James Ernest and Crab Fragment Labs have announced that they have regained total ownership of Cheapass Games. More than two years ago, Crab Fragment issued a cryptic “Cheapass is coming home” newsletter when this change seemed imminent. That turned out to be a false alarm, as the offer was made by someone whose job no longer included making such offers.
But now at last, Flat River Group have signed off on a rescission of the licensing contract, which means all Cheapass IP is now squarely back under Ernest and Crab Fragment Labs’ control.
With their permission, they are already been hosting old PDFs and posting a few updated decks at Crab Fragment, mostly made around the time when they thought the change was coming. But this time it’s for real, and it’s huge for us.
Crab Fragment Labs was already bristling with new games, having created more than fifty new titles since 2019. Now they have tripled its inventory, and they’re rearranging their workload around the updated list.
Cheapass Games has always been dismayed with the cost of board games, and they plan to make a large chunk of the old catalog available for free. Not just the “original” PDF versions, as they have now at Cheapassic Park, but also all-new PDFs featuring old-style presentation with updated rules.
We’ll put the latest versions of our favorite Cheapass card games at DriveThruCards. Games like Lord of the Fries, Give Me The Brain, Button Men, the Spy Game, and more. There’s even have a few unreleased expansions, from back when they were still in charge.
Work is still being done in how exactly to integrate James Ernest’s old brands with his new ones, redesigning the web presence as they work on migrating trademark registrations and URLs.
This mailing list has always been for fans of Cheapass Games and Crab Fragment Labs, so not much changes here. It is expected that Cheapass Games will be the main publishing imprint, while Crab Fragment Labs still represents the design studio. There’s also additional brands to manage including Hip Pocket Games and James Ernest Games.
They’ll be looking for new publishers for their most popular games.
