Attendance slipped to 18,700 at this year's event in June from a post-pandemic record of 19,171 last year - and remains below the all-time high of 20,642 posted in 2019.
Alexi Piovesan and Julien Prothière’s design fought off competition from Florian Maas' citybuilding game Project Skyline and Hjalmar Hach and Lorenzo Silva's Railroad Ink sequel Railroad Tiles to take the 2026 award.
Plaid Hat said it had failed to give prospective backers enough reasons to pledge rather than wait for retail.
E Eric Reuss said he expects to be able to license Spirit Island to a new publisher "within the next year or so" according to an update posted to BoardGameGeek and Reddit, adding that dozens of publishers had reached out to express interest in the title and that negotiations with one unnamed company were "going well".
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.
The company, which has built its reputation adapting indie comics into tabletop games such as Mind MGMT, has unveiled Off the Page Games Unbound, which will publish games not tied to existing comic book licences.
Red Castle Games owner Matthew Mičetić told BoardGameWire expanding scope to welcome young people, families and casual gamers was one of the biggest opportunities for game stores today.
Asmodee expects a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for social games of between 4% and 8% between 2025 and 2030, compared to about 4% for the wider board games market.
The award aims to celebrates "everything that’s the best about gaming", with previous winners across the award’s 26-year run having included Blood Rage designer Eric Lang, Nigerian games industry publisher and evangelist NIBCARD, and the entire ‘actual play’ movement of people livestreaming and podcasting roleplaying games.
Hello readers! Mike Didymus-True here, the editor of BoardGameWire. I wanted to post a quick message to apologise for an upcoming week or two-long quiet patch for the site - I'm being unexpectedly admitted for surgery tomorrow, and will likely be out of action for at least 7 to 14 days while I recover.
The company has been one of tabletop crowdfunding's biggest success stories over the past decade, raising tens of millions of pounds across campaigns based on major video game licences such as Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, Horizon Zero Dawn and Elden Ring.
The emerging designer program, now in its sixth year, seeks to amplify the voices of up-and-coming tabletop creators, with a particular focus on designers from marginalized communities.
The company has become a significant publisher of German language board games, including last year's Kennerspiel des Jahres winner Endeavor: Deep Sea and big name titles such as Andromeda's Edge and The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era.
Isle of Penguins creator Frank West told BoardGameWire he used data from over a million plays to create a game that plays 20% to 30% faster than The Isle of Cats standard mode, while also giving players more to do.
Board said it would unveil an AI platform later this year which will allow users to build their own games using natural language prompts, saying taking a game from idea to playable prototype can be done in less than an hour.
Asmodee's acquisition of Zombicide from financially troubled CMON last June set the stage for the company's drive into crowdfunding - an area it had previously barely touched through any of its myriad studios.
The surging visitor numbers - up 64% in just three years - mean UK Games Expo is now pushing steadily towards the 70,000-plus visitors recorded by giant US tabletop convention Gen Con each year since 2023, and is more than two and a half times larger than last year's Origins Game Fair.
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.
The debut design from Iranian video game veteran Yasaman Farazan was praised by judges for its "genius" action selection system, which makes use of a physical 'astrolabe', calling it "thematic, toyetic, and an absolute joy to engage with".
Speaking to BoardGameWire in her first long-form interview since being elected GAMA president last month, Meredith Placko said putting proactive structures in place to prevent GAMA "stepping in the mud all the time" was one of her priorities.
Chad Krizan told Possess Me, Satan publisher Falling Whale Games that he couldn't "in good conscience" approve ads for its Gamefound campaign as "the thought of displaying this subject matter makes me sick to my stomach".
