"Getting a Vietnamese game -to- Essen was never really the goal - getting it there ready to sell is."
Fledgling Dubai board game convention tabletop.me is facing a very different challenge as it prepares for its second year: persuading overseas publishers the commercial opportunity of reaching the Gulf's growing tabletop market is worth pursuing amid safety concerns around the US-Iran war.
The Italy-based War of the Ring publisher said thousands of fake requests repeatedly saturated its server bandwidth and CPU earlier this week, temporarily preventing some customers from reaching its main website and e-commerce site, which is also used for preorders and crowdfunding pledge management.
Plaid Hat Games launched its Kickstarter for The Monolith in June with a trio of successful crowdfunding campaigns under its belt - only to pull the project three days after launch when pledges unexpectedly ground to a halt. In this first-person piece for BoardGameWire, Plaid Hat founder and CEO Colby Dauch explains why The Monolith exposed flaws that Plaid Hat’s previous campaigns had masked, what the publisher believes it got wrong, and why the changes made for its rapid relaunch appear to be working.
Leading the new studio continues a rapid rise for Leiman, a 2025 Diana Jones Emerging Designer Program winner whose published designs include High Tide, Wildberries and Dino Racer - the latter of which picked up significant buzz at Gen Con this year, and is currently ranked at number two in the BoardGameGeek Hotness.
arsEdition launched a dedicated games programme last September focused on family-weight games for ages 6, 8, and 10 and up, with an opening slate of seven titles including Reiner Knizia designs Oshiya Tokio and Guardian of the Treasure.
The November 27 and 28 event in Abuja will include prototype playtesting, workshops, industry discussions, networking and a marketplace alongside its consumer-facing game demonstrations and tournaments, according to organiser NIBCARD Games.
The profit surge for Esdevium Games - which officially re-registered as Asmodee UK Limited last month - came on the back of an almost 60% rise in turnover to £224m according to its latest annual accounts.
Allplay is making its biggest strategic shift since its predecessor Boardgametables.com entered publishing in 2018 - launching a trio of new product lines aimed at markets well beyond the accessible, smaller-box strategy games that have defined it to date.
The hire puts a familiar face from board game media in charge of planning and delivering one of the tabletop industry's largest event programmes.
