The Game Designers Association (SAZ) lost its founding member and first chairman of the board (1991–1993). The games designer and book author Hajo Bücken died on 30th December 2016 in Berlin at the age of 72.

Hajo Bücken was born in Schwiebus (Świebodzin) in 1944, grew up in Aachen, lived in Bremen for a long time and in recent years in Berlin. His work includes over 80 games and almost 30 publications about „games“. His first game was "Entrüstet Euch" in 1981, followed by the legendary "Mimürfel" , self-published at "Neues Spielen", which are still being successfully sold today. The "Bärenspiel" (1983) has been part of the cooperative games series at Herder – currently in the Amigo program. In 1992 "Coco Crazy" was released by Ravensburger, with hundreds of thousand sold copies until today. The first release of "Ratz-Fatz" at Haba started in 1997 and was the foundation of a games series that currently consists of about 20 titles.

Hajo Bücken developed many games with his co-author and longtime friend Dirk Hanneforth, like "Dumm gelaufen", which is still in the program of Ravensburger and which inspired the two authors in the last few weeks to new ideas. He would have also liked to see the new small series at Moses, which is planned for release to the market at the Toy Fair in Nuremberg in a funny format.

With Hajo Bücken, the SAZ not only loses one of its key founding members and its first chairman, who returned to the Executive Board from 2013 to 2015. He always supported us with his experience, and from the very beginning, he was committed to a political engagement of the SAZ. He has been an ardent spirit with character and a mind of his own – special people like him have become rare. Many also lost a good and faithful friend. Farewell, Hajo!

In deep mourning
Executive Board and Managing Office
Marco Teubner, Hartmut Kommerell, Arve D. Fühler, Christian Beiersdorf