The publisher, which also makes puzzles, plushies and toys, is best known in hobby board games for critical and commercial successes Quacks of Quedlinburg and Daybreak - winners of the Spiel des Jahres and Kennerspiel respectively - and Ganz Schön Clever, a Kennerspiel des Jahres nominee in 2018.
German board game publisher Schmidt Spiele's international sales soared by 11% last year, helping the Quacks of Quedlinburg maker to €57.5m in total sales across 2024.
German board game publisher Schmidt Spiele reported flat year-on-year sales for its family and children-focused division - albeit at a level it said has been on a high since 2020.
After being catapulted into the board game industry limelight following the success of Pandemic in 2008, Matt Leacock has scored ongoing success through titles such as the Forbidden series, Ticket to Ride and Pandemic legacy titles and his Kennerspiel-winning climate-change co-design Daybreak. In this in-depth interview he spoke with BoardGameWire about how the industry has changed for designers over the last quarter of a century, how working with developers can best help a design to sing, and why fighting for designer rights is among his most important jobs in 2026.
Co-operative bomb disposal game Bomb Busters has won this year's Spiel des Jahres, beating the much-fancied push-your-luck card game Flip 7 to the high-profile award.
Galactic gardening-themed set collection game Gloomies has won this year's Austrian game of the year award, two years after catching the attention of Ravensburger during Italian unpublished game design contest Premio Archimede.
The nominees for this year's Spiel des Jahres, widely considered the highest profile award in board gaming, have been unveiled ahead of the grand final on July 13.
Few board game artistic redesigns of recent years have drawn as much polarising opinion as CMYK's recently announced reworking of Quacks of Quedlinburg, with online forums torn over the switch to the 3D clay-style imagery of Ryogo Toyoda. CMYK chief executive Alex Hague - the creative director for the redesign - spoke to BoardGameWire about the motivations behind changing up the look of the million-selling game, and CMYK's vision for breaking board games out of their 'visual and demographic monoculture'.
Devir Games has agreed to buy Spanish board game publisher Maldito Games, adding its portfolio of 'expert-level' localisations including Terraforming Mars, Ark Nova and Brass Birmingham to its catalogue.
The organisers of the Spiel des Jahres - widely considered the biggest award in board gaming - have banned one of this year's prize-winning designers from future events after he wore a watermelon sticker to show his support of Palestine at this year's award ceremony.
