Acquire

This Sid Sackson classic has taken many different forms over the years depending on the publisher. Each player strategically invests in businesses, trying to retain a majority of stock. As the businesses grow with tile placements, they also start merging, giving the majority stockholders of the acquired business sizable bonuses, which can then be used to reinvest into other chains. All of the investors in the acquired company can then cash in their stocks for current value or trade them 2-for-1 for shares of the newer, larger business. The game is a race to acquire the greatest wealth.

The original version is part of the 3M Bookshelf Series.

See More Information for the different versions.

Magazine References:

The GENERAL Index Article List:

• The GENERAL Vol.26,No.3
  • Acquire – “Acquiring the Knack-Improving your play of a classic” (Strategy) by Richard Berthold and Lawrence Waldman

Awards

• 1993 Essener Feder Winner.
• 1979 Spiel des Jahres Recommendation.

Microbadges

Acquire Versions

1962 wooden tiles	ca. 1962-1963 Acquire by 3M. Original "World Map" Version with wooden tiles. Polychromatic picture of man with glasses holding a tile. Marked "Copyright 1963 by Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company" on the back of the box, no copyright mark on the front of the box; box is taller than the standard 3M bookshelf size; image on the back of the box is black and white. Wooden tiles in this version and next have a much smaller font-face than the plastic tile versions. Wooden tiles feature a fleur-de-lys on the back, whereas plastic tiles are merely hollow on the backsides. Instead of the later grid-board, this version has a single-fold game board with a gray Mercator-projection world map with a green grid superimposed over it. This version also used a different rule-set than later versions -- each of the companies had a different number of stock certificates, a number of each were shuffled and dealt out to players at the start of the game, and players were limited to only buy one share per turn, and stock holdings were open to the extent that players were required to show that they owned stock in a company, but not how much stock they owned in the company.
1963	ca. 1962-1963 Acquire by 3M. Wooden tiles version with grid board. Polychromatic picture of man with glasses holding a tile. Standard 3M bookshelf-size box. Rules differ significantly from the previous edition, with an equal number of shares available in each chain, a limit of three stocks bought each turn, open portfolios, etc.
1968	ca. 1962-1976 Acquire by 3M and, later, by Avalon Hill. Plastic tiles version with grid board. Polychromatic picture of man with glasses holding a tile. Standard 3M bookshelf-size box. Avalon Hill versions used lidded boxes as opposed to the 3M slipcase, but used mostly the same artwork (with minor box variations).
1976	ca. 1976 - Acquire by Avalon Hill. Gray box, with picture of a hotel lobby.
?	ca. ?? - Acquire/Hotel Konig by Schmidt Spiele.
	ca. ?? - Hotel-Haie by Schmidt Spiele.
1993-1 1993-2	ca. 1993 - Acquire by Schimdt Spiele - There are at least two covers for this version. Instead of tiles, players draw cards that represent the board intersections. Plastic buildings are placed on the played intersection, and the chains are denoted by markers that plug into the buildings.
1995	ca. 1995 - Avalon Hill version - Guy in suit with hands around glowing building. Cardboard tiles. Special powers tiles.
1997	1997 - Acquire by Schmidt Spiele - The "holy grail" of Acquire versions. Schmidt planned to release a new version of Acquire, one that used the cards concept from their earlier version, but instead with a board whose grid's focus was the center, and every grid combination was represented four times, i.e., four A-1s, four A-2s, four B-1s, etc. The game did not enter full production, and extant copies are estimated to be about one dozen. Note that the box cover is similar but not identical to one of the covers used in 1993!
1999	1999 - Avalon Hill large box version. Plastic tile "caps" for gridded board. Chain markers are buildings of three different heights. Theme has been changed from hotels to technology corporations. Went out of print around 2004-05.
2008	2008 - Avalon Hill square box version. The tiles are cardboard, the caps are double-wide cardboard tiles, and the board is a normal, flat cardboard game board.