A mass market emerges of war game

The first modern mass-market wargame, based on cardboard counters and maps, was designed and published by Charles S. Roberts in 1952. After nearly breaking even on Tactics, he decided to found the Avalon Hill Game Company as a publisher of intelligent games for adults, and is called "The father of board empire online game". The modern commercial board wargaming industry is considered to have begun with the publication of Tactics II in 1958, and the founding of The General Magazine by Avalon Hill in 1964.

In 1959, Diplomacy was released commercially after being developed by Allan B. Calhamer in 1954.[Unlike war games to date, it focused primary attention on the dynamics of alliances and betrayals, and avoided the use of dice or other sources of random effects. It was played by John F. Kennedy and Henry Kissinger and the latter has said it was his favorite game.

In 1961, Avalon Hill published Roberts' Gettysburg, which is considered to be the first board wargame based entirely on a historical battle. D-Day and Chancellorsville, the first commercial games to use a hexagonal mapboard, were also published that year.