Reflecting on 2024, preparing for 2025: All About Games Consulting looks at opportunities and challenges in the board game industry

Another strong year for the board game industry, which has now grown to about €13bn, nears its end, with all eyes turning to the opportunities and challenges presented by 2025. In this article Cedric Delobelle, co-founder of one of BoardGameWire’s sponsors All About Games Consulting, looks ahead to what US tariffs might mean for the industry, and reflects on the successes and difficulties encountered in 2024.

What trends do you expect to have a big impact on the board game industry in 2025, within your segment and more generally?

The US is a vast market for our industry and there is a lot of uncertainty around import tariffs. If the plans of the inbound administration go ahead unchanged then it will be a turbulent time. I’d anticipate 6-12 months of upheaval as companies have to move quickly to learn the new systems and restrictions before they settle into a new ‘normal’.

The impact won’t be dissimilar to what we saw in the UK when Brexit was implemented and there were some challenges with goods at the border as companies scrambled to understand the new rules and adapt their processes. The unfortunate reality is that in any situation like this, there will certainly be some companies that aren’t able to pivot or adapt in time.

From our point of view, we anticipate a spike in interest for our international sales services in this period. Localisation and English Language sales outside of the US could prove to be a valuable lifeline to publishers who have historically relied on the US market to stay afloat. More generally, all parts of the industry will feel the effects. The new tariffs seem highly focused on limiting the amount of production coming out of China, but the entire supply chain will feel the impact. Margins will be tighter for distributors. Most likely, we will see average product prices increase which will affect consumer behaviour and therefore retailers – particularly bricks and mortar stores – will feel the pressure.

I’d also expect we’ll see more publishers looking to setup alternative production pipelines outside of China as a result of the US tariff upheaval. AAGC already has a great network of trusted factories around the world that we can recommend to publishers. If anyone is struggling with this then I’d encourage them to get in touch with us to see how we could help.

What are the major risk factors for the industry that you have your eye on for 2025, and why?

Over the past year there have been some high profile crowdfunding campaigns that failed to deliver, and one or two big crowdfunding companies who’ve had some financial troubles as a result. There’s been a lot of speculation that these cases have damaged end consumer confidence, but this year also saw some hugely successful projects too. Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere RPG rocketed onto Kickstarter, becoming the most funded gaming project of all time in an incredibly successful campaign.

We also saw key crowdfunding platforms launching powerful new marketing tools and features this year, so it seems pretty clear that the doom and gloom around the fate of crowdfunding is a bit overblown! That said, I’ve backed projects that never fulfilled before in the past and it hurts as an end consumer to lose out like that. Now, we’re seeing a wonderful trend of publishers picking up the rights to fulfil projects that would have been completely lost otherwise.

Our crowdfunding team is working with publisher Scoundrel Game Labs on one such revival. In early 2025 the team will be supporting the launch of Village Attacks: Grim Dynasty Reborn on Kickstarter. This beloved title was originally released by Grimlord Games, who sadly went into liquidation in 2023. Projects like these are complex as there’s always a balance to be found between supporting the previous backers and engaging with new ones, but they offer those backers a chance to have something tangible that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.

What were the big positives within the board game industry that provided opportunities for AAGC in 2024?

One huge positive was the increased awareness around ecologically and ethically sustainable manufacturing practices. One of our longest standing partnerships is with the team at Earthborne Games, so it’s been great to see more publishers thinking about sustainability.

That partnership came out of a conversation Philip (Head of Marketing & Events at AAGC) and I had over coffee one day, way back in 2021. At that time we were talking about the impact of our industry on the natural world, and initiatives we could support to help leave a better place behind for the next generation. I’m a father of four so it’s something I think about a lot, and Philip is the first to admit he’s a bit of an eco-warrior.

Well, about a week later we had a discussion with Andrew Navaro, where he shared some impressive ecological commitments he and the Earthborne team were making. We knew right away that our values aligned with Andrew’s so a partnership made a lot of sense. Fast forward to today, and Earthborne is going from strength to strength, with another highly anticipated crowdfunding campaign on the way.

And it’s not just smaller publishers who are responding to increased consumer awareness for sustainability. Even giants like Hasbro seem to be making big changes in that space – having recently become the first board game publisher to win the FSC sustainability award for their production of Life in Reterra.

All About Games Consulting is one of the only consultants in the industry that offers sustainability led manufacturing support to publishers. I think we were quite ahead of the curve on this, so that’s afforded us plenty of opportunities to help guide publishers in navigating the tricky path to more ecologically and ethically responsible production processes.

And what were the major challenges within the industry that impacted AAGC, and how did you overcome them?

Financially, 2024 has been a relentlessly tough year for end consumers and businesses alike. The cost of living crisis of course affected consumer buying behaviour and this led numerous companies into dangerous and uncertain territory.

The direct impact that we saw was a significant change in the pattern of US distribution orders, with some companies having to heavily limit their stock risk and reduce their number of suppliers. This in turn meant that international publishers and new products were struggling to get a foothold in the North American market. We overcame this in no small part thanks to our US sales specialist, Stephan Brissaud. Now, we offer publishers a solution by consolidating our partner’s stock into one single warehouse. Doing so means that distributors don’t need to setup as many new accounts and they can minimise their stock risk by ordering ‘little and often’, drawing on the stock held at our partnered US warehouse.

The solution seems to be working well, with several distributors placing regular orders and feeling more secure in trialling new products. For publishers, it’s removed the roadblock that was stopping them gaining traction in the US so it’s been a win for everyone so far. We’ve also been pleasantly surprised by the significant order volumes publishers have been seeing in recent weeks. The year seems to be ending well, thanks to the Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas shopping season.

What were your expectations for AAGC at the start of 2024, and how does that compare to the reality of how the year went?

It isn’t very glamourous but my goal for 2024 was to refine our processes and communication strategy to guarantee that we were delivering the best results possible for our partners, as well as giving us bandwidth to take on more partners in the second half of the year. A pleasant surprise was the demand we saw in new areas. This gave us the opportunity to expand our team to help us deliver relevant and reliable service packages to fill those gaps in the market.

Our new hire, Robert Fort, brings decades of experience in the Toy and Games industry from his time with PlayMonster, Professor Puzzle, Asmodee, Steiff and more. Thanks to his knowledge, we’re now able to offer publishers an expert guide for what these retailers are looking for and maximise placement potential with them. Developing our sales offering beyond Localisation and Distribution has proven to be an excellent area of expansion for us.

Our second new package of the year was a bespoke Creative Service that we offered some partners who were preparing products ahead of their Kickstarter campaigns. Our graphic designer, Emma Welford, has been wanting to take on more product design for some time, so we were poised to hit the ground running with these opportunities. We are lucky to have partners that trust our judgement and expertise and were able to create full brand identities and packaging solutions for different products.

And what are you most looking forward to within the industry next year, as potential
positive developments?

There’s an old saying that every problem is an opportunity in disguise. We’re gearing up to support more publishers by expanding our sales team. We’re attending more industry events than ever before, each of which seems to have been showing excellent growth post-pandemic. And we’ll also be expanding our work with publishers and game designers, helping with the creation of games from scratch for some larger companies within the industry.

We’re excited to see more games, more gamers and more companies join the diverse range of people we already deal with in the industry. I am a sociable man, it’s why I have always loved our industry. I like making new friends, finding new opportunities for partnerships and introducing good people to good people. As far as I am concerned, there is no better place to do that than around a gaming table.