Osprey Games lets entire board and card game development team go, cancels Essen booth

UK-based Osprey Games has let go of its entire board and card game development team and cancelled its booth at the upcoming Spiel Essen game fair, five months after parent company Bloomsbury began searching for a buyer for the operation.

Osprey revealed in May that multinational book giant Bloomsbury had made the “difficult decision” to sell the board and card game segment as part of a wider “strategic refocusing” on book publishing, which would see Osprey concentrate on its wargame and RPG lines.

Two sources with knowledge of the matter told BoardGameWire at the time that Bloomsbury hoped to find a buyer willing take on the existing board and card game team in addition to its catalogue, which includes acclaimed titles such as the Undaunted and Imperium lines.

But a Bloomsbury spokesperson has now confirmed to BoardGameWire that “all our colleagues who exclusively worked on creating and manufacturing our board and card games have now left the company”.

Multiple sources spoken to by BoardGameWire said those exits were in the form of redundancies at the end of September, although the company declined to say exactly how many staff were affected.

The departures mean Bloomsbury is now seeking a buyer solely for the board and card game catalogue, rather than the department as a whole – but questions remain over exactly how the rights to its portfolio of games could be sold on to a new owner.

BoardGameWire understands that some Osprey designer contracts include restrictions governing the transfer of publishing rights to third parties, which could complicate the sale efforts – with some agreements seeming to limit transfers to buyers acquiring all or substantially all of the imprint’s titles.

Asked about that situation by BoardGameWire, a Bloomsbury spokesperson said, “The contractual arrangements relating to Osprey Games are confidential, so we’re not able to share details of specific terms or comment on potential outcomes.

“We appreciate that these questions are important to designers and other partners, and we’ll share further information with those directly involved as soon as we’re able to.”

The spokesperson also confirmed that Osprey has multiple unreleased board and card game projects under contract at “various stages of development”, but did not say whether those titles would be published by Osprey or transferred to another buyer.

They said, “As with our published games, we will share information about the future of those projects with the relevant designers as soon as we are able to.”

Osprey’s existing games remain “well stocked”, the spokesperson said, adding that the company had no current plans for reprints “but will continue to review the situation as we move forwards”.

They said, “We remain committed to supporting our fantastic range of board and card games with sales, marketing and licensing efforts and each of our games remains available to purchase.

“Our upcoming games, Undaunted 2200: Revolution from David Thompson and Trevor Benjamin, and Upland & Prairie from Peer Sylvester will be released as planned this month.  

“We are, as ever, incredibly grateful to our brilliant in-house team, to our wonderful designers and illustrators, and to everyone who has supported Osprey Games over the years.”

Osprey Games was launched in 2015 as part of Bloomsbury arm Osprey Publishing, which had a decades-long history of creating military and historical information and reference books before beginning to publish wargaming rulebooks in 2008.

The gaming arm’s early successes included Peer Sylvester’s The King is Dead and The Lost Expedition, as well as popular titles such as Hal Duncan and Ruth Veevers’ design Cryptid and the second edition of Martin Wallace’s London.

Those releases were followed by the high-profile success of the Undaunted series of deckbuilding wargames from David Thompson and Trevor Benjamin and the Imperium games from Nigel Buckle and Dávid Turczi.

Osprey also gained a reputation for taking chances on a range of titles with intriguing mechanisms and designs, such as Sylvester’s area control and trick-taking hybrid Brian Boru, highly asymmetric area control title Crescent Moon, card-based strategic wargame Battalion: War of the Ancients and small-box, quick-playing conflict title General Orders: World War II.

The publisher has continued releasing games in the wake of the sale process announcement, including Threaded, Flip Pick Towers and Rattlesnake earlier this year and CRAB RAGE! last month.

Bloomsbury has not specified a timetable for completing the sale, with the spokesperson telling BoardGameWire that conversations were “ongoing”.

They added, “I’m sure you’ll appreciate that this is a very complex situation, and the timelines are based around confidential conversations. We will provide updates when we can do so.”

Osprey parent Bloomsbury, which has a stock market valuation of more than £500m, announced in April that it was “streamlining its structure for further growth” – which included a reorganisation of the company’s editorial divisions and the loss of about 55 jobs. No mention of Osprey was made in the restructuring announcement.

Bloomsbury has seen its profits almost double in the last five financial years, and confirmed at its July annual meeting that it expects annual revenue of more than £350m and was on track for record adjusted pre-tax profits of £49.9m, according to Publishers Weekly.