CMON continues battle against heavy losses by selling on recently acquired Hel, Anastyr IPs to Don’t Panic Games

CMON has sold off two more of its game IPs as it continues its fightback against heavy losses – just 18 months after acquiring them from financially-devastated board game crowdfunding specialist Mythic Games.

The company – which posted losses of nearly $7m in the first half of this year and another $3m across 2024 – has agreed to sell the IP for Anastyr and Hel: The Last Saga to French publisher and localisation specialist Don’t Panic Games.

That deal comes hot on the heels of CMON selling off a string of its other intellectual properties, including its most famous and profitable title Zombicide, in an effort to stem its growing losses and help it fulfill its eight undelivered crowdfunding campaigns – which raised about $18m – as well as another seven pre-ordered games.

CMON picked up Hel and Anastyr in January last year after financially-troubled Mythic Games, formerly one of the most successful crowdfunding-focused board game publishers of all time, gave up on fulfilling the two Kickstarter campaigns worth a combined $3.2m.

CMON said at the time that neither Hel nor Anastyr were “ready for publication in their current state and will require substantial effort to complete them”.

The company said it would go through “an extensive development and play-testing process” for both games, and would offer free copies of their versions to the Kickstarter supporters if they wished to receive them – although backers would have to pay shipping and VAT.

BoardGameWire has reached out to Don’t Panic for more details of the purchase, the development status of both games and to ask whether it will take on CMON’s commitment to get the titles into the hands of Kickstarter backers.

A statement from Don’t Panic said, “We always had a special fondness for these two exceptional titles, and we were already collaborating with some of the original creators, hence the fact that we have decided to take over these highly anticipated games and make sure they come to existence.”

CMON has blamed falling revenues for its heavy H1 losses, which are several times larger than the company’s total profits from across the past decade.

The company was already reeling from a more than $3m loss last year, with falling sales for its crowdfunding campaigns leading CMON to its lowest annual revenue since pandemic-hit 2020.

In March this year CMON announced it was laying off staff and halting new game development and campaign launches, citing the ongoing unpredictability around US tariffs.

Rather than large scale, miniatures heavy crowdfunding campaigns, the company has instead pivoted to releasing several small-box games direct to retail, some of which are expected to make their debut at Spiel Essen in October.

CMON’s remaining library of titles still includes big hitters such as the Marvel United range and DC Super Heroes United, which have raised more than $18m between them across four crowdfunding campaigns.

Don’t Panic, which was co-founded by current director Cédric Littardi in 2013, has provided French localisations of games including Final Girl, Champions of Midgard and Fantasy Realms, in addition to publishing its own titles, such as Chess-like abstract game Above.

Earlier this year the company got into a public spat with Hegemonic Project Games after a series of translation errors in Don’t Panic’s localisation of its award-winning economy and politics title Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory.

Hegemonic claims that Don’t Panic refused to ship out already completed errata packs for the game, despite being contractually obliged to do so, after the Hegemony creator informed it they would be signing with a different licensing partner for follow-up title, World Order.

Don’t Panic condemned Hegemonic’s decision to go public with the claims in a response to that post, adding that they had proposed to Hegemonic a correction pack for the game, but had been unable to reach an agreement on how to distribute it.

Hegemonic has since created and begun distributing its own errata packs for the French edition of the game.

Don’t Panic titles slated for release this year include La Traque, Styx and Bruno Faidutti-designed flip-and-write À La Lettre.