A Derk appears from the mists...
United States
Portland
Oregon
BGG for the videogame world!!
BGG for the videogame world!!
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Acquire is the king of all business games. Written by the venerable game designer Sid Sackson, Acquire has been around for some thirty years, but it remains one of the most elegant designs that I’ve ever encountered. After playing it for the first time, I remember thinking how incredibly simple the concept was and marveling at the fact that ‘Monopoly’ is the game that sits on every family’s dusty game shelf and not this one. But maybe I can convert the world one person at a time.
The game has players vying for controlling interest in seven different hi-tech firms, which are represented by connected tiles placed on a 12-by-9 matrix. The meat of the game happens when two firms get merged, and the smaller of the two gets ‘bought out,’ which gives the majority and second majority an all-important holding bonus and also gives all investors the opportunity to cash in their stock. In the end, the player with the most cash wins.
A turn consists of three phases. First, a player must play a tile onto the corresponding place on the board. Then a player may purchase up to three pieces of stock from any of the active companies. Lastly, the player draws another tile to bring his hand back to six tiles. It sounds simple, and generally it is. The interesting part comes when you create a business or you merge two existing firms.
A company is created when two tiles are placed next to each other either horizontally or vertically. The player who placed the tile then selects one of the inactive firms to establish. If there aren’t any inactive businesses left, then the placement of that tile is deemed ‘temporarily unplayable,’ and the player must wait until one becomes available to play the tile.
There are three general groups of firms, based on the price per share. There are the cheapest ones: Zeta and Sackson (a miniscule nod to the designer); and there are the middle ones: Hydra, Fusion, and American; and there are the expensive ones: Phoenix and Quantum. There really is no difference between them, other than the price per share and the associated majority bonuses. When a player establishes a new business, he places the firm marker on the tiles and then receives a free stock certificate for that company. He can then buy more shares in this active company simply cross-indexing the size of the chain (based on the number of interconnected tiles) and the type of the chain (Zeta, Quantum, et al.).
The interesting thing is a firm's share cost and stock value are the same amount of money, based on size. So if you buy a bunch of shares of a company at $200 each, and the business doesn’t grow, then they’re still worth $200. If you were to increase the size of the firm, then each share you own is potentially more valuable. But acquiring new shares of the company is now more expensive, and at a lower margin for profit. So the perfect investment is one that stays really small (say two tiles) for a long time, and you are able to buy a decent majority of the twenty-five total shares. Then the firm grows massively, and suddenly gets merged into another even larger company. You get a huge bonus for having majority in the smaller company involved in a merger, and can cash in your stocks for enough money to retire to the Bahamas.
Unfortunately getting to the Bahamas isn’t the goal of the game. Instead players take their newly found wealth and reinvest it into new business ventures, always angling for more profit. The thing that struck me as odd in this game is the dynamics of share buying coupled with mergers. You start the game with very little money. You need to invest this initial cash wisely, for if you wrap up your money in entirely long-term firms (companies that don’t get gobbled up as the smaller partners of a merger), you won’t have enough cash to continue operating for the entire game. A nice cash flow is a requirement at the beginning of the game, and a nice assortment of majority stock in huge, expensive shares at the end is an advantage. The trick to the game is deciding when to transfer between the two ideas. I highly recommend this game to darn near anyone. There's a bit of math to it, but anyone who will sit through the rules will probably be able to handle it. :0
As a side note, there are several versions of this game in existence. There’s the original 3M version, which has a small-ish yellow plastic board and black plastic tiles and came in a bookcase-style box. And there’s an early Avalon Hill version that’s almost identical. Then, years later, Avalon Hill produced another version that was a long box (and large board) with cardboard tiles. Plus, there’s the recently released Hasbro version that’s similar to the original 3M version, except much, much nicer. The earlier versions were buying and selling shares of hotel chains, but that thematic change doesn't change the game in the slightest. Hopefully this newest incarnation will go a long way to helping the general population learn more about intelligent board gaming.
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Scott A. Reed
United States
Lawrence
Kansas
Yes, Scrofula, it sucks.
I just wasted 100 :gg: on this.
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Re:User Review
Acquire has been around for some thirty years
Actually, Derk, the venerable old Acquire has been around for forty years--originally published by 3m in 1962.
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Christy Hewes
United States
Pacific
Missouri
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 I love this game and that's a great review of the game play. I've been searching for this game for quite awhile. I played it in my late teens at a friends house and haven't seen it since. Thanks for reminding me it was out there.
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Joseph Kent
United States
Mankato
Minnesota
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You've converted me! I just got the game and I love it! Wouldn't have got it if it wasn't for your review. Thanks!
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