“I wanted to elevate board gaming to the same level as cinema, literature, theatre”: Senet editor Dan Jolin celebrates five years of publishing board gaming’s most beautiful magazine

Modern board gaming's boom over the past 20 years has been accompanied by an avalanche of creatives reviewing, discussing and celebrating the growing hobby. That media continues to be dominated by video reviews and previews - but five years ago long-time film magazine editor Dan Jolin and art director James Hunter took a chance that there was room in the industry for a beautiful, high-quality magazine "celebrating the craft, creativity and community" of tabletop gaming. That hunch has proven well judged, with the magazine's readership having grown five-fold compared to its original Kickstarter campaign thanks to its beautiful presentation, thoughtful reviews and articles, and interviews with the biggest names in board gaming. Editor Dan Jolin spoke to BoardGameWire about the magazine's journey so far, how the industry has changed and what the future holds for Senet.

“Board games are about to get more expensive”: Arcane Wonders president Robert Geistlinger on tariffs, razor-thin margins and the math of producing games

The board game industry has been awash with discussion about the potentially crippling effect of tariffs for several months now, with publishers, distributors and manufacturers all scrabbling to prepare for a leap in the cost of importing games to the US. Chief among the issues is the uncertainty surrounding the situation - tariffs of up to 100% on imports from China, where the vast majority of board games are made, were being talked about by then President-elect Donald Trump last November, stoking fears of a “great collapse” of the US board game industry. So far those tariffs have only reached 10%, but ongoing sabre-rattling from Trump and tit-for-tat tariffs on US goods introduced by China have created an unpredictable trading environment. In this article for BoardGameWire, Robert Geistlinger, president of US board game major Arcane Wonders, explains how even a 10% tariff rate will have an outsized effect on publishers already working on razor-thin margins.