Klaus Teuber, the creator of the popular board game Catan, has died after a brief illness, according to a family statement. He was 70 years old.
The board game, originally called The Settlers of Catan when it was introduced in 1995 and based on a set of hexagonal tiles, has sold tens of millions of copies and is available in more than 40 languages. It has spawned dozens of spin-offs and new editions, including electronic versions, not to mention game-related merchandise.
“It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that the Teuber family announces that their loving husband and father Klaus Teuber passed away at the age of 70 on April 1, 2023 after a short and severe illness,” the statement posted on the website said. the website in German. Catan website. The family requested privacy.
A statement from the Catan studio team on social media noted that “while Klaus’s contributions to the board game industry are immeasurable, we will remember him most as a kind and selfless human being, an inspiring leader and, what is Most importantly, as a friend. ”
Teuber was born in June 1952 in the German town of Rai-Breitenbach. He was working as a dental technician in the 1980s outside the industrial city of Darmstadt when he began designing board games in his basement, he told the New Yorker magazine in 2014. “I had a lot of problems with the company and the profession.” , said. the said. “I developed games to escape. This was my own world that I created.”
In the multiplayer game, competitors use five resources to build their colonies or settlements: wool, grain, wood, bricks, and minerals. Teuber never thought that his game would be so successful; he finally quit his job as a dental technician in 1998 “when I felt that Catan could feed me and my family,” he told the New Yorker. The game became a family business.
In the first five months of the pandemic in 2020, sales skyrocketed as people gamed in quarantine, the company told NPR.
The Catan studio team urged those mourning Teuber to “honor the memory of Klaus by being kind to one another, pursuing your creative passions without fear, and enjoying a game with your loved ones.”
