game.
So we have had thousand people on long benches and there is one dice roll and everybody
plays the same turn. You have thirty seconds and you're like screaming around like who can trade? And it's very hectic. Uh you're like screaming at your neighbors, friendly screaming, and you can be the winner of a of a game which is as big as um a thousand people. So this year we'll do another world record in in the game fair of Essen in Germany.
And we uh want to have one thousand two hundred people in a much bigger hall.
And uh I've been playing this game in the last weeks and months so much that I have to say it's my absolute favorite at the moment because that mode is
So fun.
Yeah, I think that is is really uh has the feeling of a party, and whether it's in a smaller circle with let's say twelve or eighteen people or thousands, it's just always like it feels like the a mixture of going to a sports event and a and a concert and playing a board game in that overlap in the Venn diagram.
And I I have to say, so for me, the most exciting new variant or standalone uh game is uh new energies. Then you you can claim that. That's uh your design.
That has been great. So
I went to the verge the environmental conventions. They they are very focused on on sort of obviously serious and important topics, but sometimes
It's nice to have an icebreaker. And so we had a little room where we uh basically introduced new energies.
And policy makers, people from logistics companies, people who were in the
environmental field they were super interested and it was actually uh a lot of fun and also at the same time educational. We had some
guest speakers and it was really awesome to see a bridge of something where where games can literally help
to break the ice. Just it was wonderful. We learned a lot from that experience just about renewable energy.
So maybe Ben, this is the right question for you, because I did mean to ask. I mean, what was the inspiration, what has the response been to the new energy, the climate catan is obviously very
timely in terms of important issues in society. So what was the inspiration and what have been the learnings so far?
We had a little scenario called the oil springs.
Uh it was sent in.
uh by uh a guy called Eric Azadurian. He was, you know, part of World Watch like Environmental Society. This is a free little scenario now, which we actually still offer for free download. But um we can make a game of this because it's fascinating and and and twenty fifteen kind of feels like a different world somehow, but
We started and we're not scientists. We know very little about it and
I didn't want to make a game based on assumptions that I got from reading the news and then maybe a little bit of scientific stuff. So
I called up Eric Azadurian again and and I asked him if he could be my, you know, scientific advisor. And if that game makes sense and and it slowly became really round, uh, and therefore I really like
That game particularly well too.
I have a copy. I've played it a few times, meaning to play it more.
been kinda busy starting some AI companies.
But what's been the response so far?
Yeah.
I have to say one of the most important things.
beautiful things that I saw was when I scrolled through my LinkedIn page and then I saw uh Bill Gates playing it. I was like, well, this is insane. But of course we were thinking about will there be critical voices as well.
And that was one of the reasons why we did ask Eric to make the scientific check. Like, does this make sense?
And then the same time, from a game design perspective,
It was really important to to our dad and me that we
Didn't
Just make a dream world where the only way of winning will be green.
But we wanted to uh depict it very realistic. So there is also a way of
Winning only by
fossil power. But that only works if you're the only one and the other players all play green and they don't stop you.
All those dynamics are scenarios of our reality, really.
And I think that it
Is so realistic and that people are what
What game did you create there? Like I I won with ten points by building all those fossil.
Power plants and I was like, Yeah, but like how did the players react?
That discussion almost always emerges after the game, right? Like, well, why did you play dirty or why did you play focusing only on renewable energies? And then it's
What's really fascinating is
speaking with a lot of policy makers at the Verge who were playing and they were saying, Oh man, this game really shows
that often it is sort of in that messy middle, right? Like you wanna play renewable strategy track, but it's so expensive initially. The beautiful thing is I feel that it's
Educational without the wagging finger.
And that people
Volunteer and it there's almost an eagerness, a motivation to discuss this topic. What do you guys see as the road ahead? The journey of
Where Catan is going, where the company is going.
I think um
A friend of us and and happens to be the head of Catan Studio in the US.
always said and keep saying we're just getting started.
And you know, it's been like one of those sayings now which is still
Sad because even after thirty years there are so many new things that we
continue doing like like this world record thing. Like it's a it's a big event. Uh in end of June we have a different one where the whole world plays Catan
In uh thirty five different
Nations. So it starts, I think, in the US, then we go to Europe, then we go to Asia, and there will be a twenty four hour live stream.
So that is something new.
And it still feels like very
Much like a startup. There are so many
more ways of telling that story and so many more experiences we can create.
Yeah, Benny beautifully said. I think something that resonated with me that you just said to be like a startup and to have that ethos or that emotion and that feeling, I think that keeps it fresh. And then whether it's
among three or four players or an indefinite number of players in Catan Connect.
That is something that I am also very excited to continue building. Just anything that Benny, as you said, also it has to be harvesting, trading, building.
And then that's sort of the core loop, but it is a fantastic vehicle to build community. It's almost like hard to keep up and to explore all the fantastic opportunities that there are to express the brand.
I'm gonna remember to ask Bill Gates if he wants to play New Energy with me, since I see him every so often.
Thank you both.
For coming the masters of scale.
Ben, it's been a great pleasure. I look forward to playing Katan with you at some point in person.
That would be an absolute pleasure any time.
Thank you for having us.
Thank you so much, Reed. It was wonderful and uh yes, we'd love to play again with you.
It was such a treat to talk with Ben and Guido about one of my favorite games. The way they're shepherding the brand first built by their father into the future is fascinating to watch.
Katan trul is one of the best ways to get you into the problem-solving mindset that entrepreneurship requires.
I hope you find a board and some friends and get all the games lumber, ore, wheat, and brick you need to build something great while playing together.
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