Asmodee continues push into crowdfunding by buying Cthulhu: Death May Die series from struggling CMON

Board game giant Asmodee has continued its push into the crowdfunding space by picking up the Cthulhu: Death May Die IP and games from financially-troubled CMON – a series which has raised almost $10m from backers to date.

The buyout of the co-op miniatures game comes four months after CMON sold its flagship IP Zombicide to Asmodee, stripping the company of a series which had raised more than $40m on Kickstarter since its 2012 launch.

CMON’s sale of Cthulhu: Death May Die is the latest move in its drive to battle the huge losses the business has chalked up in the past couple of years – and comes alongside the company announcing a new share sale worth 20% of its existing share capital in an attempt to raise money for the company.

CMON posted losses of nearly $7m in the first half of this year and another $3m across 2024 – figures which dwarf the overall $4.2m profit it managed to make over the previous nine years combined.

Asmodee’s buyout of the Rob Daviau, Eric Lang and Marco Portugal designs is the second acquisition in its reignited strategy of buying up smaller board game publishers, distributors and IPs – and follows the company bringing in David Preti, the recently-resigned COO of CMON, in May to head up its newly-launched crowdfunding and miniatures operation.

Preti spent eight years at CMON from 2016 as creative director and COO, and was an architect of its growth into one of board gaming’s biggest crowdfunding-focused publishers, raising tens of millions of dollars across campaigns for miniatures-focused titles such as its flagship Zombicide series and its Massive Darkness and Marvel and DC United titles.

His hire by Asmodee in the newly-created role – head of crowdfunding strategy and miniature lines – is a notable one for the industry giant, which until now has barely touched the crowdfunding space through any of its myriad studios.

The only crowdfunding campaign from an Asmodee-owned company to date is believed to be Lookout Games’ Kickstarter for the Grand Austria Hotel: Let’s Waltz! Expansion & Deluxe Upgrade, which raised about €383,000 during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.

Asmodee’s only other exposure to crowdfunding is thought to be via the company Exploding Kittens, in which it made a strategic investment short of a buyout in 2021. That business has since raised more than $977,000 in a Kickstarter campaign for Hand to Hand Wombat.

The Cthulhu: Death May Die buyout will see Asmodee take on responsibility for fulfilling CMON’s Gamefound campaign for the game’s latest core box, Forbidden Reaches – which raised more than $3.9m from over 13,000 backers in December last year.

CMON raised about $2.4m for its first Cthulhu: Death May Die campaign on Kickstarter in 2018, and followed that by hauling in $3.4m from over 21,000 backers for follow-up campaign Fear of the Unknown in late 2020.

Asmodee CEO Thomas Kœgler said, “Cthulhu: Death May Die is a strong brand with exciting development potential.

“Our newly created crowdfunding team, led by David Preti, is excited to oversee the fulfilment of the 2025 crowdfunding campaign of Cthulhu: Death May Die – Forbidden Reaches, which has generated great anticipation among players.

“As our second bolt-on acquisition since our listing on Nasdaq Stockholm, it is fully aligned with our value-accretive M&A strategy.”

CMON has been scrambling to stem its losses since the start of this year, laying off staff and halting new game development and campaign launches in March, and selling off a string of its IPs -including Blood Rage, Rising Sun and Zombicide – in the summer.

Earlier this month the company sold off the global headquarters it bought in Singapore in 2017 to claw back about $2.4m – although that amount is still a drop in the ocean for a company which saw its revenue slump by more than $12m in the first half of this year.

CMON has also added extra charges for backers of its Marvel United: Witching Hour and Cthulhu: Dark Providence pre-orders, asking backers to pay an extra $0.69 and $2.30 respectively to cover tariff costs it said it “cannot absorb given our current financial position”.

The company announced in July that rather than focusing on large scale, miniatures heavy crowdfunding campaigns, the company had pivoted to releasing several small-box games direct to retail, some of which are expected to make their debut at Spiel Essen later this month.

Its remaining library of crowdfunded 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.