Japanese board game heavyweight Arclight has warned that the country’s tabletop industry faces a shortage of specialists capable of developing internationally competitive games and securing overseas publishing deals, despite a string of existing global successes – and is leading a government-backed initiative to tackle the problem.

Arclight, a major publisher and distributor of games across Japan and organiser of the country’s biggest tabletop gaming convention, is heading up a two-year programme to train Japanese creators in international game development, licensing and commercial expansion.

About 20 creators are set to be recruited through the Japan Tabletop Advancement Network, which Arclight is running alongside board game publisher and café operator Pizzicato Design and specialist Japanese hobby retailer Yellow Submarine.

Arclight said that while overseas demand for Japanese board games and international licensing opportunities had been growing rapidly, the country’s domestic industry remained heavily reliant on “individual passion and doujin activities,” and faces a structural challenge of lacking “core specialists” capable of developing intellectual property “to international standards” and successfully expanding overseas.

The warning comes despite a string of breakout successes for Japanese publishers and designers, including several titles which have sold hundreds of thousands or even millions of copies worldwide.

Arclight itself revealed in July that its co-operative card game Ito from Mitsuru Nakamura had surpassed one million copies sold across Japan and overseas, with the series now available in 11 languages.

Fellow Japanese publisher Oink Games has also established a significant presence in European and North American markets in recent years through successful releases including Deep Sea Adventure, Scout and A Fake Artist Goes to New York.

Oink revealed to BoardGameWire in 2024 that Deep Sea Adventure had passed 300,000 copies printed, while its Spiel des Jahres-nominated Scout managed to secure a dedicated edition for US retail giant Target the same year.

Other Japanese publishers to have built substantial international success include Kyoto-based Saashi & Saashi, which told Japanese outlet 4Gamer in 2022 that overseas sales accounted for about 70% of its business.

Japanese designs have also become major global hits through international licensing deals – most famously Seiji Kanai’s Love Letter, which had sold more than three million copies worldwide by 2022, and Machi Koro, which passed one million copies sold by 2021.

Those two games were among international successes helped by Japon Brand, the long-running collective established to introduce Japanese tabletop designs to overseas publishers.

Board game giant Asmodee acquired Japon Brand from CMON earlier this year as part of a renewed push into the Japanese market, incorporating the collective into a new studio called Nekuma to identify promising Japanese designs for international release.

J-TAN is scheduled to run from February 2027 until March 2029, combining domestic training and game development with up to four overseas industry placements over the two years.

Arclight said participants will receive mentoring in international market trends, publishing and business development, alongside opportunities to present their designs to overseas publishers, obtain feedback and establish industry contacts.

The provisional programme lists potential training destinations including Spiel Essen, UK Games Expo, Gen Con and GAMA Expo, although the organisers have stressed that the final destinations are yet to be determined.

Domestic training will include four sessions a year in Tokyo, covering overseas publishing and the development of internationally competitive games, with participants also receiving practical playtesting support.

Participants will be able to attend the training and overseas placements free of charge, including travel costs, although places on individual international trips may be limited. Both independent creators and people already employed by game companies are eligible, while applicants will retain the rights to their existing designs.

The programme is being supported financially by Japan’s Creator Support Fund, established within the government-funded Japan Arts Council to support the development of creative talent and the infrastructure underpinning the country’s cultural industries.

Arclight was acquired by entertainment conglomerate Kadokawa in April 2024, with international expansion and the development of new intellectual property already identified as priorities for the business.

The deal brought Arclight into the same stable as video game maker FromSoftware, famous for hit titles including Elden Ring, Bloodborne and the Dark Souls series. Kadokawa, which has a stock market valuation of about $3.4bn, also has extensive interests in book and manga publishing, film and anime, and specialises in developing intellectual property across multiple media.

Arclight also runs Game Market, Japan’s biggest tabletop gaming convention, which attracted 32,000 visits across two days in October this year, with a record 1,425 exhibition booths.

J-TAN’s organisers have not specified how much government funding has been allocated to the initiative, or set numerical targets for overseas licensing agreements or sales totals.

Applications for the first cohort close on November 30, with successful candidates due to be announced in late January 2027.

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Security arrangements at the world’s biggest board game fair have come under scrutiny after six thefts were reported during setup and dismantling at this year’s Spiel Essen – including €14,000 of stock and equipment being stolen from a publisher overnight.

Show organiser Merz Verlag told BoardGameWire all six incidents are believed to have occurred when access to the exhibition halls was restricted, despite Messe Essen venue security being in place throughout those periods.

The thefts have prompted complaints from affected businesses about security at Spiel Essen and the assistance they received – while Merz Verlag has stressed that exhibitors are responsible for protecting their own property, even outside public opening hours.

French tabletop games company Tossit was among the worst affected exhibitors this year, claiming that about €14,000 of merchandise, equipment and tools disappeared from its stand in Hall 6 overnight following the convention’s final day.

Company co-founder Gaëtan Ekszterowicz said in a LinkedIn post that his team left the stand at around 10.45pm on Sunday, October 25, intending to finish dismantling the following morning – but returned at 8am to discover more than 500 units of merchandise and other equipment had disappeared.

That included tools stored inside the stand furniture, leaving the company without even the equipment needed to complete dismantling its booth.

Ekszterowicz estimated that removing the stolen goods would have taken at least 35 to 45 minutes, raising questions about how such a large quantity of merchandise could have been removed from an exhibition hall overnight.

Another exhibitor, tabletop accessories seller The Rolling Inn, said €4,000 in cash – representing its entire convention takings – was stolen during dismantling on Sunday evening.

A third theft was reported by Julian Hill of board game media outlet Boxed Meeples, who said on Instagram that his bag was taken from the Paverson Games stand during a team meeting on Wednesday October 21, the day before SPIEL opened to the public.

Hill said the bag contained money, payment cards, camera and sound recording equipment, as well as recordings of interviews he had already conducted at the convention.

Spiel Essen’s organisers have also been criticised by Tossit’s Ekszterowicz and The Rolling Inn for their response to the thefts.

Ekszterowicz claimed representatives of SPIEL Essen and Messe Essen laughed at its team and failed to take their complaints seriously – as well as alleging that a member of staff attempted to grab a phone from his company’s marketing manager during an exchange about the incident.

“No representative of Merz Verlag laughed at members of Tossit’s team or grabbed a phone,” a Merz Verlag spokesperson told BoardGameWire.

They said, “Tossit wanted to film an exchange between them, Messe Essen and Merz Verlag which members of Messe Essen denied due to them not wanted to be taped, referring to personal rights.”

Asked about allegations from Tossit and The Rolling Inn that they received little or no assistance, the spokesperson said, “The team of SPIEL Essen takes every reported theft seriously and helps in the best of our abilities and in making contact to the police.

“Our team was also on site and talked with exhibitors. At the moment we are collecting information to may be able to help further.”

Merz Verlag said police had been informed of the incidents, and that it was cooperating with investigations.

The spokesperson added, “In total six thefts were reported to us this year, ranging from tablecloths, to some cases of games, to cash and equipment, the examples you mention already included. 

“To our knowledge these cases took place during set-up or dismantling. In 2025 fewer incidents have been reported, none in the scale we see with Tossit. “

Merz Verlag said venue operator Messe Essen provided security throughout setup and dismantling, with access restricted to exhibitors, people holding setup and dismantling passes, event staff and security personnel.

It added that exhibitors were regularly reminded that they were responsible for protecting their own property, and could pay for dedicated guards to secure their stands outside public opening hours.

Ekszterowicz said in his LinkedIn post, “I don’t expect organizers to prevent every theft. But at the very least, I expect them to take this kind of situation seriously and have cameras installed inside the entrance halls. The complete absence of surveillance cameras is also shocking.”

The Merz Verlag spokesperson confirmed to BoardGameWire that no CCTV was covering the booths which suffered thefts.

Wargamer also received a response from Tom Kraayvanger, the press leader at Spiel Essen venue operator Messe Essen, who said the venue operator was taking into account “data protection requirements and the privacy rights of the many people present on the exhibition grounds during an event and its set-up and dismantling phases”.

He said: “When large numbers of people are moving goods, material and equipment at the same time, camera footage does not make it possible to distinguish between the legitimate removal of items and their unauthorized removal”, adding that “comprehensive video surveillance could not guarantee complete protection against theft”.

The incidents also follow a series of reported thefts at SPIEL stretching back at least a decade – including more than $20,000 in combined losses reported by six publishers in 2018, when affected companies called for improvements to security.

Japanime Games, Artipia Games, Folded Space, Gotha Games, Greenbrier Games and Hub Games reported cash, games and personal belongings were stolen during the convention that year, with Japanime alone claiming losses of more than $10,000, according to contemporaneous reporting by BoardGameGeek. The affected publishers subsequently launched fundraising efforts to help compensate for their losses.

Two years earlier Greek publisher LudiCreations had about €3,500 stolen from its cash box during Spiel Essen, prompting it to create and launch Steal This Game on Kickstarter to help recover its losses. R&R Games also reported a cash-box theft at that year’s convention.

More recently, thefts have been reported since 2023 by Thailand-based Hexa House, game marketing studio DinaSaidSo and Pillars of Heracles designer Tamàs Olàh – the latter of whom said about $400 of painted miniatures were stolen at Spiel Essen while unattended overnight.

Asked whether the latest incidents would prompt changes to security arrangements for SPIEL Essen 2027, Merz Verlag said it was still evaluating the situation.

“We are gathering information and evaluate the situation,” the spokesperson said. “At this early stage we cannot say anything regarding future arrangements.”

Spiel Essen broke its visitor record for the fourth consecutive year at its 2026 event by hitting a record 230,000 attendance – with publishers reporting bumper sales despite increasingly fierce competition for attention from more than 2,000 new releases.

The world’s largest board game fair once again sold out all four days this year, drawing 10,000 more visitors than in 2025 after expanding into an eighth exhibition hall and taking over the entirety of the Messe Essen exhibition centre – its home for over 40 years – for the first time.

But that ability to squeeze in larger and larger crowds has now reached its limit, Merz Verlag managing director Carol Rapp confirmed to BoardGameWire, with any further growth set to come via new events and experiences rather than increased attendance or exhibition space.

SPIEL Essen 2027 is scheduled to take place from October 21 to 24.

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AI giant Anthropic has introduced new restrictions which attempt to stop its Claude coding software from recreating existing games, amid generative AI providing the capability to quickly spin up unauthorised digital clones and reskins.

The changes were spotted in Claude Code’s instructions around October 27, with two new sentences telling the software: “Do build original games, games in a genre, and games from the user’s own designs and assets”, and “Don’t build a recreation of a specific existing game, even if it is renamed or called original”.

Anthropic technical staff member Addy Osmani confirmed the changes in a post on X, saying the company had introduced the restrictions because using Claude to infringe intellectual property rights was already against its usage policy.

Board games are vulnerable to AI-generated imitations because their underlying gameplay mechanics generally cannot be protected by copyright – while generative AI also makes it easier to reproduce those systems digitally, and create alternative imagery and text without directly copying the original game’s protected material.

The potential danger to tabletop publishers was highlighted last year when US software development company Sembit used Claude Code to produce a browser-based version of Catan within four minutes – although that rapidly-assembled version suffered from significant bugs and some non-functioning gameplay features.

Unauthorised online versions of board games are not a new phenomenon, with publishers having faced challenges controlling digital recreations of their titles long before AI coding tools became widely available. But generative AI potentially makes such recreations much easier to produce, lowering the technical expertise, time and cost needed to turn an existing tabletop game into a playable digital version.

Colonist.io, which was launched in 2017 as Katan.io before rebranding in 2019, openly markets itself as a free alternative to Catan, closely reproducing the original game’s rules, gameplay and visual layout while using different artwork. The platform reported 60 million games played and 3.6 million active players across 2025.

Colonist.io states clearly on its website that it has no association with Catan, and argues that its game is legal under US law, citing guidance from the US Copyright Office that gameplay methods cannot be protected by copyright.

A 2022 study published in the Iowa Law Review highlighted the Catan rights holders’ apparent decision not to pursue legal action against Colonist.io, contrasting it with an earlier incident in which an Android imitation called Island Settlers was withdrawn following a cease-and-desist notice from Catan’s lawyers in 2011.

Companies which have taken action against unauthorised digital adaptations include Disney, which prompted the closure of the unofficial Disney Lorcana simulator Pixelborn in 2024 over its use of the game’s protected card imagery. Pixelborn creator Pavel Kolev said more than 6.5 million games had been played on the platform before it was shut down.

Anthropic’s new intervention follows controversy over AI-generated video game clones, including cases where developers have withdrawn public demonstrations over concerns that their games could be copied before release.

The new restrictions have already affected attempts to recreate published tabletop games, including a Claude Code user who reported being refused help to build a private online version of an unnamed, commercially released co-op board game.

The user wanted to create a password-protected version allowing friends to play remotely, including one unable to attend in-person sessions, and to introduce AI-controlled players to study the game’s strategy.

Claude refused despite the user specifying that the adaptation would not be publicly distributed, instead offering to help develop an original game using similar co-op and limited-information mechanics.

A separate complaint came from wargame publisher Raymond Weiss, whose Conflict Simulations business has released around 30 tabletop titles since 2017- including three nominees for the Charles S Roberts Awards, one of the longest-running awards honouring conflict-focused tabletop games.

Weiss says he has been using AI-assisted coding to create unlicensed digital versions of other publishers’ wargames for paying customers, calling them private, “personalized builds” for people he says already own the physical version of games which do not already have a digital adaptation. He charges between $400 and $800 per project, according to his website.

He reported on GitHub that Claude Code had begun refusing to continue work on adaptations it previously supported, although he acknowledged that he did not hold licences from the publishers whose games were being adapted.

The restrictions are, of course, limited to Anthropic’s own software. In a November 2 blog post, Weiss said he had already resumed the work interrupted by Claude’s refusals using rival AI coding tools OpenAI Codex and Kimi.

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Spiel Essen has broken its visitor record for the fourth consecutive year by hitting a record 230,000 attendance – with publishers reporting bumper sales despite increasingly fierce competition for attention from more than 2,000 new releases.

The world’s largest board game fair once again sold out all four days this year, drawing 10,000 more visitors than in 2025 after expanding into an eighth exhibition hall and taking over the entirety of the Messe Essen exhibition centre – its home for over 40 years – for the first time.

Almost 1,000 exhibitors from 53 countries packed into the 2026 show – up 5% compared to last year – while the event’s floorspace grew to a record 81,200 sq m – larger than 15 American football fields.

The new record attendance continues a period of rapid growth for Spiel, which attracted 193,000 visitors in 2023, 204,000 in 2024 and 220,000 last year – the latter of which outstripped the show’s previous record attendance of 209,000 from just prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.

But that ability to squeeze in larger and larger crowds has now reached its limit, Merz Verlag managing director Carol Rapp confirmed to BoardGameWire, with any further growth set to come via new events and experiences rather than increased attendance or exhibition space.

She said, “It will stay at 230 [thousand]”, adding that although the show was technically below its “legal maximum” attendance, the current levels allowed for visitors to make their way around the already crowded show floor more easily.

A shortage of exhibition space, however, has already been a recurring problem for Merz Verlag – which has been forced to introduce waiting lists for prospective exhibitors in each of the last three years, despite repeatedly expanding the show.

Organisers had to repeatedly rearrange hall layouts ahead of the 2024 show in order to accommodate as many publishers as possible while keeping safe amounts of aisle space. Expanding out into Hall 7 last year failed to eliminate the problem, and despite another expansion into Hall 8 this year, all available stands were booked up ahead of the April 30 application deadline.

That leaves the organiser facing the prospect of turning away more prospective exhibitors in future years, with no further exhibition halls available to accommodate them.

BoardGameWire reported in March this year that Spiel organiser Merz Verlag had “no intention” of relocating the show away from Essen in order to continue its expansion, saying that the event would remain in its current home “for the foreseeable future”.

Rapp has now doubled down on that sentiment, saying, “We are well aware that we are pushing Messe Essen to its absolute limits. But to immediately dispel any rumors: A relocation is not on the table.

“Our focus now is on continuing to refine and develop Spiel at the Essen location in the coming years.”

Expanded Focus

That development had already been apparent in recent years, with Spiel beginning to break out from its long-time status as a game-buying fair and opportunity for business meetings by adding a series of new events.

They include introducing Games Workshop’s Golden Demon miniature-painting competition in 2024, running a world record-setting game of Catan – Connect with more than 1,100 people in 2025, and adding the TCG Awards and Warhammer 40,000 laser tag this year.

The organiser also launched Essen spielt! in 2026, a partnership with the city which brought gaming events to venues across Essen during the fair – and said it plans to develop the initiative further in 2027.

Other new developments for 2026 included a business matchmaking platform aimed at helping publishers, designers, retailers and other industry professionals find potential business partners and arrange meetings before arriving at the fair.

Rapp told BoardGameWire she was pleased with how this year’s expansion had worked out – particularly the addition of a new northern entrance, which noticeably helped spread visitors more effectively across the exhibition halls, and helped reduce the vast queues which have formed at the start of each day in previous years.

She added that the new Hall 8 had also exceeded expectations, despite initial uncertainty about how exhibitors would make use of the slightly unusually-shaped space.

US publisher Allplay took Spiel up on an offer to move into a central position in the new Hall 8 – and COO Joe Wiggins told BoardGameWire that shift had paid off handsomely, with sales up 40% compared to the previous year’s show, marking the publisher’s most successful Spiel to date.

He picked out Enchanted Ivy as one of its big hits of the show, saying demand for the 450 copies of the title it brought was “non-stop” until the game was sold out at 3pm on opening day.

Wiggins said sales were good across its portfolio, from light titles to heavier strategy games – adding that the new location right at the show’s main entrance meant visitors were far more likely to discover its booth.

That interest was capitalised upon by Allplay through its decision to run a large number of demo tables as part of its booth, with Wiggins saying seeing games in action had helped draw people in, even if they weren’t a “typical” Allplay customer.

German publisher Pegasus Spiele also reported stronger-than-expected sales, despite arriving at Essen with relatively conservative expectations.

Company co-CEO Karsten Esser told BoardGameWire on Friday afternoon that sales were already ahead of the equivalent point in 2025, even without the benefit of a single major award-winning release driving demand.

Pegasus brought more than 40 new releases to the event, and said the breadth of its portfolio had helped compensate for the absence of an obvious blockbuster title.

Other exhibitors BoardGameWire spoke to also reported substantial sales increases, while the consensus generally was that last year’s busy Friday, Saturday and Sunday were added to this year with a Thursday which felt like a return to pre-Covid crowds.

Spiel Squeeze

While most halls saw attendees flowing easily, if slowly, around them during the fair, the long and narrow Hall 3 once again proved the trickiest to get around – especially given the enormous queues which formed at several different booths during the show.

Chief among those were the queues at Spanish publisher Combo Games, which snaked along one whole end of the hall and out of the doors – creating a line Carol Rapp said was among the longest she had ever seen at the show.

Combo had benefitted from its new release Queen Alice, which combines elements of chess with eurogame mechanics and an Alice in Wonderland-inspired setting, being the ‘most-thumbed’ title on BoardGameGeek’s Spiel Essen preview – leading to a sea of attendees trying to reach the booth to get their hands on the game.

Company co-founder Antonio Guillamó told BoardGameWire on the show floor that it had brought about 2,000 copies of the game to Essen, including stock earmarked for fulfilling Gamefound pledges, but had sold out by around lunchtime on Friday.

Demand was so intense that the Combo team was forced to concentrate purely on sales rather than demoing its games – and the huge buzz created other problems for the publisher.

Guillamó told BoardGameWire that Spiel had been “fighting” the publisher over the long queues, which ended up blocking access to other booths such as the nearby Dice Throne.

Rapp told BoardGameWire Spiel had provided advice on how to guide the queue to avoid it blocking other booths, as well as providing extra security from Messe Essen – which Combo had to pay for – to help manage the line.

She said, “They had one of the hottest titles of the show, and nobody can plan for that. I get that, and the team gets that. But if the crowd waiting to buy is turning into a safety issue, then we have to do something.”

Rapp said her team was always “counting the seconds on the first day” to find out where the biggest queues were emerging, in order to step in quickly and help prevent any blockages.

She added that another blockage at the 2026 event had arisen at Pegasus Spiele, with large groups of people congregating by the booth after buying their games – saying that Pegasus was told to fix the issue or their booth would be closed. That problem was sorted the next morning by introducing a guard rail, she said.

Rapp said in an interview with German board game channel Brettspiel-Kollektiv that one exhibitor had repeatedly ignored instructions intended to keep queues under control, leading organisers to prohibit further sales for the remainder of the day. The publisher involved was not identified.

She stressed to BoardGameWire that managing congestion was essential to keeping the event safe and enjoyable, particularly as the number of visitors and exhibitors continued to grow.

“As long as the people are moving, everything is fine,” she said. “As soon as you have a block, a cluster or whatever, in the aisles, and it’s taking too long, people will go crazy.”

The pressure of accommodating record numbers at Spiel also extended beyond the exhibition halls, with severe crowding on Essen’s public transport system each morning in the run-up to the show opening.

Standing Out

The growing scale of Spiel has also brought fresh challenges for publishers trying to stand out among the thousands of games competing for attention.

This year’s 2,012 new releases represented another increase on the prior record, with the volume of new titles becoming a significant consideration for companies deciding when and how to launch their games.

The head of one large board game publisher who spoke to BoardGameWire at the show suggested that while smaller publishers often needed the exposure provided by major events such as Spiel, the rising competition on site might make it more beneficial for them to spread releases more evenly through the year.

He argued that publishers should consider whether launching at a quieter time of year might make it easier for their games to attract attention – particularly given that consumers were increasingly buying board games year round rather than concentrating their purchases around Christmas.

The challenge was echoed by other industry figures at the event, who described an increasingly crowded market in which the quality of new games continued to improve, but with individual releases potentially struggling to establish themselves.

Value Judgement

For publishers, however, Spiel’s value continues to extend well beyond the opportunity to sell games directly to consumers – something especially crucial given the high cost of running even a small booth at the event.

While the base cost of the smallest booth option – 15 sq m – comes in at about €1,500, that figure can easily balloon to several thousand euros after adding mandatory charges for booth partitions, waste disposal, and the cost of transporting, paying for and accommodating even tiny numbers of booth staff.

Pandasaurus Games told BoardGameWire ahead of the event that it had heavily downsized its Spiel Essen booth this year, having previously spent more than €50,000 ($57,000) attending Spiel with its larger setup.

The US publisher shifted to using European Player Network, Asmodee‘s specialist English-language sales and distribution operation in the region, to handle its stock and sales at the giant German show this year – removing the need for Pandasaurus to transport and store hundreds of games, staff its own retail operation and devote much of its booth to selling them.

Pandasaurus CEO Nathan McNair estimated to BoardGameWire that the costs under its current model would fall between $20,000 and $25,000, with the expectation of selling similar numbers of games under the new setup.

Archona Games, the publisher of titles including Small Star Empires and Pest, told BoardGameWire at the event, “Our focus here isn’t the sales so much. It’s always nice to sell, and I mean, I’d love to have the success of some of the other currently hot games out there – I wouldn’t say no!

“But I think for us, the strategic sort of part of it is really what we do with our community as well as our partners.”

They said in-show meetings with potential partners had already created promising opportunities for 2027, and added that demoing games, gathering feedback and building customer relationships were all key reasons for attending the fair.

IELLO communications manager Roger Anthony-Gerroldt told BoardGameWire at the show that it had brought six staff dedicated to scouting new games and localisation opportunities, with three project managers seeking new designs for its main catalogue, two looking for titles to bring to the French market, and another representing its children’s games brand Loki.

He told BoardGameWire the team spent much of the event moving between meetings with designers and publishers, hoping to discover games capable of becoming long-term commercial successes.

He said, “They just take meetup after meetup after meetup, and they look at a lot of designs, and they hope that they find the diamond that will take the place in the market and stay here.”

But he acknowledged that identifying those potential hits was increasingly difficult, with IELLO typically finding only one or two games each year that met its ambitions – and some promising projects ultimately failing to make it into the company’s catalogue.

That challenge has become more pronounced as the number of new releases continues to grow, Anthony-Gerroldt said, with even successful titles increasingly struggling to maintain sales beyond their first year or two.

Ukrainian publisher Boardova, meanwhile, described its first experience running a booth at Spiel as a valuable opportunity for promoting its games and building relationships – while stressing that the costs of attending meant the event should be viewed as a wider marketing investment rather than simply a sales opportunity.

Pegasus Spiele co-CEO Karsten Esser told BoardGameWire that direct sales at Spiel remained an important part of covering the company’s costs of attending, saying, “Well, to be honest, we run the company because we want to earn money. Of course, we love games, but we are also interested in earning money. I have to say, therefore, yes – the number of games that we sell here do matter, and they help us to break even. And maybe we can even reach a surplus. We will see.”

But he added that the longer-term value of the fair came from the market intelligence it provided, particularly the opportunity to gauge consumer demand across the company’s new releases, and identify which titles might become future commercial successes.

AI Divide

The ongoing debate over the use of generative AI in tabletop gaming was also visible at this year’s Spiel, with an anti-AI sign campaign from Neon Hope publisher Hopeful Games taking place, while some publishers and accessories sellers were clearly making use of generative AI for their artwork.

Spiel organiser Merz Verlag has yet to introduce restrictions on exhibitors using AI-generated artwork, in contrast to several other major tabletop conventions which have adopted explicit policies in the past year.

UK Games Expo introduced a strict AI policy several weeks ago, prohibiting exhibitors from displaying or selling products created wholly or substantially using generative AI, while PAX Unplugged bans the sale of products incorporating substantial AI-generated content.

Origins Game Fair also requires products sold or distributed at the event to be created by human artists and creators. Gen Con, meanwhile, prohibits AI-generated imagery in its Art Show, although it has not introduced an equivalent general ban for exhibitors.

The issue has particular significance for Spiel, which faced widespread criticism in 2023 after using AI-generated illustrations on its official tickets, posters and app.

Merz Verlag subsequently abandoned AI-generated artwork for its 2024 marketing campaign, citing criticism from industry professionals and consumers, alongside continuing legal uncertainty around the technology.

Rapp told BoardGameWire at the time that the organiser had reconsidered its approach following the backlash, but did not believe it was Spiel’s place to make decisions about the wider industry’s use of AI.

The absence of a general exhibitor ban three years later leaves Spiel as an outlier among the major tabletop game conventions.

BoardGameWire contacted Merz Verlag in September with a series of questions about whether the show planned to follow suit with its own AI policy, but was told by a spokesperson that the topic was too wide ranging to be able to address while preparations for this year’s event were taking place.

Future Plans

With its exhibition halls full and visitor numbers now capped, Spiel’s organisers face the challenge of finding new ways to develop the event without increasing its physical footprint.

Rapp told BoardGameWire during the show that Merz Verlag was still exploring what that might look like, with the company due to hold its annual planning workshop this month.

“Maybe it’s focusing more on events, like you said, or celebrating the industry. I don’t know yet, but we will have some good stuff coming up next year,” Rapp said.

Spiel Essen 2027 is scheduled to take place from October 21 to 24.

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Hobby games trade organisation GAMA is facing another shake-up of its senior leadership, with interim executive director Melinda Prickett and board vice president Ross Thompson both announcing they are leaving their roles.

Prickett’s departure is a significant blow for GAMA, having emerged as a key figure in stabilising the organisation and its finances following the resignation of long-serving executive director John Stacy last year.

She joined GAMA as its first chief operating officer in September 2025, before stepping up to become interim executive director just eight months later – and was understood by BoardGameWire to be under strong consideration for the permanent position.

GAMA said its board of directors scheduled a “rapid response meeting” after being informed of Prickett’s departure on October 26, in an effort to determine its next steps – and would be taking immediate steps to appoint temporary leadership to oversee day-to-day operations.

Prickett is set to leave the organisation in less than two weeks, on November 6 – the day before GAMA’s much publicised Game Store Day, and amid the organisation’s preparations for moving its flagship GAMA Expo trade show to Baltimore for the first time.

Her departure leaves GAMA still hunting for a permanent executive director more than a year after its previous leader, John Stacy, announced his resignation.

A statement provided to BoardGameWire from GAMA board president Meredith Placko and secretary Tiffany Reid said, “Recruiting top talent for an executive position is a laborious process, and finding the right fit for our organization has taken longer than anticipated.

“As well, we have been forthright during public board meetings that the biggest reason for the delay was that we needed to get the foundations of the organization in better order, as we had been advised. To that end, Melinda Prickett did amazing work in bringing our financials from a planned deficit for the year, to a resounding success and raised more money than we anticipated for the organization.

“She also worked on creating stability amongst for the organization, the staff, and membership. Her work helped GAMA grow and succeed in the year she was with us.

“That being said, GAMA’s Board of Director’s had interviewed a strong candidate and we were in negotiations with them, but ultimately it did not work out. Because of that we will need to begin the search again.”

The pair said they could not comment on why Prickett’s notice period was so short, or whether she had been a formal candidate for the permanent executive director role.

They added that GAMA was currently working through a short list of people to bring in a new interim executive director “very soon”, adding that the goal was to “make sure GAMA Expo and Origins are a success, and the overall day to day running of the organization is met”.

The statement said, “To that end, the Board of Directors is currently seeking RFPs from firms that specialize in hiring executives in the trade association and member organization sectors. We feel it will be valuable to have the expertise of a company that knows how to recruit top talent in our search for an Executive Director.”

Placko and Reid said there was currently no estimate on when a permanent executive director would be appointed, but said an interim “to handle the most immediate needs of the organization should be decided upon very soon”.

Prickett’s exit comes after GAMA reported a significant improvement in its financial position during her tenure, with the organisation saying it had moved from a deficit budget at the beginning of 2026 to an expected surplus by the end of the year.

In a statement emailed to GAMA members, the board credited Prickett and treasurer Jamie Mathy with stabilising the organisation’s finances, as well as increasing member participation in events outside GAMA Expo and Origins Game Fair and developing new partnerships.

The statement said, “Though it is a bittersweet announcement to make, we are grateful for Melinda’s tireless work with our organization. She has been an incalculable force in leading GAMA during a transition period, setting us up for success in a way that is visibly reverberating through the organization.”

Prickett previously spent more than a decade at Girl Scouts of Ohio Heartland, including almost five years as chief operating officer, before being hired by GAMA last September to oversee its growing day-to-day operations.

Her appointment came just weeks before Stacy announced he was leaving the organisation after seven years as executive director, having just unveiled an ambitious 10-year plan aimed at expanding its international reach, membership and industry advocacy work.

GAMA appointed veteran leadership consultant Zaria Davis as interim executive director last November, initially saying it expected to find a permanent replacement for Stacy by spring 2026.

But Davis’s contract ended in March, with Prickett subsequently confirming to BoardGameWire that she had taken over as interim executive director on May 21.

The latest leadership departure follows a period of significant change for the organisation’s board.

Former president Nicole Brady lost her re-election bid in April to publisher representative Meredith Placko, who had previously served as GAMA vice president.

Ross Thompson, who was elected as vice president following Placko’s elevation to president, has now also resigned from the board after just over six months in the position.

Thompson only joined GAMA’s board in October last year, winning a special election to replace former secretary Monica Rasso, who had stepped down after five years as a director.

His resignation means the organisation will now hold its second special election for the same Media & Events board seat in little more than a year.

The latest departures also follow a turbulent period for GAMA’s board, which publicly apologised in March after some directors were accused of being rude and disrespectful towards members during a heated annual general meeting over proposed changes to the organisation’s bylaws.

GAMA did not give a reason for Thompson’s departure, but praised his work alongside Prickett in streamlining organisational processes and strengthening representation for its Media & Events members.

Thompson wrote on Facebook, “After being part of GAMA for many years, I was happy to lend my time, energy and experience to GAMA serving on the Board during the past year and a half. It was wonderful to be able to work with passionate people, identfying projects that needed support or upkeep, along with bringing new ideas to life.

“By far, GAMA is one of the best organizations to grow your business in the tabletop game industry. The connections made at events like GAMA Expo can revolutionize the way your work and that is truly special.

“There are things that need attention within GAMA, at the Board level and the Organization as a whole. I hope the membership, staff and current Board are able to continue to support GAMA’s mission and identify the obstacles it faces so the tabletop industry can continue to connect.

“I’ll still be around and am not going anywhere, but needed to end my time on the Board.”

The organisation said it would hold a special election to replace Thompson as Media & Events director, with nominations opening today and closing on November 8. Voting will take place between November 10 and 16, with the successful candidate serving until the next annual election in March 2027.

The changes come at a key time for the organisation’s professional trade show GAMA Expo, which has experienced rapid growth in recent years and is preparing to move from Louisville, Kentucky, to Baltimore, Maryland to accommodate rising demand.

This year’s event attracted a record 3,820 attendees, almost 12% above the previous year’s 3,425, continuing a run of growth that had put pressure on the show’s available exhibition and seminar space.

The first Baltimore edition is scheduled for April 25 to 29 next year. A statement provided to BoardGameWire from GAMA board president Meredith Placko and secretary Tiffany Reid said, “We are currently working to ensure there is no visible impact on the preparations for GAMA Expo.

“GAMA staff has been diligent in doing an excellent job to bring us to our new home in Baltimore. They continue with the work that needs to be done, including finalizing programming, working with vendors on booth placement, and everything that needs to happen to make GAMA Expo a success!

“Melinda has led an amazing team, and even in her absence, they will continue with the work that needs to be done.”

GAMA’s other major convention, Origins Game Fair, is set to return to Columbus in June. That show has struggled to recover its pre-pandemic attendance, with visitor numbers falling 2.5% this year to 18,700 – the show’s first annual decline since Covid-19, and still below its 2019 record of 20,642.

The event could face further pressure next year from the launch of PAX Unplugged Houston, a new tabletop gaming convention scheduled to take place just 12 days after Origins, which could potentially force publishers and exhibitors to choose between the two shows.

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German board game designer Mathias Wigge has pulled off an impressive feat at the Deutscher Spiele Preis – Germany’s biggest community-voted board game award – by winning with both of his first two standalone games, Ark Nova and Sanctuary.

Sanctuary claimed top spot in the annual award ahead of Pegasus Spiele’s commercial hit Boss Fighters QR and space tourism-themed worker placement title Galactic Cruise, which has already scored a string of major award wins.

The win also cements Feuerland Spiele‘s position as the most successful publisher in the Deutscher Spiele Preis since the company was founded in 2012, with four victories – twice as many as any other publisher over that period.

Feuerland scored an early DSP victory with Terra Mystica in 2013, before a flurry of three wins in eight years via Wingspan in 2019, Wigge’s debut design Ark Nova in 2022, and Sanctuary this year.

Feuerland managing director Stefan Rink told German broadcaster WDR after this year’s award ceremony that Sanctuary had already sold 20,000 copies in Germany, with the publisher hoping the award would provide a further sales boost.

The game, released in Germany as Artengarten last year, aims to offer a shorter and more accessible take on Ark Nova’s zoo-building and wildlife conservation theme, replacing much of the original’s card-driven gameplay with tile placement.

Feuerland also positioned the game at a lower price point than Ark Nova, with a recommended German retail price of €49.90 against €64.90 for the original.

The DSP victory is Sanctuary’s first major award success, having previously picked up a recommendation in this year’s Kennerspiel des Jahres prize and a nomination as Medium Game of the Year in BGG’s Golden Geek awards.

The win follows huge critical and sales success for Wigge’s predecessor design Ark Nova, which had sold more than 300,000 copies worldwide and racked up over 10 million plays on Board Game Arena according to a report from German newspaper Der Patriot in February this year – as well as being ranked in second place among all the titles on BoardGameGeek.

Runner-up Boss Fighters QR, designed by Michael Palm and Lukas Zach, has become a big sales success for Pegasus Spiele, which reportedly ordered the largest initial print run in its history for the game’s launch at Spiel Essen last year – and followed up with another record-sized print run to meet demand.

That title has already sold more than 100,000 copies in 17 countries according to German board game journalist Johannes Blumenberg, who runs the website Ministerium für Brettspielspaß.

The app-driven cooperative game spent six years in development, with Palm and Zach revealing that extensive work was needed to ensure its QR code scanning technology operated reliably and to develop the digitally controlled bosses.

The designers previously won the 2023 Spiel des Jahres with Dorfromantik: The Board Game, which also finished runner-up in that year’s Deutscher Spiele Preis behind Planet Unknown.

Boss Fighters QR was also nominated for this year’s Kennerspiel des Jahres, alongside Moon Colony Bloodbath and eventual winner Rebirth.

Galactic Cruise’s third place finish follows a striking awards run for the game, which was the first major release from US publisher Kinson Key Games.

The title, designed by TK King, Dennis Northcott and Koltin Thomson, had already been crowned Heavy Game of the Year at BoardGameGeek’s Golden Geek Awards in May, before taking Game of the Year, Best Strategy Game and Best Game from a New Designer at the Dice Tower Awards in August.

Galactic Cruise was a significant crowdfunding success for Kinson Key, raising more than $807,000 from over 8,000 backers through its original Kickstarter campaign in 2024, before securing another $769,000 for an expansion and reprint earlier this year. The game is published in German by PD-Verlag.

Last year’s Deutscher Spiele Preis went to Tomáš Holek’s space exploration game SETI, published by Czech Games Edition, which took top spot ahead of Endeavor: Deep Sea and Bomb Busters.

Other winners over the past decade have included Forest Shuffle, Planet Unknown, Lost Ruins of Arnak, The Crew and Azul.

Board game publishing and distribution giant Asmodee secured four places in the top ten of this year’s DSP – with Fate of the Fellowship, Take Time, Cozy Stickerville and Forest Shuffle expansion Dartmoor – although none of its releases broke into the top three.

Germany’s Frosted Games was represented twice, through Reiner Knizia’s Kennerspiel des Jahres winner Rebirth in sixth place and Star Trek: Captain’s Chair in ninth, while Kosmos took eighth with River of Gold.

This year’s children’s Deutscher Spiele Preis went to Wojciech Grajkowski’s Toriki: The Castaway Island, published by Mirakulus, ahead of Mooki Island and Paleolino.

The Deutscher Spiele Preis, which has been presented since 1990, is decided by public voting among players in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, rather than a specialist jury.

Organisers said “many thousands” of players took part in this year’s voting. Eligible games were released in German between May 1, 2025 and April 30, 2026, with the winners announced at the Spiel Essen game fair.

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Restoration Games is no stranger to crowdfunding backers pledging hundreds of dollars for premium versions of its games – but its Kickstarter for The Lord of the Rings: The King’s Gambit has taken that to an entirely new level.

The crowdfund had raised $2.33m from more than 7,300 backers in the early hours of its final day, equivalent to almost $319 per supporter – an average spend well above Restoration’s previous major crowdfunding campaigns, including the roughly $260 from last year’s Battle Monsters: Godzilla x Kong.

Almost three-quarters of backers who have committed to one of the game’s various versions opted to spend at least $379 on one of the Mithril tiers, with more than 2,800 people going all-in on the game’s most expensive $449 option.

Those Mithril pledges together account for about 82% of the total raised at the time of writing – a figure well above that expected by Restoration prior to the campaign’s launch, co-owner Justin Jacobson told BoardGameWire.

He said the company had expected Mithril to be most popular, but had conservatively projected about three Mithril pledges for every two people committing to the base-level Limited tiers of the game

He said, “I’m not entirely surprised. We created the Limited Edition as a sort-of compromise pledge level for folks who wanted some deluxe elements but didn’t want to go all-in for the Mithril Edition.

“Ultimately, though, most Kickstarter backers are there precisely because they do want to go all in, and we try to make that pledge level as appealing as possible and as good a deal as possible.”

Despite the much higher-than-expected proportion of backers opting for Mithril, Jacobson said the campaign’s overall performance was “pretty in-line” with his expectations ahead of the campaign’s final few days – and that “in a vacuum” he would have hoped for slightly higher numbers.

He pointed to the absence of a standard retail edition from the campaign, Free League’s The One Ring RPG crowdfund running at the same time and wider global economic conditions among the factors potentially working against it.

Jacobson said the pattern of backers favouring Restoration’s most expensive option was familiar from what he described as the company’s previous “spectacle” campaigns, with all-in pledges typically outstripping other pledge levels at the close of those crowdfunds.

But King’s Gambit is generating substantially higher spending per backer compared with Restoration’s previous projects offering similarly expensive all-in options.

Last year’s Battle Monsters: Godzilla x Kong offered a $379 Mega Bundle – the same price as the basic Mithril Edition of King’s Gambit – but averaged about $260 across its 2,301 backers.

Return to Dark Tower: Expeditions went even higher with a $499 all-in pledge including the base game, its expansions and upgraded components – although as an expansion-led campaign, existing owners could enter at just $45. Its $1.49m haul from 11,665 backers amounted to an average of $128 per supporter.

King’s Gambit is currently averaging almost $319 across its backers to date – despite almost 1,000 people having committed just $5 for access to the pledge manager.

Jacobson nevertheless cautioned against seeing the campaign as evidence that $379-plus board games were likely to become commonplace.

“This campaign is unusual, and I wouldn’t expect this to become the norm,” he said. “It stems from the unique way in which the original licensing deal and co-publication arrangement came to be in the first place.”

Opening Gambit

Jacobson told BoardGameWire that the publisher decided to pitch licence holder Middle-earth Enterprises in 2023 for a new version of cult 2000 board game Star Wars: The Queen’s Gambit, but instead based on The Lord of the Rings.

Bringing Queen’s Gambit back had been an ambition for Restoration since its inception – it was the first game Jacobson suggested reviving when he approached designer Rob Daviau about founding the company in 2016, although they decided at the time that it was too ambitious for their first project. Daviau had worked on the original during his time at Hasbro.

Jacobson told BoardGameWire, “I put together a big proposal and sent it in. Meanwhile, while that proposal was under consideration, Rob was at the Cannes Game Festival and got approached by Asmodee about doing the exact same thing.

“It seemed like serendipity so we just started that conversation about working on it together. It offered a lot of benefits to both parties.

“We brought our design pedigree and Kickstarter experience, and they brought their massive team for art, sales, distribution, and more. It’s always challenging working outside your own team, but [Asmodee studio] Space Cowboys have been absolutely amazing and have helped make this game the best it can be.”

Space Cowboys plans to release a retail edition of the game next year, which while sharing the same gameplay will use smaller boards, omit the large plastic Minas Tirith and Mordor set pieces and use just two colours of plastic for its miniatures.

Jacobson said, “It was important that our offering was a stark contrast to the retail edition. That edition will be what lives on for as long as the game is sold, long after the Kickstarter campaign is fulfilled. So, first things first, we had to align on what that version of the game was going to be.

“Then, we basically brainstormed all of the ways we could ‘deluxify’ that. The Limited Edition was a slight bump and the 3D plastic set pieces; the Mithril Edition was the whole list.”

When asked if there had been any concern internally over having such a large gap between the price points of the Limited and Mithril editions, Jacobson said, “Not really. There are so many variables and options in setting up any campaign. You’re never going to be 100% certain that you’ve gone the optimal path.

“That said, we were confident in the overall structure of the campaign, i.e., folks who want the cool 3D set pieces and folks who want everything.

“As I’ve always said, the price is always a function of the cost to produce. So once we determine what a pledge level includes, setting the price is relatively straightforward with some minor adjustments. For example, we actually shaved a bit off the Mithril Edition to try and make it a bit more appealing.”

He added, “It does highlight that all of the economic turmoil folks are feeling are not being felt uniformly.

“It also speaks to hobby gamers in general. When you compare it to other hobbies, it’s still a relatively good deal even at the highest end of things.”

Jacobson told BoardGameWire that Restoration deliberately looked beyond established tabletop audiences when marketing the game, in an attempt to leverage the vast fanbase of The Lord of the Rings.

About half of King’s Gambit backers are supporting a Restoration Games crowdfund for the first time, he said – a slightly higher proportion than the company has seen on some of its more recent campaigns.

“We made a concerted effort to try and reach out to influencers whose audience comprises The Lord of the Rings fans and not specifically gamers,” Jacobson said.

He believes the licence was likely part of the explanation for the campaign’s performance, although added that Restoration titles tend to come with followers even without a large IP, given the nature of the company’s strategy of taking memorable, usually long-out-of-print games and redeveloping them for the modern hobby market.

He said, “Fans of The Lord of the Rings are certainly avid and show up in large numbers, but we’ve seen similar excitement from fans of Return to Dark Tower and the like.”

Aragorn Art

Despite the campaign’s strong performance, the release has attracted a backlash from a small minority of online commenters for depicting Aragorn as Black.

That reaction has spilled into the unreleased title’s BoardGameGeek ratings, where some users have awarded it scores of 10 specifically to counter what they believe are 1 ratings motivated by objections to Aragorn’s skin colour.

Jacobson described the reaction as “disappointing but not entirely unexpected”, while stressing that not everyone who preferred a depiction closer to previous versions of Aragorn was motivated by racism.

He said, “The art team for both Space Cowboys and Restoration Games spent countless hours working on an extensively researched and thoughtful art brief for the look of the entire game along with each individual character. It’s 59 pages long!

“Our first priority is always to do something true to the source material. Within those pages though there are a number of interpretations. Ultimately, for each depiction, not just Aragorn, we were looking to do something interesting and perhaps novel that still stays true to the source material.

“I can point to details in the lore that support this depiction, but this just isn’t something I have any interest in debating.

“Great works, whether that’s a game or an epic fantasy novel or something else, only arise when the people creating them have a strong vision for what they want to make and put their full effort into realizing that vision.

“In every case, some folks won’t share that vision. But, in every case, if you set out to try and please everyone, you cannot make something extraordinary.”

He added, “There are folks who prefer a depiction more in keeping with prior ones; where other folks enjoy seeing broader depictions. Whenever you are working with an IP, the fans will have strong opinions. I want to be clear: not everyone who would prefer the former do so from a place of racism.

“That said, there are certainly racists, who are using these types of situations to espouse their abhorrent beliefs. It’s unfortunate that they muddy what can be an otherwise interesting conversation.

“As for folks on BGG rating a game a 1 before it comes out, this has been going on for a while for a host of reasons. There’s nothing we can do about it, so we press on and just make the best game we can.

“When people actually receive and start playing the game, we are confident that there will be a lot of great ratings for it that will make the current kerfuffle just so much background noise.”

The King’s Gambit’s crowdfunding campaign ends at 8.30am EDT on October 20.

The post “I wouldn’t expect this to become the norm”: backers overwhelmingly choose King’s Gambit most expensive tiers, power crowdfund past $2.3m first appeared on .

UK-based Osprey Games has let go of its entire board and card game development team and cancelled its booth at the upcoming Spiel Essen game fair, five months after parent company Bloomsbury began searching for a buyer for the operation.

Osprey revealed in May that multinational book giant Bloomsbury had made the “difficult decision” to sell the board and card game segment as part of a wider “strategic refocusing” on book publishing, which would see Osprey concentrate on its wargame and RPG lines.

Two sources with knowledge of the matter told BoardGameWire at the time that Bloomsbury hoped to find a buyer willing take on the existing board and card game team in addition to its catalogue, which includes acclaimed titles such as the Undaunted and Imperium lines.

But a Bloomsbury spokesperson has now confirmed to BoardGameWire that “all our colleagues who exclusively worked on creating and manufacturing our board and card games have now left the company”.

Multiple sources spoken to by BoardGameWire said those exits were in the form of redundancies at the end of September, although the company declined to say exactly how many staff were affected.

The departures mean Bloomsbury is now seeking a buyer solely for the board and card game catalogue, rather than the department as a whole – but questions remain over exactly how the rights to its portfolio of games could be sold on to a new owner.

BoardGameWire understands that some Osprey designer contracts include restrictions governing the transfer of publishing rights to third parties, which could complicate the sale efforts – with some agreements seeming to limit transfers to buyers acquiring all or substantially all of the imprint’s titles.

Asked about that situation by BoardGameWire, a Bloomsbury spokesperson said, “The contractual arrangements relating to Osprey Games are confidential, so we’re not able to share details of specific terms or comment on potential outcomes.

“We appreciate that these questions are important to designers and other partners, and we’ll share further information with those directly involved as soon as we’re able to.”

The spokesperson also confirmed that Osprey has multiple unreleased board and card game projects under contract at “various stages of development”, but did not say whether those titles would be published by Osprey or transferred to another buyer.

They said, “As with our published games, we will share information about the future of those projects with the relevant designers as soon as we are able to.”

Osprey’s existing games remain “well stocked”, the spokesperson said, adding that the company had no current plans for reprints “but will continue to review the situation as we move forwards”.

They said, “We remain committed to supporting our fantastic range of board and card games with sales, marketing and licensing efforts and each of our games remains available to purchase.

“Our upcoming games, Undaunted 2200: Revolution from David Thompson and Trevor Benjamin, and Upland & Prairie from Peer Sylvester will be released as planned this month.  

“We are, as ever, incredibly grateful to our brilliant in-house team, to our wonderful designers and illustrators, and to everyone who has supported Osprey Games over the years.”

Osprey Games was launched in 2015 as part of Bloomsbury arm Osprey Publishing, which had a decades-long history of creating military and historical information and reference books before beginning to publish wargaming rulebooks in 2008.

The gaming arm’s early successes included Peer Sylvester’s The King is Dead and The Lost Expedition, as well as popular titles such as Hal Duncan and Ruth Veevers’ design Cryptid and the second edition of Martin Wallace’s London.

Those releases were followed by the high-profile success of the Undaunted series of deckbuilding wargames from David Thompson and Trevor Benjamin and the Imperium games from Nigel Buckle and Dávid Turczi.

Osprey also gained a reputation for taking chances on a range of titles with intriguing mechanisms and designs, such as Sylvester’s area control and trick-taking hybrid Brian Boru, highly asymmetric area control title Crescent Moon, card-based strategic wargame Battalion: War of the Ancients and small-box, quick-playing conflict title General Orders: World War II.

The publisher has continued releasing games in the wake of the sale process announcement, including Threaded, Flip Pick Towers and Rattlesnake earlier this year and CRAB RAGE! last month.

Bloomsbury has not specified a timetable for completing the sale, with the spokesperson telling BoardGameWire that conversations were “ongoing”.

They added, “I’m sure you’ll appreciate that this is a very complex situation, and the timelines are based around confidential conversations. We will provide updates when we can do so.”

Osprey parent Bloomsbury, which has a stock market valuation of more than £500m, announced in April that it was “streamlining its structure for further growth” – which included a reorganisation of the company’s editorial divisions and the loss of about 55 jobs. No mention of Osprey was made in the restructuring announcement.

Bloomsbury has seen its profits almost double in the last five financial years, and confirmed at its July annual meeting that it expects annual revenue of more than £350m and was on track for record adjusted pre-tax profits of £49.9m, according to Publishers Weekly.

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Ares Games has expanded its international distribution business again through a partnership with Spain’s Draco Ideas, bringing the English editions of its games to retailers.

The deal covers games from the company’s two publishing arms, Draco Ideas and Eclipse Editorial, which merged into a single business in 2023.

Ares said distribution of Draco games would begin in December with Viking and Anglo-Saxon territory-building title Dark Kingdoms, the first English-language edition of 2018 release Reconquista, and a second edition of family game RatLand alongside two expansions and a miniatures pack.

The agreement is the latest in a series of distribution partnerships signed by Ares over the past two years, including deals with Armenian publisher Red Cat Games, Italy’s Tabula Games and Czech publisher Albi.

Ares also signed a deal with Dark Horizon Games in July this year to bring its co-operative sci-fi dungeon crawler Earth Under Siege: Flashpoint and three expansions to US retail, with the titles beginning to reach stores last month.

The company has also been extending the geographical reach of its existing distribution business, announcing last December that it would begin supplying titles from five publishers – Galakta Games, Tabula Games, Albi, Nuts! Publishing and Don’t Panic Games – to European retailers and distributors through its Italian warehouse.

That expansion has continued despite the trade disruption caused by US tariffs which prompted Ares to rethink parts of its business model last year, including reducing inventory, becoming more selective about products and increasing direct sales.

Di Meglio told BoardGameWire last December, “We are growing in small steps, but considered how complex is the situation in the US in these days, we are quite happy of this slow but steady progress.”

He added, “The current level of tariffs is not something to be happy about, but manageable. However, we have seen through 2025 that the rates can change abruptly and unexpectedly – this means we must be very careful about which products we pick, more than ever.”

Ares’ distribution partnerships have offered a route into conventional retail for games which previously relied heavily on crowdfunding.

Speaking to BoardGameWire about its Tabula Games partnership in May last year, Di Meglio said the Italian publisher had run successful crowdfunding campaigns, but its games had barely reached retail distribution.

The new Draco deal includes crowdfunded title Dark Kingdoms, a strategy and conquest game set in fifth-century Britain, which will begin being distributed to stores once its Gamefound fulfilment is complete.

That game, which was designed by Marco Antonio del Campo, sees players lead Saxon, Angle, Jute and Briton factions competing for control of territory through resource management, construction and military conquest.

Del Campo also designed Reconquista, originally published in Spanish in 2018, which pits four rival kingdoms against one another for control of the Iberian Peninsula in the 11th century.

The third title, Eduardo Garcia’s RatLand, is a family game in which players compete to grow rival rat colonies while gathering and stealing food. Its second edition will be accompanied by The Conquest of the Port and Automa expansions, alongside a pack of plastic rat miniatures.

Draco Ideas was founded in Spain in 2014 by Luis Álvaro Hernández, initially to publish his own historical battle game ONUS! Rome vs Carthage.

It has since developed into a specialist publisher of historical wargames and strategy games, with Eclipse Editorial covering narrative, adventure and family games.

The post Ares Games continues international distribution expansion through deal with Spanish publisher Draco Ideas first appeared on .

Asmodee has sealed a strong showing at this year’s Nederlandse Spellenprijs, with co-operative puzzle game Take Time and its Lord of the Rings-themed trick-taking games taking home two of the three prizes in the country’s longest-running board game awards.

Take Time, designed by Alexi Piovesan and Julien Prothière, beat Castle Combo and Rebirth to the family game of the year award – marking its first major award win, after having picked up a ‘recommended’ in the Spiel des Jahres and nomination in the French As d’Or.

Bryan Bornmueller’s two The Lord of the Rings: Trick-Taking Game releases, which were judged as a single title, triumphed over Dewan and Pondscape in the connoisseur games category, handing a win to Asmodee studio Office Dog.

This year’s expert game prize, meanwhile, went to White Goblin Games’ Dutch-language edition of River of Gold – which saw off competition from Ants and Yokohama. That title was also originally published by Asmodee studio Office Dog in English.

Take Time’s victory means this is only the second time in five years that the Dutch family game award has not gone to a Spiel des Jahres winner, with Cascadia, Sky Team and Bomb Busters each having claimed both prizes in 2022, 2024 and 2025 respectively.

The victories also mark a second successive year in which a single publisher has claimed two of the three Nederlandse Spellenprijs awards, following 999 Games’ success with Bomb Busters and Botanicus in 2025.

The result saw three-year-old Dutch publisher DSV Games miss out on a prize despite securing a trio of nominations this year – 12 months after picking up its first win in the contest with Tomáš Holek design SETI.

This year’s entire shortlist was shared between just three publishing groups in Asmodee, White Goblin Games and DSV.

BoardGameWire revealed last month that huge demand for co-op puzzle game Take Time had led publishing giant Asmodee to print more than 325,000 copies less than a year after release – outstripping even the company’s high expectations which surrounded its record-breaking launch.

Game line manager Auguste Lecoeur told BoardGameWire, “As soon as the game’s prototype was shown to us and signed, it became an internal priority, with resources and manpower being redirected from other projects to Take Time.”

The title sees players attempting to place cards around a series of clock faces while meeting increasingly challenging conditions, with limited opportunities to discuss their plans before playing.

More than 100 Dutch-language board and card games were assessed by a jury of experts for this year’s Nederlandse Spellenprijs, which is now in its 26th year. Games were assessed on their quality, originality and replayability.

This year’s ceremony marked a change in leadership for the awards, with Anna Wassenburg taking over as chair from Niek Ederveen, who stepped down after nine years in the role.

Another change this year was the physical format of the awards themselves, which are now shaped like pawns with windmill sails.

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Steamforged Games is facing mounting criticism from crowdfunding backers over unresolved refunds and dwindling updates across its undelivered projects, in the wake of the publisher cutting about a third of its workforce and refocusing towards its Warmachine miniatures line earlier this year.

BoardGameWire reported in June that the UK-based company, which made its name adapting video games such as Dark Souls into multi-million-dollar board game Kickstarters, was reducing its crowdfunding activity following a second set of redundancies in three years.

That left Steamforged with nine campaigns with outstanding fulfilment obligations, which together raised almost £19m including late pledges. The biggest of those is Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, which pulled in almost £6.3m from almost 15,000 backers and was originally estimated to be delivered almost two years ago, in November 2024.

Steamforged said in a Kickstarter update in January this year that it was aiming to deliver the title to all regions in July, but has provided just two updates since.

The first, in April, said things were “back up and running following Chinese New Year” and promising “more substantial updates” in the coming months, while another at the end of July read:

“We’d like to start by apologising for the lack of a formal update recently. We had intended to have concrete fulfilment information ready for you this month, but this update is waiting on some key information from partners which is still pending.

“In the meantime, we wanted to let you know we are working hard behind the scenes and will have an update to share as soon as we possibly can.”

That lack of communication about the status of projects has been repeated across Steamforged’s other outstanding crowdfunds, which include the £3.2m Helldivers 2 campaign, the £1.8m-raising Elden Ring: Rot & Sorcery and £1.2m Hearts of Iron: The Board Game.

Its other unfulfilled campaigns include the US production and shipping of Horizon Forbidden West: Seeds of Rebellion and Euthia: Cruel Frost, both of which were postponed due to tariffs uncertainty last year, and the second wave of its P3 Paints crowdfund, which has been delayed by up to a year due to a production issue with the metallic colours.

Campaign	Funding including late pledges	Initial expected delivery date
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne	£6,261,436	November 2024
Helldivers 2	£3,239,140	October 2026
Horizon Forbidden West: Seeds of Rebellion	£2,117,290	May 2025*
Elden Ring: Rot & Sorcery	£1,839,406	July 2027
Euthia: Cruel Frost	£1,446,056	November 2025*
Hearts of Iron: The Board Game	£1,240,053	June 2026
Terra Mystica Special Edition	£1,055,530	April 2027
Bardsung: Tale of the Forsaken Glade	£910,735	April 2026
P3 Paints Wave 2	£720,817	June 2026
Total	£18,830,463

Steamforged’s sparse status updates have led to rising discontent from backers across the comment sections of its crowdfunds and on its official Discord channel, which members say has been abandoned by company staff since the refocus towards Warmachine.

Backers across those channels are now questioning whether their games will ever arrive, with some reporting waits of weeks or months for responses to refund requests. Multiple backers have now turned to PayPal disputes and credit card chargebacks to recover their money.

At least one of Steamforged’s commercial partners has also expressed concerns. Hearts of Iron IP owner Paradox Interactive confirmed in June that it was in contact with Steamforged and working to ensure customers received their games as soon as possible.

Three months later, Paradox Development Studio Gold’s studio manager described the situation as “truly unfortunate”, saying the project “seemed to be going well, until it wasn’t” and that “it’s not a fast process by any means, but solutions are being discussed”.

A spokesperson for Paradox told BoardGameWire earlier this week, “Paradox has been closely tracking the progress of the Hearts of Iron board game. We are in talks with Steamforged Games to find the best way to get the game completed.

“We are not ready to comment on or commit to a specific course of action on the situation at Steamforged.”

A spokesperson for Feuerland Games, the publisher of Terra Mystica which teamed up with Steamforged for the special edition crowdfund, declined to comment on the situation to BoardGameWire.

Multiple sources who spoke to BoardGameWire in June on condition of anonymity said the latest Steamforged staff cuts affected departments including the creative, game design, production, project management, QA, marketing and commercial teams – adding that they feared the cutbacks would lead to problems delivering long-term projects.

But Steamforged told BoardGameWire at the time that the “vast majority” of creative work on its crowdfunded board games was complete, described the staff reduction as “carefully considered”, and said the company “retain[s] both the internal resource and the external capabilities needed to deliver on our commitments”.

BoardGameWire has attempted to contact Steamforged CEO Rich Loxam multiple times across August, September and October about the ongoing situation at the publisher, and to ask questions about refunds, production and delivery schedules and whether the restructuring had affected the company’s ability to complete its existing projects – but has received no response.

Loxam previously told BoardGameWire during Steamforged’s Terra Mystica Special Edition campaign last November that “backers need to feel heard, valued, and understood, which is why we spend so much time in the comments”.

Reflecting on the difficult fulfilment of Dark Souls: The Board Game, Loxam said in a 2022 blog post that one of Steamforged’s “bigger mistakes” had been handling problems “behind closed doors” and only speaking publicly when it felt there was something important to say.

“We were wrong,” he wrote, adding that Steamforged had “learned the hard way that transparency with supporters, backers, and fans is always the right choice”, and promising to communicate as much as possible to build trust and its reputation.

Steamforged signalled a change in its approach following June’s disclosure of the redundancies, telling BoardGameWire that “in the past, we would post updates once-a-month even during quieter periods for a project”.

“Moving forward, our focus is on providing key updates,” it added.

But the sharp decline in communication has extended beyond crowdfunding updates, with several of Steamforged’s public community channels now restricted or, like the Discord, no longer actively used by staff.

Comments are disabled on Steamforged’s YouTube videos – although the company has not uploaded anything to the channel for eight months – while posts on its Facebook page currently carry a notice saying it has “limited who can comment on this post”.

Despite the absence of staff activity on the Steamforged Discord channel, employees have remained active in the company’s dedicated Warmachine server – where the company has told users not to raise questions about its outstanding crowdfunds.

In a September 23 message on the Warmachine Discord, Steamforged’s head of marketing Chynna-Blue Perkins acknowledged that crowdfunding backers were turning to the server for answers, but said it was not the appropriate place to discuss the company’s outstanding projects.

She wrote, “As much as I understand going where you can to seek answers, I am going to have to draw a line under future Kickstarter queries in this server.

“Everyone’s been respectful considering the topic at hand, and I appreciate that, but this is a Warmachine server and it isn’t the right place for crowdfunding queries.

“The campaign pages are where any and all updates will be shared. I wish I could give you more information, but even if I could, this wouldn’t be the place for it.”

The reduction in communication has left backers increasingly having to divine for themselves exactly what is happening at Steamforged, with discussions in its Discord ranging from questions about whether to withdraw from campaigns and advice on procuring refunds, to speculation about the company’s financial stability.

Backer concerns around the latter were exacerbated at the beginning of last month when Companies House, the UK government agency responsible for company registrations, began compulsory strike-off proceedings against Steamforged Games and its parent company due to their overdue accounts, which were due on June 30.

Steamforged posted to its Facebook two days later:

We’re aware some of you have seen a First Gazette notice relating to Steamforged Games, and we’re sorry for any concern it’s caused.

This is a routine notice Companies House issues when a filing is overdue. Our filing was delayed as a result of the company restructuring work we announced earlier this year and is now being resolved.

To be clear, all business activities are continuing as normal.

The strike-off proceedings were discontinued by Companies House four days later, although Steamforged’s accounts are still listed as overdue on the agency’s website.

While the publisher’s latest accounts remain unavailable, data from Steamforged investor Foresight offers some insight into the company’s recent performance.

The investment house cut the valuation of its Steamforged holdings by almost 74% in the first half of 2026 across its Foresight VCT and Enterprise VCT investment vehicles, from £3.68m to just over £960,000 – although that does not represent the valuation of Steamforged as a whole.

Foresight, which invested £5m in Steamforged in 2019 across those vehicles and a third investment fund, said in an end of June update that the publisher had experienced “a few disappointing crowdfunding campaigns over the last 12 months” and was looking to transition away from that part of the market to focus on its higher-margin Iron Kingdoms business.

Steamforged picked up Warmachine – which is set in the Iron Kingdoms IP – P3 Paints and the Iron Kingdoms RPG from Privateer Press in 2024.

A spokesperson for Steamforged told BoardGameWire in June that Warmachine and P3 Paints revenue had tripled in the prior 21 months, despite significant stock constraints in its first year of ownership due to heavy demand.

They said at the time “Demand has been high and we’ve scaled production to meet it. Our US production capacity for Warmachine has increased by 70% since last March, with a 25% increase in Europe since August and new production facilities introduced in the UK in February 2026.”

But communication problems have also extended to P3 Paints. Backers of the Wave 2 crowdfund have complained about a lack of updates and unanswered refund requests, after Steamforged revealed in May that production problems with metallic colours had pushed expected fulfilment from June 2026 into 2027.

Steamforged has so far completed non-US fulfilment of Horizon Forbidden West: Seeds of Rebellion and Euthia: Cruel Frost this year, as well as the pre-order campaign for 6: Siege – which it picked up from now-liquidated crowdfunding major Mythic Games early last year.

The last crowdfunding campaigns substantially or fully completed by the publisher are all from last year, including Elden Ring: The Board Game, the original P3 Paints campaign and the Iron Kingdoms-set Strangelight Workshop RPG.

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Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering workers are moving to unionise after alleging rising workloads, unpaid overtime and job insecurity at Wizards of the Coast – despite the business having become the main profit engine of toy and game giant Hasbro.

Workers on Dungeons & Dragons, D&D Beyond and Wizards’ Studio X – which develops tabletop Magic: The Gathering and Duel Masters – plan to unionise with the Communications Workers of America, having secured the backing of a “public supermajority” of employees.

The move comes after several years of soaring sales and profits at Wizards, which has increasingly become the financial powerhouse of Hasbro amid struggles at the company’s traditional toys business – which includes Nerf guns, Transformers and Peppa Pig toys.

Wizards provided almost half of Hasbro’s $4.7bn revenue last year, with booming Magic: The Gathering sales pushing Wizards to a record operating profit of more than $1bn in 2025.

That performance was driven by hugely successful Universes Beyond releases including Final Fantasy, Avatar: The Last Airbender and Marvel’s Spider-Man, alongside strong backlist and Secret Lair sales.

Studio X workers specifically highlighted that financial success in announcing their unionisation effort, saying their team had been responsible for “back-to-back billion dollar years and a vast majority of Hasbro’s profit”.

D&D workers, meanwhile, said growing workloads without corresponding increases in headcount had left some teams regularly “crunching” simply to complete planned releases – describing crunch as “intense and mandatory unpaid overtime”.

They are also seeking contractual protections around job security, pay and career progression, saying, “Many of us are bringing home less money every month, adjusted for inflation, than we did when we were hired years ago. That needs to change.”

An open letter from those workers added that employees “live in fear of suddenly losing their jobs, with no warning and through no fault of their own”, and that Wizards prioritising in-office work had left workers “unsure of whether their current living situation is tenable for their role”.

Hasbro cut about 1,900 jobs across two rounds in 2023, including at Wizards, after a sharp downturn in its core consumer products business. That segment saw revenue fall 19% in 2023, swinging to a $64.7m operating loss, while Wizards revenue rose 10%.

Further cuts have followed since, including four Wizards employees during Hasbro-wide redundancies in October 2024, and about 30 developers – roughly 90% of the team working on Wizards’ now scrapped Sigil D&D virtual tabletop – in March 2025.

Hasbro cut roughly 150 more jobs three months later, including D&D staff, and last month D&D community manager LaTia Jacquise and Magic social media manager Jordan Hopkins publicly confirmed their layoffs – with Hopkins describing his departure as part of a “greater restructure”. Wizards has not disclosed the total number of jobs affected.

Magic rules manager Eric Levine said of the union effort, “Everyone I work with makes our company, our game, and our community stronger by bringing their talent, expertise, and effort to making Magic.

“Those incredible people deserve fair compensation, remote protections, clear career progression, and more. Supporting the people who make the game will ensure that Magic keeps getting better for years to come.”

The unionisation push also called for protections for work employees create in their free time, with the D&D workers’ announcement saying, “Currently, if an employee makes anything creative in their free time, with their own resources, Hasbro can claim ownership. What we do in our free time should not be dictated by the company, and what we make in our free time should belong to us.”

The D&D team also used its unionisation letter to reveal tension between Hasbro and Wizards over the use of generative AI, saying, “As pressure has ramped up from Hasbro to adopt LLMs and Gen AI tools in various aspects of our work, WOTC has resisted these efforts and kept AI out of our games.

“That’s good! We want to preserve this commendable stance through a union contract that ensures our games will always be made by people for people.”

Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks was openly enthusiastic about bringing AI into the D&D ecosystem in September 2024, saying at Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia conference that Hasbro was already using AI “significantly and liberally internally as both a knowledge worker aid and as a development aid” – but was more excited about its potential in play.

He added, “I play with probably 30 or 40 people regularly. There’s not a single person who doesn’t use AI somehow for either campaign development or character development or story ideas. That’s a clear signal that we need to be embracing it.”

In an interview with The Verge in March this year, however, Cocks said that while Hasbro was deploying AI widely across the company, he acknowledged there was resistance to its use in Wizards’ games.

He said, “There are some brands that the audience, the creators, just don’t want it, so we don’t even have it in our pipelines for our video games or for Magic: The Gathering, or D&D.”

Cocks added that he personally used huge amounts of AI-generated animation, images, text, sound effects and voice cloning in his personal D&D games, telling interviewer Nilay Patel there was so much on his home PC that it would “floor” him.

He added that AI was being used extensively elsewhere at Hasbro, including in toy design and as a general productivity tool across the company, and estimated it could save more than one million hours of work this year.

Cocks also told Verge that he did not believe the technology would cost creative workers their jobs, saying, “I see it only making the quality of the creative we have better.”

Other demands from the unionisers include better support for working parents, changes to healthcare provision and greater financial transparency, to aid the unions in collective bargaining.

The latest unionisation push at Wizards comes just a few months after developers of its online platform Magic: The Gathering Arena revealed their own plans to unionise.

More than 100 Arena workers announced their unionisation drive in April, with Wizards declining their request for voluntary recognition. The group subsequently won a National Labor Relations Board election in June, formally establishing the first union at Wizards.

D&D and Studio X workers – who are also organising under the United Wizards of the Coast-CWA – have asked Wizards and Hasbro to voluntarily recognise their respective units by an October 13 deadline, and have filed an election petition with the NLRB to allow the certification process to proceed if that does not happen.

They are also calling for Hasbro and Wizards to adopt a labour neutrality agreement allowing other workers at the company to organise without fear of retaliation.

D&D senior game designer Joey Haeck said they were organising “because scared workers are neither happy nor productive”.

Haeck said, “By organizing to negotiate a fair contract on issues of layoff protections, forced relocation protections, equitable pay and career advancement, mandatory AI use protections, parental support, and more, we make our game better by investing in our human creators and resisting the churn and brain drain caused by roller-coaster layoffs.”

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CMON has found a route to getting one of its delayed projects into customers’ hands without having to fund the remaining costs itself, as the financially-troubled publisher continues its attempt to recover from almost $23m of losses across 2024 and 2025.

Long-time CMON manufacturing partner Top Games has agreed to take ownership of The Adventurers in exchange for covering the remaining production and fulfilment costs for the pre-order title, with CMON continuing to “provide support”, a joint statement from the pair said.

They added that production of The Adventurers had now been completed, with finished games packed at the factory and ready for shipment.

CMON said in January that IP sales and licensing deals were among the routes it was pursuing to secure fulfilment of its large backlog of outstanding projects, as part of its efforts to stabilise its finances.

Those undelivered projects comprise eight crowdfunding campaigns which raised more than $14m, including DC Super Heroes United, DCeased and Massive Darkness: Dungeons of Shadowreach, and four pre-order campaigns including The Adventurers.

CMON warned in the summer that its core business was suffering a “prolonged structural downturn” and was still consuming more cash than it generated, despite a drastic restructuring which has seen the company halve its workforce, sell off some of its biggest game IPs and halt new crowdfunding campaigns.

But the publisher received a major financial boost last month by completing a $19m capital raise – having entered August with just $368,000 in bank and cash balances.

That new funding is needed for far more than clearing its project backlog, however. About 40% has been earmarked for “working capital” over the coming 12 months, including staff costs, royalties, shipping and distribution, while another 20% is set to go towards repaying borrowings and other liabilities.

Another 25% of the new money is slated for expansion in existing and new markets, while 15% will go towards potential acquisitions as part of a push into digital gaming.

Top Games has been a major manufacturing partner for CMON over the years, working on more than a dozen of its games including Cthulhu: Death May Die – Fear of the Unknown, Massive Darkness 2: Hellscape and Zombicide: Undead or Alive, as well as Project: ELITE, Munchkin Dungeon and Starcadia Quest.

Its team has worked in tabletop manufacturing since 2009, and the Chinese company established its own plastics manufacturing facility in Dongguan in 2018.

Top Games stressed in the announcement that manufacturing will remain the foundation of its business, and said its involvement with The Adventurers had the specific goal of getting the project completed and delivered to customers.

The Adventurers is CMON’s revival of the adventure game series from Guillaume Blossier and Frédéric Henry, which began with The Adventurers: The Temple of Chac in 2009 – originally published by AEG and Dust Games. That title was followed by followed by Dust Games and Fantasy Flight Games’ The Adventurers: The Pyramid of Horus in 2011.

CMON launched a Gamefound pre-order in March 2025 featuring new editions of both games alongside a new entry in the series, The Adventurers: Tomb of the Pirate Queen, with delivery of the project estimated for December that year.

Just a month later, however, the publisher announced it was laying off staff and halting new game development and campaign launches, citing the ongoing unpredictability in US tariffs.

A week after that, CMON revealed it had slumped to a loss of more than $3m in 2024 – a figure subsequently dwarfed by the publisher’s 2025 losses, which spiralled to nearly $20m.

Those losses are almost 5.5-times the company’s profits from the preceding nine years combined – although the company’s recent restructuring efforts have seen its losses for the first half of 2026 narrow sharply, to just over $2m.

CMON’s revenue has fallen dramatically from its pandemic-era highs, dropping to $9.9m in 2025 from between $37m and $45m in each of the previous four years.

The company has blamed that decline on factors including a slowdown in crowdfunding, weaker consumer demand and disruption from US tariffs, leaving it trying to cut costs and reshape a business built around significantly higher sales.

Massive Darkness: Dungeons of Shadowreach, which completed a $2.85m crowdfund on Gamefound early last year, was CMON’s last before it scrapped its future crowdfunding plans two months later.

The company has pivoted in the interim to releasing several smaller-box games direct to retail, including Collect!, Peanuts Talent Show, Fairy Perfume, Rocket Punch and Yokai Carnival.

Its 2026 releases continue that trend via Renier Knizia design KumoKumo Park and Atrah from Jérémy Ducret and Johannes Goupy, while the company has also highlighted Grow Sky as another release it says is ‘coming soon’.

The company has not completed fulfillment of a crowdfunding project since Zombicide: White Death in mid-2025, but did manage to deliver pre-orders for Cthulhu: Dark Providence, Marvel United: Witching Hour and Dune: Desert War in the first half of this year.

CMON said in March that it planned to resume crowdfunding in the second half of 2026 – although its latest financial report stopped short of repeating that commitment, saying instead that new titles would be launched selectively depending on market conditions, available financial resources and project readiness.

The post CMON to give up The Adventurers ownership to get delayed project delivered as it works to stabilise finances first appeared on .

Hasbro has extended its wide-ranging licensing deal with Renegade Game Studios, continuing a years-long partnership which has seen the hobby publisher take over and develop a growing collection of the toy giant’s board game brands.

The renewed agreement includes Axis & Allies, Acquire, Diplomacy, Heroscape, Robo Rally and Ikusa, with new games and expansions planned for 2027 and beyond, the pair said.

Recent projects built on existing Hasbro titles have included Axis & Allies: North Africa, Robo Rally Dice and Diplomacy: The Golden Blade.

Renegade’s work with Hasbro has also spread to subsidiary Wizards of the Coast, with the publisher announcing a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons board game Lords of Waterdeep and its Scoundrels of Skullport expansion last year, and set to bring the long out-of-print Castle Ravenloft board game back to retail in 2027.

Scott Gaeta, the founder and president of Renegade, said, “We’re extremely pleased to extend and expand our relationship with Hasbro. From our beginnings with Power Rangers to our most recent projects on Dungeons & Dragons Lords of Waterdeep, working with the teams at Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast has been a pleasure.

“It’s an honor to be entrusted with bringing these iconic brands to tabletops worldwide.”

Renegade’s relationship with Hasbro began via an unexpected route in 2018, when the publisher signed a licensing deal with Saban Brands to make Power Rangers tabletop games.

Hasbro acquired Power Rangers from Saban later that year while Renegade was developing Power Rangers: Heroes of the Grid – which went on to raise more than $700,000 through Kickstarter, and spawned a line which ultimately stretched to more than 50 releases.

Hasbro expanded its Renegade partnership to G.I. JOE, Transformers and My Little Pony in 2020, and two years later handed the publisher responsibility for established tabletop lines previously associated with Avalon Hill, including Axis & Allies and Diplomacy.

Heroscape followed in 2023, just months after Hasbro’s own attempt to revive the miniatures game through its HasLab crowdfunding platform failed to reach the 8,000 pledges needed to enter production. Renegade has since developed the game into an ongoing miniatures line with new armies, terrain, organised play and regular expansions.

The companies also added Nexus Ops, Vegas Showdown, Risk 2210 AD and Risk: Godstorm to the agreement in 2023, with Renegade saying at the time it planned to preserve the original gameplay while refreshing the games’ presentation and making minor quality-of-life improvements.

Renegade has also increasingly mixed Hasbro’s entertainment properties with the tabletop systems it now publishes, including G.I. JOE: Battle for the Arctic Circle – the first game in its ‘Powered by Axis & Allies’ line – and a G.I. JOE range for Heroscape.

The publisher also revealed more details for Power Rangers: Impossible Odds last week during Renegade Con, its regular online showcase for upcoming games and expansions. The cooperative boss-battling dice game is due for release in April 2027.

Renegade’s wider Hasbro agreement continues to cover Transformers, G.I. JOE, Power Rangers, M.A.S.K., My Little Pony, JEM and the Holograms and ROM the SpaceKnight.

The post Renegade’s Hasbro partnership grows again as pair expand tabletop licensing deal first appeared on .

MyMiniFactory marketing and brand head Anjuli Smith has left the 3D-printing marketplace to launch her own tabletop agency, whose work will include helping smaller board game publishers find distributors and expand internationally.

Smith left MyMiniFactory at the end of September to focus full-time on her newly-launched Tabletop Growth Partners, which will primarily target the TTRPG and wargaming sectors with marketing, digital growth and business development services.

But she is also looking to offer international business development support for smaller board game publishers, using contacts built up over 13 years in the industry to introduce them to distributors and support them through sales and negotiation meetings.

Smith told BoardGameWire she is currently in talks with three board game publishers about working with them at the Spielwarenmesse trade fair in Nuremberg next February – including new Canadian publisher Acolyte, which focuses on co-op and semi co-op games and is looking for UK and European distribution.

She said, “An available network is a huge blocker for many smaller and newly launched publishers. Getting your games in front of the right people who know how to market them (and will in fact market them) is key to expansion.

“With over 5,000 new board games releasing annually I think it can be pretty daunting for smaller publishers who lack the massive budget of The Op’s Flip 7. Being able to use someone who people already know and trust to open a door for you is a huge win.”

Smith said her work with those publishers would include introducing them to distributors she already has relationships with, approaching potential new distribution partners and organising their meeting schedules ahead of the show.

She will also sit in on meetings for publishers that request additional support, including helping with negotiations and expansion plans.

Smith said, “I have a huge network of industry colleagues I have grown over the last 13 years and I think it’s important to give back and not gatekeep that.

“I like being able to introduce folks to each other and watch them both grow and succeed because of it.”

Tabletop Growth Partners will also offer marketing strategy, digital storefront optimisation, crowdfunding and subscription support, and representation at international events including SPIEL Essen, PAX Unplugged, GAMA Expo and UK Games Expo.

Smith told BoardGameWire she believes the cost of attending international shows could make that kind of support particularly valuable to smaller publishers.

Smith said, “For a small publisher the costs of flights, hotels, and a booth are huge. Asking them to then take time away from sales to talk to others simply isn’t an option.”

She added that many board game studios and publishers had opportunities to expand their communities, but lacked the time, knowledge or money to pursue them themselves.

“At the end of the day they are creatives, they should be creating their next bestseller, not getting bogged down with admin and endless meetings. Let me do that.”

Smith joined MyMiniFactory after previously working as a purchasing assistant at Asmodee UK and at Asmodee Entertainment’s fiction imprint Aconyte Books, and most recently served as the 3D-printing platform’s head of marketing and brand.

Her work there included business development around bringing established tabletop properties into 3D printing, including Steamforged Games‘ Warmachine and Modiphius Entertainment‘s The Elder Scrolls.

Smith said that while she is based in the UK, she has set her working schedule to cover US mornings because she expects “a vast majority” of the agency’s clients to be based there.

The agency has also signed up as an ambassador for MyMiniFactory’s Soulcrafted initiative, which was launched to champion human-made creative work amid the rapid growth of generative AI.

The post MyMiniFactory marketing head leaves to launch growth agency for tabletop publishers first appeared on .

Czech Games Edition‘s huge-selling word guessing game Codenames has made the jump to Netflix, with the publisher developing a new digital version of its biggest-selling title for the streaming giant’s push into TV-based social gaming.

CGE told BoardGameWire that Netflix originally approached it about licensing Codenames, before changing tack and asking CGE to develop the digital version itself after trying out the publisher’s existing mobile app for the game.

Codenames Party can be played by Netflix subscribers through their TV by using their phones as controllers, and includes a new ‘party’ mode allowing up to 10 people to compete as individuals rather than in teams.

The deal provides a new source of players for a game which is already closing in on 20 million physical copies sold, a CGE spokesperson told BoardGameWire, adding that “the branding benefits and opportunity to reach a new audience” were important to the publisher.

Codenames and its spin-off titles already account for about 80% of CGE’s annual sales – although company marketing manager Ondřej Skácel told Czech business publication CzechCrunch the new deal would not transform CGE financially, saying revenues from the tabletop version of Codenames remained on another level.

CGE was paid to develop the Netflix version of the Vlaada Chvátil design, and will also receive ongoing licensing payments, that report added – with Skácel telling the outlet “at first, we didn’t believe it and thought it was some sort of hoax” when Netflix got in touch.

Codenames Party’s visual style has prompted questions from some players about whether generative AI was used in its creation – something CGE strongly denied to BoardGameWire.

The spokesperson said, “There are no AI assets in the game or in marketing materials. We saw those comments, but we want to clarify that the new art style was made by illustrators and graphic designers who spent countless hours on it.

“In general, we use human graphic designers and illustrators on all our projects. We’re in turbulent times, but we’re still enjoying the whole ‘old-school’ process of making games.”

CGE also left open the possibility of bringing more of its games to Netflix or similar platforms, telling BoardGameWire, “We’re always open to any new opportunities. If we find a good fit with our games and the specific platforms, we would definitely consider it.”

Codenames was first released by CGE in late 2015 and quickly became an international hit, winning the coveted Spiel des Jahres prize the following year.

The game has since spawned a string of spin-offs and licensed editions, including Codenames: Pictures and two-player cooperative version Codenames: Duet.

CGE has increasingly experimented with bringing Codenames into digital formats, beginning with the free browser-based Codenames Online in 2019 before launching a mobile adaptation developed by its CGE Digital team in 2024.

That app, which clearly made an impression on the Netflix team, introduced asynchronous multiplayer, matchmaking, progression and new game modes rather than simply recreating the tabletop game.

The post Codenames makes Netflix debut after streaming giant approached CGE for licence – then hired it to develop the game instead first appeared on .

Editor’s note: GAMA is a BoardGameWire sponsor, and has advertised Game Store Day on the site – but this article is not a paid placement, I just think it’s interesting enough to cover editorially!

Game Store Day, GAMA‘s annual initiative aimed at getting more people into local game stores to play, shop and take part in events, is growing for its second year after retailers and publishers were given substantially more time to prepare than for its debut.

Almost 300 retailers are currently signed up for this year’s Game Store Day on November 7, while nearly 60 tabletop publishers have committed games to a new promotional box, as GAMA looks to establish the event as a long-term fixture on the tabletop industry calendar.

GAMA board member and Red Raccoon Games owner Jamie Mathy told BoardGameWire that rising retailer participation was the clearest measure of success for Game Store Day at this stage, with this year’s 297 sign-ups already ahead of last year’s total with over a month to go.

But he believes there is scope for the event to grow significantly bigger in future years – and said GAMA had already learned lessons from 2025’s relatively short-notice launch.

He said, “Last year, Game Store Day was something [GAMA’s] Team Retail had been advocating for, and then suddenly it was announced and launched with less than eight weeks to prepare. That wasn’t enough time for a lot of retailers to really build it into their calendars or plan meaningful events around it.

“This year stores have had roughly four months to prepare, and we’ve had substantially more time to bring publishers into the program. The Publisher’s Box and other publisher initiatives give retailers additional reasons and tools to build something around the day.

“I think we’ll learn from this year as well. Ideally, I’d like stores and publishers to have even more lead time in future years.”

He added, “There are estimates of roughly 5,000 hobby game stores across North America. If we could eventually get 500 stores participating, that’s approximately 10% penetration and I would consider that a tremendous accomplishment. Getting to 1,000 stores – roughly 20% – would be amazing, even if that’s an ambitious long-term goal.

“More importantly, numbers like that would demonstrate to publishers and retailers that Game Store Day isn’t a one-time novelty. It’s something that has become part of the industry’s calendar.

“There’s a comparison to Free RPG Day here. It started relatively small, retailers can purchase a box of promotional products if they want those materials for their customers, and over time it has become something stores and consumers recognize.

“But ultimately, the part that excites me isn’t the box or even a particular participation number. It’s seeing hundreds of independent stores across the country celebrating our industry on the same day and giving people a reason to come together and play games.”

The short notice for last year’s launch left no time to run a Publisher’s Box – but 59 publishers including Leder Games, CGE, Blue Orange, Capstone Games and Bezier Games have agreed to contribute this year, with another four waiting to take part and others having approached GAMA after submissions had closed.

The $179 box will contain games, demos, promotional items and other material for participating stores – and Mathy said physical weight and shipping limits had now become the main constraint on adding more publishers.

“Probably, and that’s a wonderful problem to have,” Mathy said when asked whether GAMA would eventually need to rethink how publishers participate if interest continues to grow.

“This is only year two and the first year we’ve even offered a Publisher’s Box. Let’s learn from what works and what doesn’t this year.

“But if publisher interest continues growing, we’ll obviously need to think creatively about how publishers participate rather than assuming everything always has to fit into one physical box.”

Publishers are also beginning to build their own initiatives around the event aside from the promotional box.

Allplay is making 4,900 copies of new game Woo available exclusively to retailers participating in Game Store Day, with COO Joe Wiggins saying, “Allplay has been looking for new ways to work closer with our brick and mortar partners. When GAMA announced Game Store Day, we knew this would be an amazing opportunity. Allplay is all in.”

Mathy told BoardGameWire he believed part of the publisher interest was the difficulty some have in reaching hobby game retailers.

He said, “Game stores are incredibly diverse. We have different ownership styles, different product mixes, different customer bases and very different areas of specialization.

“Red Raccoon, for example, goes much deeper into board games and RPGs than many stores do, and that’s part of what has made us a regional destination. Another successful game store may have a completely different mix.

“That fragmentation makes it difficult for publishers to know where to spend their marketing dollars if they’re trying to get a product in front of retailers.

“Game Store Day gives them a self-selecting group of engaged retailers. A store willing to spend $179 on a box without knowing exactly what will be in it, because they believe in the idea and intend to build an event around it, is probably a pretty attractive audience for a publisher trying to get its products noticed.”

The increased publisher involvement brings Game Store Day closer to events such as Record Store Day – which GAMA has cited as an inspiration – where exclusive products, offers and other incentives have become part of the draw for customers.

But Mathy said, “I don’t personally think Game Store Day needs to become Record Store Day for games. The Publisher’s Box is a great addition, but to me it’s a bonus rather than the purpose of the event.

“I participated last year with essentially an idea, a logo and a store-locator website, and we had 35 people come specifically for our Game Store Day events.

“At its core, I think this should be a day when we celebrate local game stores, bring people together and play games. Publisher exclusives and promotional items can absolutely help stores make the day special, but they aren’t the reason Game Store Day exists.”

That vision has been taken up by participating stores including Oddwillow’s Game Haven in Wisconsin, which is partnering with its local library for activities including button-making, storytimes, miniature painting and game demos.

Pennsylvania’s Lookin’ For Games, meanwhile, is combining its first Game Store Day with game demos and a special Blood on the Clocktower event with a 24-hour gaming fundraiser for Extra Life benefiting Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Neil Goldberg, the owner of the New York-based Main St Board Game Cafe, said the event was a chance to focus customers on the experience offered by their local game store while also encouraging people to think of board games as gifts ahead of the holiday season.

Mathy said, “GAMA provides the umbrella, publishers can provide additional support, but individual stores make Game Store Day their own and use it to celebrate the communities they’ve built around games.”

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Luxembourg’s hospitality industry has named trick-taker Pili Pili as its board game of the year, continuing an eight-year initiative aimed at getting modern hobby games onto the tables of cafés, bars and restaurants.

Rather than solely recognising the best game of the year, the Bistrospill award is designed to encourage hospitality businesses to offer games for their customers to play, with the aim of reviving a tradition of cafés and bistros as spaces “buzzing with social life, where bonds were forged over a game of cards or dice”.

Bistrospill been run since 2018 by Horesca, Luxembourg’s association of hotels, restaurants and cafés, alongside the country’s biggest board game club Spillfabrik.

Horesca, which represents about 2,900 businesses, said it wants to re-establish tabletop gaming as a “vibrant part” of Luxembourg’s hospitality culture, harking back to the popularity of trick-taking games such as Whist and Belote in the 19th and early 20th century.

The organisation has persuaded cafés and bars to hold gaming afternoons and evenings, while participating businesses have been offered kits including posters, simplified rules, printed beer mats and suggestions for activities.

Its latest material also encourages hospitality businesses to keep a small selection of games available to customers, arguing that venues do not need to become dedicated board game cafés, and that a small shelf or clearly identified box of carefully chosen titles can be enough.

Spillfabrik is responsible for preselecting games suited to the bistro environment as part of the initiative, focusing on titles which are easy to explain, compact enough for café tables, playable by several people and sufficiently interactive to work in a social setting.

Publishers submitted 76 games for this year’s Bistrospill, with Spillfabrik whittling those down to five finalists – Udo Peise’s design Auf die Eier, Kei Kajino’s dnup, Antoine Bauza and Théo Rivière’s design Oh My Socks! and Sneaky, by Jannik Walter, as well as eventual winner Pili Pili.

Pili Pili was created by Ben B and Jean-Baptiste de Ghellinck, the founders of French party game publisher ATM Gaming – which was acquired by board game giant Asmodee earlier this year in a deal worth up to €250m.

Players predict how many tricks they will take each round, receiving penalties if they miss their target, while mission cards alter the rules as the game progresses.

The game’s roughly 20-minute playtime, compact card-based format and simple rules were among the elements highlighted by Bistrospill organisers as making Pili Pili particularly suited to cafés and bars.

Previous Bistrospill winners have included Illusion, Calavera, Pearls, Hula-Hoo!, Split It, Trio, Quando and last year’s victor Flip 7.

The post Luxembourg hospitality industry’s drive to get board games into cafés names Pili Pili its 2026 winner first appeared on .

A TV show based directly on the gameplay of 25-year-old board game The Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow has landed an International Emmy nomination.

Season two of Canal+’s Loups-Garous has been nominated in the Non-Scripted Entertainment category at the iconic awards, which celebrate excellence in television programming initially produced and aired outside of the US.

Loups-Garous attracted more than two million viewers for its launch in 2024 – the best ever launch for a new Canal+ creation at the time – with the Zygomatic-published social deduction game turned into a life-sized competition in which contestants take on the roles of villagers and werewolves.

Season one went on to draw a total of 15 million views according to the game’s publisher Asmodee – and that interest also translated to the physical game, with sales during the show’s launch week 150% higher than the same period a year earlier.

That success has led to international expansion for the show, with TV giant Banijay striking a multi-territory deal last year while describing Loups-Garous as “one of the hottest formats on the market”, and saying the agreement marked “a major coup for us at Banijay Entertainment”.

The deal allows Banijay to develop local versions across its operations spanning the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Nordics, Netherlands, Israel, Mexico, Brazil and India.

A German edition was also launched prior to that deal, with its first season passing five million streams. The show returned for its second season in Germany earlier this month.

The Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow is far from the only tabletop title looking to make the jump to the screen, with publishing and distribution giant Asmodee particularly active in a push to expand its biggest properties beyond the hobby games market.

Netflix struck a deal last year to develop the first screen adaptations of Catan across scripted and unscripted television, film and animation, and followed that in February this year by picking up the exclusive global rights to Ticket to Ride covering film, TV and other formats. A Ticket to Ride feature film is the first project being developed under that agreement.

Fellow Asmodee title Exploding Kittens has already made the transition to the screen, with Netflix launching an adult animated series based on the hit card game in 2024.

Netflix first teamed up with Asmodee in 2022, when the board game giant worked in the other direction to create a trio of titles based on Netflix shows Squid Game, Stranger Things and Ozark. Those games have been followed by a Bridgerton-themed version of Love Letter.

The streaming giant also brought its own adaptation of Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow to the screen in 2024 with the French film Family Pack – which was released just 12 days after the first episode of Loups-Garous.

Other publishers exploring adaptations based on their games include CMYK, which launched US television game show The Perfect Line last year, inspired by Wolfgang Warsch’s Illusion. That show proved successful enough to return for a second season earlier this month.

CMYK CEO Alex Hague previously told BoardGameWire that the company had received dozens of approaches each year about developing a TV version of its million-selling party game Wavelength.

BoardGameWire revealed in 2023 that Kung Fu Panda animated series writers Ben Mekler and Chris Amick had prepared a movie pitch for Leder Games hit Root, although progress on that was interrupted by the writers’ strike. Mekler and Amick are now attached to Netflix’s Ticket to Ride feature film.

More hobby board game screen adaptations have been mooted over the years, but struggled to make it beyond the development stage.

The screen rights to the Terraforming Mars board game were bought by production company Cobalt Knight in 2022, while DreamWorks Animation picked up the movie rights to Mice and Mystics way back in 2018, although both are yet to materialise.

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