CMON’s 2024 losses even worse than it predicted at over $3m – almost double its profits from the last three years combined

Board game publishing major CMON slumped to a loss of more than $3m in 2024 – almost double its total profits from the previous three years combined – as falling sales for its crowdfunding campaigns led the company to its lowest annual revenue since pandemic-hit 2020.

CMON blamed rising living costs affecting its customers ability to buy games for its 17% drop in revenue last year, which fell to about $37.4m from $45m in 2023, its delayed annual report shows.

Revenue from its crowdfunding campaigns sank by almost 25% to about $20m in 2024 – its first year of an exclusivity deal with Gamefound, following more than a decade raising $108m of funding through rival platform Kickstarter.

CMON had announced a profit warning last month, initially estimating that its 2024 losses could be between $1.4m and $2.1m.

The heavy loss continues a painful 2025 for the company, which last week revealed it was laying off staff and halting new game development and campaign launches, citing the ongoing unpredictability in US tariffs.

About 39% of CMON’s revenue comes from the US, which in recent weeks has imposed a 145% tariff on goods manufactured in China – a situation which has left companies across the board game industry reeling.

CMON currently has 11 yet-to-deliver crowdfunding projects, which raised more than $26m, in various stages of production, with the $3.8m Zombicide: White Death currently in the process of being fulfilled to backers.

That project managed to avoid the full impact of the tariffs, CMON told the Board Game Insider podcast earlier this week, with the company opting to absorb the 20% extra cost rather than passing it on to backers.

But another six crowdfunding titles and seven pre-orders are currently due for delivery later in 2025, including DC Super Heroes United, which raised more than $4.4m on Gamefound, and DCeased: A Zombicide Game, which raised more than $2.5m in a Kickstarter campaign – all of which are currently facing the full 145% tariff cost upon arrival in the US.

CMON’s statement to Board Games Insider said on tariffs, “We have a range of plans depending on how things progress, but we anticipate a negotiated solution can be reached that could bring some sense and stability to the situation.

It added, “We are working closely with our North American distribution partner to determine the approach for retail product. For our direct product through crowdfunding, if the tariffs fall back to a reasonable level then we will look to absorbing those costs for our US backers.”

The company’s financial report adds that in addition to reducing costs by scrapping new game development and crowdfunding campaigns, CMON also plans to grow its business in the European wholesale market and start production of small games in Europe to reduce the logistics cost of fulfilment.

CMON has been at the forefront of the board game crowdfunding boom since raising more than $780,000 for the original Zombicide in 2012.

The company has swelled in size over the last decade, recording revenues of more than $45m in both 2022 and 2023 thanks to the success of multimillion-dollar Kickstarter campaigns for miniatures-heavy board games, including new Zombicide titles and games based on huge IPs such as Marvel and DC.

CMON’s profit warning last month had said that the final, audited total would be revealed in the company’s annual report at the end of March.

But two weeks later the company revealed it was likely to miss its stock exchange deadline for publishing its annual financial results, saying its finance department was understaffed.

CMON had its shares suspended from trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange due to the missing the deadline, although the company says it has now applied to have the suspension lifted following publication of the annual report.

The company’s 2025 has also been marred by having to scrap a deal to sell $12m of unspecified IP, while it has also been taking legal advice after two new shareholders, who were due to invest about $1.39m into the business, failed to hand over the money for their stakes.

The company said when the shareholder deal fell through that it was “now seeking other fundraising means to increase its general working capital” in order to enlarge its capital base, increase the overall liquidity of its shares and strengthen the company’s financial position.

It did not say why the potential shareholders, revealed in the new financial report as Drum Group Limited and Mana Pool Investments, had decided not to press ahead with investing in CMON.

The stark 2024 loss brings to an end three years of improving performance at CMON, following a disastrous 2020 in which it lost almost $5m due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on its business operations.

CMON managed a $420,000 profit in 2021, $510,000 in 2022 and about $750,000 in 2023 – but those slowly rising numbers all fell well short of the its pre-pandemic performance.

The company had previously made profits of about $3.5m in 2017, roughly $2m in 2018 and around $1.88m in 2019, once one-off costs related to its transfer to the main board of the Hong Kong stock exchange in the latter year were removed.

CMON’s cash reserves have also been diminishing, going from $3.9m at the end of 2022 to $3.1m at the end of 2023, and falling again to about $2.1m by the end of last year.

Its borrowing stands at about $4m, down from roughly $5.8m last year.

So far this year the company has completed a $2.85m crowdfund for Massive Darkness: Dungeons of Shadowreach on Gamefound, picking up support from more than 9,800 backers.