
This year’s Cardboard Edison Award winner simulates pioneers staking land claims in the rush for the American West
Crowded Frontier has won this year's Cardboard Edison Award, which aims to highlight the best in currently unpublished board games.

Crowded Frontier has won this year's Cardboard Edison Award, which aims to highlight the best in currently unpublished board games.

Kevin Wilson barely needs an introduction when it comes to the modern board games industry, having spent more than 20 years working across titles ranging from Descent: Journeys in the Dark and Arkham Horror to Cosmic Encounter and Civilization: The Board Game. Since being named director of game design at Incredible Dream upon the company's 2021 launch, he's been the design lead on a trio of games in the new Kinfire setting. The latest, Kinfire Council, sees Wilson bringing his own take on the worker placement genre - and is just about to complete a successful Kickstarter campaign. Wilson sat down with BoardGameWire to talk worldbuilding, prototyping, and best practice for designing as part of a team.

Board game news website Dicebreaker and its video game-focused stablemates have been bought by IGN Entertainment, with redundancies immediately starting across the newly-purchased sites.

The Diana Jones Award Committee has revealed the four latest winners of its emerging designer program, who will each receive a $6,500 prize package that includes an all-expenses trip to Gen Con.

When professional graphic designer Ross Bruggink decided to mix his love of gardening with his eye for creative artwork and create his first board game, he was adamant that visual beauty should be at the heart of the game. That push to create a striking game that was also strategic and quick to learn has reaped big rewards, with Vicious Gardens currently closing in on $300,000 with half the campaign still to run. Bruggink explained to BoardGameWire how his design and playtesting process, and his decision to partner with services providers for publishing and marketing, helped the campaign to blossom.

Tabletop gaming publisher Modiphius has seen sales of its Fallout-related products more than double month-on-month amid the huge popularity of Amazon Prime's new Fallout TV show, which attracted 65 million viewers in just over two weeks.

Zombicide and Blood Rage publisher CMON has bought Japon Brand, the collective launched almost 20 years ago to promote Japanese board games around the world.

I launched BoardGameWire exactly one year and a day ago, on a hunch that the industry had grown so large that there was a market for professionally written, business-focused news and features that just wasn’t being filled by other outlets. Hand on heart, I couldn’t have dreamed of the response. A trickle of readers in those first days and weeks grew to reach more than 278,000 unique users in the last 12 months - that’s about the attendance of four Gen Cons.

Wingspan and Scythe publisher Stonemaier Games has come out strongly against using AI in creative work, with co-founder Jamey Stegmaier telling BoardGameWire his company wants "nothing to do with it".

Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons owner Hasbro has recorded a jump in profits in the first quarter of 2024, on the back of continued strength from Wizards of the Coast and Magic, and an ongoing cost-cutting programme which has so far involved the planned layoffs of nearly 2,000 people.