Veteran German board game publisher Amigo Spiele has restructured its top leadership for the second time since the start of last year, after long-serving executive Joachim Ulbrich revealed he will retire at the end of 2025.
The decision comes despite Amigo Games being one of the few hobby board game publishers that managed to diversify some of its manufacturing away from China - the country which has been hit the heaviest by recent US tariffs to date.
Amigo Spiele has named two new managing directors as it lays the groundwork for a future beyond veteran company head Uwe Pauli, the man who helped save the German board game maker from financial peril in the early 1990s.
German children's book, gifts and stationery publisher ArsEdition has expanded into board games with the launch of a new publishing arm led by former Amigo and Ravensburger exec Volker Hirsch.
The company has let go of project director Danielle Reynolds and customer experience manager Derek Gill as part of the "heartbreaking" layoffs, which it said were necessary to ensure its long-term sustainability.
More than 610,000 copies of Wingspan, its Asia expansion, dragon-themed title Wyrmspan and last year's fish-focused release Finspan were printed by Stonemaier in 2025 according to its latest annual stakeholder report, bringing the total lifetime copies across the trilogy to more than 3.3 million.
Tariff hikes have already seen several board game businesses shutter their operations in recent months, while others have laid off staff and been forced to hike the price of their games to cover the unexpected costs.
Eminent German board game designer Uwe Rosenberg's project to create a forest in the Ghanaian savannah - and provide fair employment for local people - is nearing its goal of bringing 20 board game publishers on board.
