How a CEO fiddled while beloved board game Glory to Rome crashed and burned

Enlarge / Glory to Rome, as seen in Jeff Lozito's recent unauthorized redesign/printing. (credit: Jeff Lozito)

I remember exactly where I was the first time I played Glory to Rome. It was the spring of 2011. I was on a Thalys high-speed train leaving Amsterdam, headed for Cologne, not far from where I was living at the time in Bonn, Germany. My friend Joe brought this new game straight from the US that he'd recently acquired-he was eager to teach it to me on the train ride.

Joe, who had a penchant for game nights, roped me into board games by teaching me the classic gateway game Catan. From there, I learned Puerto Rico, Power Grid, and many others. There was a period of time when our circle of friends gathered most Fridays over burritos and beer to play one game or another.

But GTR felt different. First, I noticed the packaging. Unlike the high-quality large-format cardboard boxes with soft colors and thoughtful art, GTR came in a compact, cheap, plastic tub that wasn't much bigger than a large paperback book. Second, and more jarring, was the game's art. It had a bright color palette and cartoonish characters that seemed like they belonged in a children's clip art computer game. But hey, who was I to argue with Joe?

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