Board game crowdfunding major Awaken Realms has made its first acquisition of another publisher by acquiring Darwin’s Journey maker Thundergryph Games.

Thundergryph will operate under its own brand following the deal, with company founder Gonzalo Aguirre Bisi continuing to lead its creative direction in his new role of game director at Awaken Realms.

The publishers said the tie-up will allow Thundergryph to focus exclusively on game design and development, with Awaken Realms taking on responsibility for operational necessities such as logistics, manufacturing, fulfillment and worldwide distribution.

The move broadens Awaken Realms’ publishing portfolio beyond the large-scale, narrative-driven and miniature-heavy titles for which it is best known, such as the hugely lucrative Nemesis series, Tainted Grail and ISS Vanguard.

Acquiring Thundergryph adds a catalogue which includes eurogames such as the highly regarded Darwin’s Journey, Tang Garden and Etherstone – and indicates an appetite from Awaken Realms to expand out into different styles of game.

Awaken Realms founder and CEO Marcin Świerkot said, “We were really impressed by the Thundergryph portfolio and how they managed to create very interesting and beautiful games over and over again.

“Because they are so different from what we usually do at AR (with all our dark and gritty taste), we believe it is a perfect fit to make our portfolio broader.”

Awaken Realms would not confirm to BoardGameWire if the acquisition represented the first of multiple M&A deals in the pipeline, but did say it sees value in “building a broader publishing ecosystem, but only if it respects each brand’s identity”.

A spokesperson for Awaken Realms told BoardGameWire, “Right now, our focus is fully on making this partnership successful and supporting the Thundergryph Team in the best possible way.

“More broadly, we are always open to opportunities that make strategic and creative sense, especially where we can help talented teams focus more on making great games while Awaken Realms supports them with production, logistics, fulfillment, and global infrastructure.

“Thundergryph is a particularly strong fit because its portfolio is different from what Awaken Realms is best known for. Their light and medium-weight games, strong visual identity, and elegant production values complement our existing line-up very well.”

He added, “In general, Awaken Realms is interested in areas that can strengthen our ability to create, produce, and deliver great games to players around the world. That can include publishing, operational infrastructure or other strategic areas.”

Discussions for the Thundergryph acquisition began more than a year ago, company founder Bisi told BoardGameWire, adding that such an arrangement was something he had been thinking about for some time.

He said, “Years ago, I had much more time to focus on game development, art direction, and product creation. As Thundergryph grew from a small publisher into a medium-sized company, the amount of organization and administration required increased significantly.

“I realized that I wanted to return to the aspects of the job I enjoy most: creating games and helping bring them to life.”

Awaken Realms says its infrastructure has delivered more than 700,000 games worldwide to date, and believes that support will allow Thundergryph to scale without adding further management burden to its creative team.

The company also retains close ties with crowdfunding platform Gamefound, which began life as part of Awaken Realms before becoming a separate entity with Ravensburger as its majority shareholder. Marcin Świerkot, the co-founder of both Awaken Realms and Gamefound, remains CEO of both businesses.

Bisi added that Thundergryph’s future if it hadn’t agreed the takeover deal would have been one “with fewer games and less time dedicated to nurturing and developing them to the standard we aspire to achieve”.

He said, “The people designing the games, developing the gameplay, creating the visual identity, and interacting with the community are still here. Our creative vision, our passion, and our commitment to making unique games remain unchanged.

“This agreement gives us the opportunity to dream bigger while staying true to what made Thundergryph special in the first place.

“It allows us to combine Thundergryph’s creative strengths with the resources and infrastructure needed to bring even more ambitious projects to life.”

Those projects will begin with Galileo’s Truth, a game by designers Virginio Gigli and Flaminia Brasini, which is set to launch on Gamefound on July 7.

Bisi spoke to BoardGameWire three years ago about the drastic decisions the company implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic in order to deliver the Darwin’s Journey crowdfunding campaign, saying that delaying the game and quickly cutting back on reprints and new production had saved the company.

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Asmodee’s escalating power as a global TCG distribution giant was evident again in its newly-released annual results, which showed the company’s net sales surging 23% year-on-year to more than €1.68bn.

That annual revenue has swelled around 50% in just three years on the back of huge recent growth in TCGs, including heavyweights Magic: The Gathering and Pokemon as well as a wave of strong performing newcomers such as Disney Lorcana, the One Piece Card Game and Asmodee’s own Star Wars: Unlimited.

Despite Asmodee’s long-time image as a board game publishing heavyweight, more than 72% of its revenue now comes via its distribution of other companies’ games – up from an already hefty 63% in the previous financial year to March 31, 2025.

TCGs now make up the lion’s share of Asmodee’s annual net sales – about 60% in the 2025/26 financial year, up from just over 50% across the preceding 12 month period.

The company’s own board game publishing operation, meanwhile, saw its net sales fall 5.8% in the last financial year – while net sales for the first quarter of this year were down 9.8% compared to the same period in 2025.

Asmodee CEO Thomas Koegler was asked directly during a Q&A session on Asmodee’s latest financial results if the company was still primarily a board game publisher, or whether it was “increasingly becoming an infrastructure company for TCGs”.

He said in response, “We have insisted a lot on the fact that one of the strengths of Asmodee is to be a publisher, but the first strength that we do have is our global reach across all categories, from TCGs and board games.

“That’s the superpower of Asmodee – and then being a very strong publisher is a way of accelerating performance.

“So I would say that there is no change, we continue to capture opportunities across the board wherever they come from… our aim is to be a dominant player, bringing all games to the market, anywhere they can.”

That assertion has been borne out by Asmodee’s recently reignited acquisitions drive, which has seen it pay a hefty €250m for French social and party game publisher ATM Gaming, as well as buying Japon Brand from CMON and individual IPs including Zombicide, Cthulhu: Death May Die and Sheriff of Nottingham.

The Japon Brand buyout was accompanied by Asmodee launching a new Japan-based design studio, Nekuma, anchoring its push into what it described as a “currently untapped market” for the company.

There were also hints in the Q&A session that Asmodee might be considering a move into Japanese distribution, adding to its existing operations in the region across China, Taiwan and Australia.

Koegler said of Japan, “The first move we have done with Japon Brand and setting up Nekuma is more of a sourcing move, right?

“The Japanese game designers and authors’ market is very dynamic. If you look for instance in recent very successful games – Bomb Busters, which is the Spiel des Jahres from 2025, was originated from Japan, a game like Dnup that we are releasing later in the year is coming from Japan.

“So they are very good also at small card games, and we really wanted to, I would say, bolster our publishing capabilities by creating those sourcing activities.

“Distribution wise, for now we are still working with local partners, we have not set direct foot yet.

He added, “It’s a fragmented market, its a very strong TCG market on the local market side, but yes… as I said, it’s a very vivid scene.”

Koegler also made clear that the company is still pursuing M&A opportunities on the publishing side “across all play types that we have, from social games to lifestyle games and tabletop games”.

He said, “I would say that the discussions we have are still as active as they were – we have demonstrated our ability to do various sizes of deals, which is also a very strong signal to potential people that would like to join the Asmodee adventure.”

Koegler said in his introduction to Asmodee’s 2025/26 report that the impact of geopolitical and economic events on the company’s business in the first few months of the year had been limited, but that the firm remained “mindful” of the potential pressures on transport and energy costs.

He said in the financial results Q&A session, “From a consumer standpoint, in moments of tensions when there are rising costs, because games are an affordable leisure we tend to suffer less, if not take some opportunities. That’s what we’ve seen in previous crises over the past 10 or 15 years.

“Consumer sentiment-wise, we will see. Although we are always cautious, there is also I think opportunities for us.

“Secondly, in terms of the cost impact. First of all our mix is currently very favourable because trading card games are manufactured very close to where they are sold, like in Europe for European countries mainly – some are manufactured in Asia but its a limited one – in the US for the US, etc.

“Plus they are cheap to transport, so the impact on those is relatively limited. And then we will see with our partners in terms of raw material increases, but again in the overall cost of goods they do not represent a very significant party.

“For board games we have started to see some increase in transportation costs. They did not impact Q4. If we take an example, road freight did represent roughly 20% of the cost base, and they have increased by 10%.

“But again, all of this is quite manageable for us. We expect to be able to mitigate the impact.”

Koegler added that although the process for receiving tariff refunds in the US had begun, after the Supreme Court struck Donald Trump’s swathe of import fees earlier this month, there was uncertainty about both the timing and final amount Asmodee was owed.

He said, “This is still a little bit foggy, blurred – for us, but [also] for many, many other companies out there. So let’s wait for what’s next on this topic.”

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