Joeri Hoste joined Exploding Kittens to lead its international business in 2020, following multi-year stints at companies including Hong Kong based board game publisher and manufacturer Ooba Games, toy company BOTI and trading card and collectibles specialist Upper Deck.
Gonzalez takes charge of a business with years of falling revenue - as well as a run of promising crowdfunding successes.
The worker-management title triumphed amid strong competition from titles including Galactic Cruise - which already has the Dice Tower Awards game of the year and Golden Geek heavy game of the year to its name, and is one of the three finalists for this year’s Deutscher Spiele Preis.
The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls and Clash of Clans: The Epic Raid publisher has launched Overture by Maestro Media, through which it plans to co-publish games from other companies, partner with them during development or production, or potentially acquire titles outright.
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.
After building its reputation through a five-year, 16-game partnership with Reiner Knizia, Bitewing Games is looking to videogames for its next big opportunities. Co-founder Nick Murray tells BoardGameWire about the $700,000-plus success of Balatro-inspired Rolling Deep, adapting Baba Is You and Party House, and why leaving dentistry for Bitewing full-time has raised the stakes around finding lasting commercial hits.
Battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars, Chicago ‘68, Molly House and Onoda will compete for the fifth edition of the award, which is run by the San Diego Historical Games Convention - an organisation which aims to create a diverse and supportive gaming community dedicated to playing, discussing, designing, and promoting historically-based board games.
Catan is continuing to push into professional sport in a bid to reach new players, adding a season-long partnership with NHL team the Ottawa Senators and recruiting German handball star Juri Knorr as a brand ambassador.
DSV has landed a nomination in each of the three Nederlandse Spellenprijs categories with Reiner Knizia design Rebirth, Tomáš Holek's Pondscape and Ants from Renato Ciervo and Andrea Robbiani - equalling veteran Dutch publisher White Goblin Games and industry giant Asmodee as the most-nominated company this year.
PAX is doubling down on the success of its tabletop-focused Unplugged show by launching a second event in Houston, after growing the original into the second-largest tabletop gaming convention in the US after Gen Con.
The new system arrives as Spiel prepares for its biggest-ever event from October 22 to 25 this year - with an expansion into all eight main halls at the Messe Essen exhibition centre for the first time expected to see the event challenge its record 220,000 attendance set last year.
The title faces competition in the final from Ark Nova creator Mathias Wigge, who could win the award again with Sanctuary, his second major design, and co-op app-driven design Boss Fighters QR, which was a nominee for this year's Kennerspiel des Jahres.
The deal hands the board game publishing and distribution giant control of a flip-and-write series which has sold hundreds of thousands of copies since Benoit Turpin's breakout design Welcome To Your Perfect Home was released in 2018.
Solis, which was founded in 2020, has published games including Pocket Paragons, Space Lion, Treat, Please! and The Massive-Verse Fighting Card Game, while also carrying out development and production work for other tabletop companies.
The promotion puts an executive who helped transform a record-breaking Kickstarter game into an international brand in charge of a portfolio including Catan, Ticket to Ride, 7 Wonders and Dobble/Spot It.
"Getting a Vietnamese game -to- Essen was never really the goal - getting it there ready to sell is."
Fledgling Dubai board game convention tabletop.me is facing a very different challenge as it prepares for its second year: persuading overseas publishers the commercial opportunity of reaching the Gulf's growing tabletop market is worth pursuing amid safety concerns around the US-Iran war.
The Italy-based War of the Ring publisher said thousands of fake requests repeatedly saturated its server bandwidth and CPU earlier this week, temporarily preventing some customers from reaching its main website and e-commerce site, which is also used for preorders and crowdfunding pledge management.
Plaid Hat Games launched its Kickstarter for The Monolith in June with a trio of successful crowdfunding campaigns under its belt - only to pull the project three days after launch when pledges unexpectedly ground to a halt. In this first-person piece for BoardGameWire, Plaid Hat founder and CEO Colby Dauch explains why The Monolith exposed flaws that Plaid Hat’s previous campaigns had masked, what the publisher believes it got wrong, and why the changes made for its rapid relaunch appear to be working.
Leading the new studio continues a rapid rise for Leiman, a 2025 Diana Jones Emerging Designer Program winner whose published designs include High Tide, Wildberries and Dino Racer - the latter of which picked up significant buzz at Gen Con this year, and is currently ranked at number two in the BoardGameGeek Hotness.
arsEdition launched a dedicated games programme last September focused on family-weight games for ages 6, 8, and 10 and up, with an opening slate of seven titles including Reiner Knizia designs Oshiya Tokio and Guardian of the Treasure.
