the acquired chain receive cash bonuses; players may sell their shares in the defunct chain, trade them in for shares of the acquiring chain, or keep them. Mergers between 3 or more chains are handled in order from larger to smaller. Ending the game A player during their turn may declare the game at an end if the largest chain exceeds a specified size (about 40% of the board), or all chains on the board are too large to be acquired. When the game ends, shareholder bonuses are paid to the two largest shareholders of each chain, and players cash out their shares at market price (shares in any defunct chains are worthless). The player with the most money wins. Publication history When Sid Sackson was a child, he player a Milton Bradley gambling-themed board game titled Lotto. When he became a game designer, Sackson reworked the game into a wargame he called Lotto War. In 1962, Sackson and Alex Randolph were commissioned by 3M to start a new games division. When Sackson submitted Lotto War to 3M the following year, he retitled the game Vacation. 3M suggested changing the name to Acquire, and Sackson agreed. The game was test marketed in several U.S. cities in 1963, and production began in 1964 as a part of the 3M Bookshelf games series. In 1976, the 3M game division was sold to Avalon Hill and Acquire became part of their bookcase game series. Four years later, Avalon Hill published the computer game Computer Acquire for the PET, Apple II and TRS-80. In 1998, Avalon Hill became part of Hasbro. The new owners reissued a slightly revised version of Acquire in 2000, in which the hotel chains were replaced by fictitious corporations, though the actual gameplay was unchanged. Hasbro soon thereafter discontinued it. In the mid-2000s, the game was transferred to a Hasbro subsidiary, Wizards of the Coast (WotC). In 2008, WotC celebrated "50 years of Avalon Hill Games" with the release of a new edition of Acquire, although the game was not yet 50 years old. In 2016, the game was transferred back to the Hasbro games division and republished in 2016 under the Avalon label, with hotels chains reinstated. Reception Games magazine included Acquire in their "Top 100 Games of 1980", praising it as a "classic game of getting in on the ground floor" and "Proof that you need money to