CMON's $23m losses across 2024 and 2025 are now almost 5.5-times larger than its profits from the preceding nine years combined - and have led an independent auditor hired by the company to question whether it has the resources to stay in business for the foreseeable future.
The Oink Games-published design fought off competition from 2025 winner Isao Mukai, who was nominated for Banana Governance - a card-based drafting and bidding game which sees players attempt to satisfy the needs of hungry monkeys better than their opponents.
Emma Recher, who will head up a three-person team at Don't Panic's new US office in California, told BoardGameWire, "Several recent titles have reinforced our confidence in expanding more directly into the US market. "
About a quarter of the 171 designers who answered the TTGDA survey said they had used a genAI platform to come up with game ideas or mechanisms - while more than half indicated they were 'strongly opposed' to using AI in that way.
President Nicole Brady, who runs review site SAHM Reviews, was re-elected to the board by GAMA's media and events member group, while treasurer Tiffany Reid from Southern Hobby Distribution won re-election from the wholesale group.
The board game giant said buying ATM, the publisher of titles including Speed Bac/Quickstop, Mouton Mouton and Pili Pili, was predicated on social games being "the fastest growing category of the board games market".
The title is the latest seminal eurogame to be re-released in a spruced-up, premium edition by Awaken Realms - and also the latest to see the publisher come under fire for embracing generative AI software such as Midjourney in developing some of its games.
Japon Brand was instrumental in bringing Japanese designs such as Love Letter and Machi Koro to international markets, after being inspired by the surge in novel games from home-grown designers in the early 2000s.
Publisher Equinox said the €1.1m raised between the Roots of Corruption Gamefound campaign and through retailer pre-orders was "far too far" from the €2m it needed to "guarantee the future of the game".
Print and Play had provided prototypes, promos and components for a string of big-selling titles, as well as fast turnaround print and play services for budding developers and designers.
The company expanded into board game publishing in 2024 after more than a decade specialising in tabletop game mats and accessories, and rebranded from GamerMats to GameHead as part of that process.
Multiple members of the organisation expressed their disgust during the AGM that board members had suggested people only attended because free food was provided, while others were upset at the way they were shouted at and talked over during a fiery discussion on changes to the non-profit's bylaws.
MingYang Lu's puzzle fighter-style board game Re;MATCH has had a storming start to its Kickstarter campaign, picking up almost $250,000 from over 1,250 backers with half of the month-long crowdfund still to go. In this sponsored interview, Lu talks about why his design looks to derive fun from game mastery rather than discovery, the importance of conventions for small publishers, and why AI art "cheapens creativity".
GAMA Expo's attendance this year is more than double its pre-pandemic record of 1,800 set in 2019, and up more than 87.5% compared to the event's final Reno show in 2023.
Alexi Piovesan and Julien Prothière's design sealed top spot above Eric Olsen's Flip 7 - which won the separate family game prize - and also finished in third place in the family-weight category.
ODN's work over the years has included crowdfunding and marketing support for companies such as Roxley Games, Indie Boards & Cards and Stronghold Games, Devir North America and Allplay, while individual campaigns worked on include the $2.2m More Terraforming Mars! Kickstarter and Roxley's Santorini Co-op & Deluxe Pantheon Edition crowdfund, which raised about CA$2.1bn.
The publisher has broken a three-year run of losses since bringing in John Coveyou to restructure the company last July, with the profits allowing it to get Santa’s Workshop into the hands of backers, as well as starting to pay some of the backlog of royalties it owes designers.
Two more significant hires in the board game industry across the marketing side of the hobby. If you have news of a new role, hire or job change within the hobby that you’d like mentioned on BoardGameWire, please send an email with the details to the editor, Mike Didymus-True, on:
mike@boardgamewire.com
Arizona-based Silver Dragon Games scooped Retailer of the Year at this year's awards, adding to the Innovation In Games (Retail) and Outstanding Store Design titles it won at the same awards in 2024.
Soaring interest in the show has now seen Spiel Essen boost its floor space four times in as many years, with this year's event in October set to be about 30% larger than the already massive 62,500 sq m show which took place in 2023.
Universal becomes an authorised US hobby distributor for Stonemaier's games, which include the massive-selling Wingspan series and other popular titles such as Scythe, and will take on sole distribution rights in August of this year.
