PAX is doubling down on the success of its tabletop-focused Unplugged show by launching a second event in Houston, after growing the original into the second-largest tabletop gaming convention in the US after Gen Con.
The new system arrives as Spiel prepares for its biggest-ever event from October 22 to 25 this year - with an expansion into all eight main halls at the Messe Essen exhibition centre for the first time expected to see the event challenge its record 220,000 attendance set last year.
The deal hands the board game publishing and distribution giant control of a flip-and-write series which has sold hundreds of thousands of copies since Benoit Turpin's breakout design Welcome To Your Perfect Home was released in 2018.
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.
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 Tabletop Game Designers Association has begun scoring and comparing the standard contracts board game publishers offer to designers, with the aim of improving how game creators are treated and paid.
Hues and Cues designer Scott Brady, Sagrada co-creator Daryl Andrews and Friendly Skeleton CEO Jacob Way said Best in Play will offer everything from interim executive leadership and designer representation to publisher submission management and crowdfunding strategy.
Few people in the hobby game industry have have seen as many sides of the business as Scott Morris - from leading global strategy at Lucky Duck Games, building publishing partnerships at GTS Distribution and running sales, marketing and social media at Arcane Wonders. Now Morris is applying that experience to his own venture as founder of Steelwing Games, whose debut title Rainbow Blvd. has been nearly a decade in the making.
"So many new games are being released today that the market has become saturated", Atalia said. "Shops no longer have the space, the time or the cash flow to stock all the games arriving each week."
