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Pandemic creator Matt Leacock on fighting for designers’ rights, working with effective developers and his publisher ‘pet peeves’

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.

“No part of the mission says ‘Asmodee makes all the games'”: Luke Peterschmidt on shaping the future of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings tabletop titles

When news broke three months ago that board game giant Asmodee had been named manager of the hugely lucrative Middle-earth licence for tabletop games and accessories, questions naturally abounded within the industry about what that would mean for other publishers hoping to create The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings-based titles. Luke Peterschmidt, the tabletop veteran tasked with running the Middle-earth operation at Asmodee, sat down with BoardGameWire at Spiel Essen following the announcement to outline his vision for the IP, what they want from publishers in terms of pitches, and how they hope to prove naysayers of the deal wrong.

People moves: Ross Thompson leaves Asmodee’s Atomic Mass Games; Druid City Games brings in ex-Incredible Dream marketing director Ilya Ushakov; Ross Connell joins Mantic from North Star Games

A trio of comings and goings from the board game industry for the year so far - if you have news of a new role, hire or job change within the industry that you'd like mentioned on BoardGameWire, please send an email with the details to the editor, Mike Didymus-True, on mike@boardgamewire.com