NEW YORK — Getting hit in the face with a pie makes for a great Facebook video.
It’s that simple truth that’s helped turn Pie Face into one of the hottest board games this holiday season. In a world dominated by flashy digital entertainment, it’s analog and simple: Spin a wheel, turn a handle, get smashed in the face with whipped cream.
In June, Hasbro bought the manufacturing and distribution rights for an undisclosed sum from the small British toymaker Rocket Games, which first released the game in 2014.
Not surprisingly, it was a Facebook video that got Hasbro’s attention. The clip of a grandfather and his grandson playing the game went viral in April and has been viewed almost 40 million times. Its popularity was unprecedented, according to Hasbro, and the company fast-tracked global distribution. As a result, new life has been given to a game concept that first surfaced in the 1960s.
“All of a sudden, it started to spike in a way we really haven’t seen before in the game space,” said Jonathan Berkowitz, senior vice president for marketing at Hasbro Gaming. “Clearly, it was a game that was new and sharable, and people wanted to talk about it.”
It usually takes years for a board game from a small company to gather enough steam to go global, but Pie Face was the exception, Berkowitz said. The company started receiving calls about it as soon as it came out in Britain.
“We didn’t even make the game at the time,” he said.
Now it’s available in 20 countries around the globe. Hasbro declined to share specific sales numbers, but Berkowitz said Pie Face has become one of the company’s top sellers.
Target, Toys “R” Us and Walmart have all sold out of the game on their websites. Walmart spokeswoman Molly Blakeman said it was the chain’s single best-selling game.
