Tabletop game design pioneer Steve Jackson has ended a 17-month return running his namesake games company, with new CEO Sabrina Gonzalez taking charge of a business with years of falling revenue as well as a run of promising crowdfunding successes.

Jackson will remain president of the company he founded in 1980, but will refocus his attention on game design and development, with managing editor Allison Page promoted to COO.

He had previously stepped back from the day-to-day running of Steve Jackson Games in 2014, when long-time COO Phil Reed became CEO, allowing Jackson to devote more of his attention to game development.

Reed was succeeded by TurboDork CEO and current GAMA president Meredith Placko in 2023, but Jackson returned to direct control of the business in April last year following her unexpected resignation.

Jackson’s return as CEO in 2024 was not presented as a permanent appointment, with him saying in the wake of her departure that her direct reports would report to him while he “figured out a plan”.

Gonzalez has been with SJ Games since 2013 as a production artist and production manager, apart from a brief period away from the company working for toy and game manufacturer Grand Prix International – and has been a member of the board of directors since 2021.

She said of her vision for the business, “As a general goal, I’d like us to continue to grow. We weathered the pandemic and pivoted project plans to address continually changing tariffs.

“The goal is always to make great games that people love. I want to continue developing new titles for future generations of gamers and also support (and sometimes update) the classics that our fans continue to request.”

New COO Page joined SJ Games as managing editor in 2023, having previously worked as executive artistic director of San Francisco comedy organisation Killing My Lobster. She also spent a year working as a narrative designer in the video game industry.

Page said, “I’m most excited to support Sabrina in her new role as CEO! We’ve always worked really well together and want the same things for SJ Games.

“I’m a problem solver, and I’m passionate about setting clear expectations. I’m excited to untangle whatever comes my way and ensure the team knows how to move forward and has what they need.”

The leadership change comes after what Jackson described in May as an “unusual and very awful” 2025 for the business, which has caused an ongoing delay in the company’s annual stakeholder report that Jackson has publicly posted since 2003.

He said on the company’s blog in May, “We made it through! But it’s not a story that fits well into the standard Stakeholder format. It took me a while to get up the nerve to start, and it has taken me longer to get it right. But I shall.”

SJ Games posted seven years of rising annual revenues from the mid-2000s to reach a record $8.8m in 2013, a year boosted by heavy demand for its Munchkin line of games – which accounted for more than 75% of its sales – and almost $1m from the Ogre Designer’s Edition Kickstarter.

Revenues have decline substantially since, however, falling about 2.5x from that peak to settle at around $3.5m across both 2023 and 2024 – the last years for which Steve Jackson has published the total – and bringing the annual total down to levels last seen back in 2010.

Jackson said in the executive summary in the 2023 report, “Cash flow was acceptable. It was not a profitable year, though. We have identified and dealt with some of the money-losing issues; others will be harder. We are working on it. (No fear; we have plenty of runway left. I just hate to use it.)”

He continued in the 2024 overview, “Cash flow was acceptable, but I don’t feel ‘prosperous’. This is not just us; individual game sales, industry-wide, were down at both the distribution and retail end, largely due to the glut of titles.”

Jackson added that year, “We are still working the problem, but we have less runway than we did last year! Cause for optimism: it was a rebuilding year and not expected to be good for cash, but thanks to your support for Munchkin Big Box it was better than we anticipated.”

Those challenges were exacerbated in 2025 by the impact of volatile US tariff policy, which included an unexpected “high five-figure” bill on its Munchkin Big Box after new tariffs were levied while the already-produced game was at sea.

The company subsequently raised some of its prices in response to tariffs, while uncertainty over overseas manufacturing led it to scrap the box and dice for RPG collection Dahlia’s Diversions for Peculiar Parties in favour of a rigid envelope, and shifting printing to the US before fully assembling the games on Jackson’s dining room table.

Jackson said in July that the company had received a partial rebate on its Munchkin Big Box tariff payment earlier this year, which it passed on to customers through a temporary discount on its web store Warehouse 23.

The BackerKit campaign for the Munchkin Big Box had been one of the company’s bright spots over the past couple of years, bringing in more than $1.3m from over 9,000 backers – a situation Jackson credited with making 2024 financially better than expected.

SJ Games followed that with a $370,000 BackerKit campaign for Munchkin Second Edition this year to coincide with the game’s 25th anniversary, and in recent years has extended out the game with Munchkin Shadowrun, Munchkin Vox Machina and multiple Warhammer-based releases, as well as several other expansions.

The company made a notable expansion itself in February last year, when it brought acclaimed indie RPG publisher Possum Creek Games into the business as an imprint.

It said at the time that the deal would allow Possum Creek, the publisher of Wanderhome and Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast, to retain full creative and editorial control over its titles, while “lending their talents to the SJ Games design and visual branding”.

Possum Creek editorial director Jay Dragon joined the SJ Games board of directors as part of the tie-up, and became its lead game designer, while Ruby Lavin became the company’s art director.

Since then Dragon’s TTRPG design Seven-Part Pact has raised more than $1m through a Kickstarter campaign, while SJ Games has also raised almost $600,000 across a pair of Kickstarters for the venerable Fighting Fantasy line of adventure gamebooks, having agreed a deal in 2024 to bring the UK-created titles back to the US for the first time in more than two decades.

Steve Jackson’s game design career dates back to the late 1970s, with his 1977 debut Ogre helping popularise the emerging microgame format of small, inexpensive wargames.

Within five years he had designed Car Wars and Illuminati, founded his own games company and been inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design Hall of Fame in 1982 – all while still in his 20s.

He followed that with the Generic Universal RolePlaying System (GURPS) in 1986, which was his attempt to create a single roleplaying system capable of working across different settings and genres.

While not the first RPG to experiment with universal rules, GURPS helped popularise the concept and grew into a huge publishing line for Steve Jackson Games. By 2004 the company had released about 200 GURPS titles, with more than one million copies in print in English alone.

Jackson’s most visible modern design is Munchkin, which became the company’s biggest commercial success following its release in 2001. The game was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design Hall of Fame in 2013.

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

The warning comes amid an extraordinary period of upheaval for one of tabletop gaming’s biggest crowdfunding publishers, which suffered losses of almost $23m across 2024 and 2025 and is still working to deliver a string of heavily-delayed campaigns that raised more than $14m from backers.

CMON has spent the past 18 months attempting to stabilise its finances by cutting staff and other costs, selling high-profile IP including Zombicide, Blood Rage and Cthulhu: Death May Die, divesting its Singapore office and raising fresh money from investors.

Those efforts have now dramatically reduced its losses, CMON’s newly-released H1 financial report shows – with the company reporting a loss of just over $2m for the first half of this year, compared to almost $7m for the same period in 2025.

CMON’s revenue also rose more than 7% year-on-year in H1, up to $3.68m from $3.43m in the first six months of 2025, while its selling and distribution expenses more than halved from $1.83m to $859,000, and its general and administrative expenses fell from $4.37m to $2.37m.

But that improvement has failed to make the underlying business self-sustaining. CMON’s cash reserves, which stood at $3.9m at the end of 2022, had fallen to $2.1m by the end of 2024, and slipped again to just over $900,000 by June 2025.

CMON revealed last month that it had about $368,000 in bank and cash balances as of August 4, which it described as enough to cover less than a month of its daily operating expenses.

Crowdfunding Commitments

Despite the sharp reduction in its losses, CMON’s balance sheet remained under pressure at the end of June – with $7.34m more in short-term liabilities than short-term assets, up from $6.89m at the end of 2025.

A significant part of CMON’s liabilities relates to eight crowdfunded games whose campaigns raised $14m from backers, but which the company has yet to deliver.

They include DC Super Heroes United, which raised more than $4.4m, and DCeased, which brought in over $2.5m. Both of those campaigns were initially due to be delivered last year, but fulfillment has been pushed back several times since and both are now scheduled for the first quarter of 2027.

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

Four other pre-order titles: Assassin’s Creed Role Playing Game, The Adventurers, The Dead Keep and Super Fantasy Brawl Reborn, all remain undelivered, although the first of those is currently slated for completion in Q3.

Funding Push

CMON said in its H1 report that the liabilities position had caused the company’s directors to give “careful consideration to the future liquidity and performance of the group and its available sources of financing in assessing whether the group will have sufficient financial resources to continue as a going concern”.

Those directors believe CMON will be able to continue operating – but central to that assessment is a major share sale designed to raise up to HK$150.5m – about $19m.

CMON first announced the rights issue fundraise in June, proposing to offer existing shareholders the opportunity to buy three new shares for every share they already owned in an attempt to raise the capital.

The plan was approved by shareholders in late July and the formal offer opened in mid-August – but existing shareholders took up just 7.76% of the new shares offered to them by the August deadline.

That leaves CMON looking to raise more than $17.5m from other investors through the rights issue – a figure approaching 2.5-times the valuation of the entire company implied by its last share sale in February this year.

CMON said it plans to use 40% of the money raised to fund its day-to-day operations for roughly the next year, including staff costs, royalties, shipping and distribution, professional fees and other administrative and operating expenses.

Another 20% is earmarked for repaying debts and other outstanding liabilities, including $2.46m owed to a CMON director and $385,000 of unsecured advances from employees, as well as outstanding production, shipping, royalty and other operating costs.

CMON has earmarked 25% for expansion in existing and new markets, including strengthening the company’s presence in Europe through marketing and potential attendance at events including Spiel Essen and Cannes, as well as targeting growth in Japan and the Philippines.

Digital Ambitions

The company added that it plans to put 15% of the new capital towards potential acquisitions as part of a push into digital gaming, although said it had not yet identified any targets.

CMON said it intends to look for between one and three businesses, primarily in Asia-Pacific, valued at between about $1.3m and $2.5m each, which could help it develop digital adaptations of its existing games, companion apps and other digitally-enabled features.

The publisher stressed that it intends to retain physical tabletop games as its core business, with the digital push designed to complement rather than replace them.

That announcement comes just a few weeks after CMON terminated its planned $2.1m investment in NFT video game maker Blissful Link, an investment it had previously said formed part of a digital shift necessary to remain “relevant” in the games industry and expand its revenue stream.

That plan had included transitioning the company’s titles such as Massive Darkness and Super Fantasy Brawl Reborn into “high-quality digital assets” – with CMON saying the group would “continue to supplement this digital transformation as physical games would still offer a ‘screen break’ for individuals as well as foster direct face to face interaction”.

The proposed investment would have valued Blissful Link at more than $95m. Blissful Link made a loss of about $197,000 in 2024, on revenues of just over $408,000, and had net liabilities of about $889,000, according to unaudited figures provided by CMON in April. It did not include finances for 2025.

CMON said in the rights issue offer, “Under prevailing high-interest lending conditions, traditional bank borrowings and debt financing carry heavy interest and securing such financing would severely strain the group’s remaining liquidity.

“Accordingly, equity financing via the rights Issue is the most viable strategic path to recapitalize the group’s capital base without increasing debt distress.”

The directors’ assessment that CMON can remain a going concern also takes into account continued financial support from some of its directors, progress fulfilling its outstanding contract liabilities and further restructuring aimed at reducing cash outflows.

Revenue Collapse

CMON’s latest figures also reveal the scale of the collapse in its North American and European revenues over the past five years, transforming the geographical make-up of what remains of its business.

North America alone generated more than $8.6m for CMON in the first half of 2021, making up 57% of its roughly $15.1m H1 revenue. By the first half of this year, however, revenue from North and South America combined had fallen to just $642,000.

Europe has undergone a similarly dramatic contraction, with revenue from the region falling from about $4.5m in the first half of 2021 to just $982,000 in the latest six-month period.

Asia has consequently become CMON’s largest market by a considerable margin, generating more than $2m in the first half of this year and accounting for about 55% of its total revenue, compared with less than 10% in the same period of 2021.

That reversal has not been driven by Asian growth, however. CMON generated $3.22m from Asia in the first half of 2022, marking a roughly 37% decline since – but a far more resilient performance than the steep falls recorded in North America and Europe over the same period.

The publisher said in its H1 2026 report, “The group intends to continue developing its distribution and market presence in Asia while supporting its established markets in Europe.

“The group will also continue to monitor trade and tariff conditions affecting the US market, and maintain a prudent approach to allocate resources to markets and projects.”

CMON said in March this year that it intended to resume crowdfunding in the second half of 2026, but its latest interim results stop short of repeating that commitment, saying instead that new titles will be developed and launched selectively depending on market conditions, available financial resources and project readiness.

The final result of the rights issue is due to be announced on September 15.

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Asmodee has kicked off its new financial year with another powerful quarter of growth, with the publishing and distribution giant’s net sales soaring 20.9% year-on-year to €422.1m.

TCG distribution remains the engine behind Asmodee’s ongoing growth, with trading card games responsible for more than two-thirds of that quarterly revenue, according to the company’s latest financial report.

But board games also put on a strong showing in the April to June quarter, the report shows, with net sales rising 16% year-on-year amid an ongoing recovery from volatility caused by last year’s US tariffs uncertainty.

Much of that increase came via Asmodee’s distribution of titles from other publishers, with sales of its own published titles only growing 1.8% in the quarter.

That small rise marks a significant improvement for Asmodee’s own board game publishing operation, however, with sales of its published titles having fallen almost 10% in January to March compared to the prior year, and 12.7% in the all-important October to December period in 2025, which includes the run-in to Christmas.

Asmodee CEO Thomas Koegler said growth in US board game sales was driven by “the continued normalization of retailer inventory levels”, as well as “resilient” consumer demand for tabletop games and positive impact of its own commercial and marketing initiatives.

That improvement comes after Asmodee repeatedly highlighted retailer inventory reductions and cautious purchasing behaviour – particularly in the US – through much of the past year, as store owners tried their best to navigate rising prices, unpredictable shipping rates and other fallout from the US tariffs.

During Asmodee’s earnings presentation last November, Koegler said US consumers were delaying purchases amid economic uncertainty and favouring lower-priced products, while retailers were pushing Christmas merchandising later into the year.

Three months later, the company reported US quarterly sales had slumped 23%, attributing much of the decline to retailers reducing purchases and ongoing inventory adjustments despite stable consumer sell-through.

Some of those pressures now appear to be easing, although Asmodee’s own US sales were down almost 9.4% year-on-year in April to June – a situation Koegler said was partly caused by the timing of its most recent Star Wars Unlimited release affecting year-on-year comparisons.

Speaking more generally about Asmodee’s board game sales, he said its evergreen franchises such as Catan and Dobble/Spot-It! continued to perform well, and highlighted other new releases including dnup, The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship and Cozy Stickerville as having contributed to growth.

He also added that ATM Gaming, which Asmodee bought in a €250m deal earlier this year, had delivered a strong performance across its social games portfolio, including Speed Bac/Quickstop and Pili Pili.

Koegler also highlighted the first Zombicide crowdfunding campaign under Asmodee ownership, which attracted more than 11,000 backers and raised over €3m, describing it as an early success for its expanding crowdfunding strategy.

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Magic: The Gathering‘s record-breaking growth continues despite a surge of high-profile competitors, with the TCG soaring past $500m in quarterly revenues for the first time in its 33-year history.

The veteran card game has been on a tear over the past four years, evolving from parent company Hasbro‘s first $1bn-brand into the toy and entertainment giant’s primary source of growth.

That powerful rise has been built upon the already hugely popular TCG’s expansion into licensed crossovers through its Universes Beyond line since 2021, which has seen it bring out sets for franchises including The Lord of The Rings, Final Fantasy and Avatar: The Last Airbender.

The game’s success now underpins Hasbro’s fortunes, with Magic’s strong performance repeatedly leading the line in the company’s quarterly results – as well as offsetting underperformance in other parts of the business.

Magic’s revenue grew 32% in Q2 of this year compared to the same period in 2025 according to Hasbro’s latest results report, reaching a record $545m on the back of strong sales of Secrets of Strixhaven and Marvel Super Heroes – the latter of which the company described as a “record-breaking debut”.

That result means Magic alone outstripped Hasbro’s entire consumer products segment – which includes Nerf guns, Transformers and Peppa Pig toys – which recorded revenues of $463m in the same period, up 5% year-on-year.

The consumer products segment made an operating loss of about $14.5m in Q2, compared to an operating profit of $270m from Wizards of the Coast, the business arm which includes Magic, Dungeons & Dragons and its digital games such as Monopoly Go!.

Hasbro ascribed the consumer products losses to “incremental tariff expense, entertainment-related mix shifts, and normal seasonality”, as well as the fallout from a cyberattack in March which saw unspecified parties gain unauthorized access to its network.

The company said the cyberattack reduced second-quarter revenue by an estimated $25m while generating $11m in direct costs as order processing, shipping and invoicing were disrupted, particularly on the consumer products side. Hasbro said those operations had now returned to normal, although it expects to incur additional costs related to the incident in future periods.

Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks said in the results report, “With strong indications for our remaining releases and line of sight to continued growth in 2027, the Magic flywheel is firing on all cylinders.”

Wizards revenue was also up 27% across the first six months of 2026, with Magic revenue climbing 34% thanks to continued growth across tabletop and digital products, Universes Beyond releases, Secret Lair products and back catalogue sales.

That continued growth comes despite the emergence of several high-profile challengers in the trading card game market over the past few years, including Disney Lorcana, Star Wars: Unlimited, Altered, Flesh and Blood and One Piece Card Game – as well as the ongoing power of fellow TCG veterans Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh!.

Magic’s performance was strong enough for Hasbro to increase its full-year guidance, with the company now expecting total revenue growth of between 5% and 7%, up from its previous forecast of 3% to 5%.

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