CMON planning new God of War, Game of Thrones board game releases this year

CMON, the publisher of miniatures-heavy board games including Zombicide and Blood Rage, is planning to release new games this year based on the hit PlayStation series God of War and George R R Martin’s Song of Ice & Fire fantasy novels.

The Singapore-headquartered studio, which focuses heavily on Kickstarter releases, revealed the plan in its latest annual results, which also showed its revenue had increased by about 20% in 2022 to around $45.3m.

CMON attributed that rise primarily to an “increase in the recognition of Kickstarter sales”, with most of the company’s bestselling tabletop games last year launched through the crowdfunding service.

They included Marvel Zombies – A Zombicide Game, which raised an enormous $9m, as well as other licensed IP games Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City – The Board Game and Dune: War for Arrakis, while the company kicked off this year by raising about $4.7m for Marvel United Multiverse.

Last month the company scored more than $3.8m for its latest in the Zombicide line, with over 19,000 backers committing to Zombicide: White Death on Kickstarter.

Those successes hint at the new God of War and Song of Ice and Fire games being miniatures-rich Kickstarter releases, although CMON is yet to officially reveal details of the planned games.

Notably, PlayStation released God of War: Ragnarok last September to record-breaking demand, with the game selling over five million copies in its first week alone. It had sold over 11 million copies by February this year according to Sony’s quarterly results.

CMON previously launched the Eric Lang-designed A Song of Ice & Fire – Tabletop Miniatures Game in 2018, and has released scores of miniature sets for the game covering factions ranging from houses Stark and Lannister to the Night’s Watch and Dothraki.

The company also has history with the God of War franchise, having released God of War: The Card Game in 2019. That game had a rather luke-warm reception, however, and currently has a 6.6 rating on BoardGameGeek.

Its increasing reliance on Kickstarter – and the success of that model – was underscored earlier this year by CMON shuttering its only physical store, based in Singapore, as sales had proved “insignificant” compared to its other channels.

CMON added in its annual results that it remained focused on expanding into the Asian wholesale
markets, having gained footholds in Thailand and Japan last year, and marketing directly to end users and gamers, particularly in China, through a Chinese crowdfunding platform.

The group was employing 78 people at the turn of the year, up from 65 at the beginning of 2022.

Last week CMON revealed it had resurrected the cancelled Metal Gear Solid board game, two years after the project was canned by IDW Games.