
Discord community management platform Levellr raises $1.75m of funding, plans Reddit integration
Discord community management platform Levellr has raised $1.75m of funding from a clutch of venture capital firms and games industry executives.

Discord community management platform Levellr has raised $1.75m of funding from a clutch of venture capital firms and games industry executives.

Veteran French board game publisher Matagot is pulling out of publishing heavier games such as Kemet and Inis, instead focusing the company's future on the family, beginner and children's games market.

Newly-launched board game publisher Wharf Rat Games is hoping to cut down the time it takes for a designer's game to go from contract signing to publication.

BoardGameWire spoke to a string of publishers who ran booths at this year's record-breaking Gen Con event, to get the inside track on highs, lows, opportunities and challenges at the show. Those responses were far more than we were able to use in our headline article - Gen Con celebrates record 71,000 attendance after event sells out for first time in history - so we've collected their views in their totality on this year's event here.

North America's giant tabletop gaming convention Gen Con has broken new ground again after a record 71,000 people flocked to Indianapolis for this year's event.

Approaching large companies to use their IP in board games can be a daunting task - and they don't come much bigger than $3tn computing giant Microsoft. That didn't put off two-person Swiss board game publisher Treecer, though, whose successful pitch ended up with more than 5,000 backers committing about $600,000 to the Zoo Tycoon: The Board Game Kickstarter. Treecer co-founder Marc Dür took time out from managing the crowdfund for the game's New Shores expansion - which has raised almost $500,000 itself so far - to tell BoardGameWire how his company went about securing the licence, how their approach to crowdfunding has changed over the years, and lessons they learned from the original Zoo Tycoon campaign.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal co-designer Asger Harding Granerud has completed a full lap of the board game industry since he began designing games just over a decade ago, having launched a distributor, retail shop and design studio in addition to seeing his motor racing co-design accelerate into the BoardGameGeek Top 40. Granerud sat down with BoardGameWire to discuss his learning curve as a designer and publisher, the challenges of running a three-person indie studio, and how to avoid common pitfalls in bringing your game to market.

Professional streamer Banzainator, who has thousands of Twitch followers and also works as a community manager for Alderac Entertainment Group, shared with BoardGameWire her strategic advice for how to best work with streamers to get your game noticed.

Game Brewer, the Belgian publisher of board games including Gugong and Paris, is shutting down after struggling to remain profitable amid rising competition.

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.