Status: 4/4/2023 4:22 p.m
With “The Settlers of Catan” he created one of the most successful board games in the world – now Klaus Teuber has died at the age of 70. The game developer wrote the story of his greatest success until the very end.
The developer of the parlor game “The Settlers of Catan” is dead. Klaus Teuber died on April 1 at the age of 70 “after a short but serious illness”, according to Catan GmbH and Kosmos-Verlag.
Teuber also invented other successful board games such as “Barbarossa”, “Nobility Committed”, “Hunter and Drüber”, “The Flying Dutchman” and “Lionheart”, which were honored with the awards “Game of the Year” or “German Games Prize”.
30 million copies sold in 70 countries
But none of them can be compared with the economic success of the games from the “Catan” universe. Since the game was released in 1995, more than 30 million copies have been produced worldwide – translated into 41 languages and sold in 70 countries.
However, Teuber’s own life hardly changed with the success story. Born in 1952 in a village in the Odenwald district, the game developer initially worked as a dental technician before later turning his hobby into a career. In 1988 he developed his first game, “Barbarossa”, which was voted “Game of the Year”.
Klaus Teuber’s greatest success: “The Settlers of Catan” – the game has sold more than 30 million copies.
Image: dpa
Teuber worked on the “Catan” novel trilogy until the very end
He invested around 40 hours a week in “the big baby” Catan – “although I should actually be hearing it,” as he once put it. Until the very end, he worked on the third volume of his trilogy of novels that went with the game, as Kosmos-Verlag wrote.
In 2002, Teuber founded Catan GmbH together with his wife and sons, with which he marketed the games he had developed. “With his many award-winning games, he has inspired millions of people around the world,” said Kosmos-Verlag.