Asmodee’s owner loads it up with €900m debt, and BoardGameWire celebrates its first birthday
BoardGameWire - The world’s leading source of industry news and analysis for board game professionals.
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. I told myself I’d give the project everything I could for the next 12 months, fitting in as much interviewing, investigation, news and feature writing as I could around my day job and taking care of my two children, and then take stock as to whether the project had legs.
I’ve been a professional journalist for 16 years, writing for local newspapers and court reporting for national titles before more than a decade specialising in business writing. I hoped I could bring that experience to reporting on the board game industry: digging out interesting news, interviewing industry names and decision-makers and providing timely insight and analysis that goes beyond just rewording a press release.
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 - and we’ve already reached 198,000 readers in 2024 so far. There are dozens of great stories from the last year that I’m incredibly proud of, but exclusives such as Facebook banning ads for Votes for Women’s Kickstarter, CoolStuffInc explaining how Amazon pushed it out of the online board game market, and the revelation that Essen Spiel, the world’s biggest board game fair, was using AI art in its posters and marketing are among the ones that I think really put BoardGameWire out there as an industry-leading news source.
I’m from a slightly older school of journalism in which you never put yourself into the story, so writing an intro like this feels incredibly self-indulgent. But I'm honestly so proud of what BoardGameWire has become in its first year, and wanted to thank all of you newsletter subscribers for being part of it - especially those of you who have committed a few dollars a month to keep the site going. It’s hugely appreciated, and I’m excited about sharing another year’s worth of articles with you all.
Thank you!
Mike Didymus-True - Editor
Asmodee’s owner loads it up with €900m debt amid plan to spin off board game giant, CEO Carville to be replaced
Asmodee’s troubled corporate owner Embracer Group has revealed plans to spin off the tabletop gaming giant, which will see the business take on the vast majority of its parent company’s hefty debt pile. Embracer will load up Asmodee with €900m of debt as part of the separation in order to pay down borrowing across the rest of its operations, which includes a suite of PC game studios and the worldwide rights to the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
BoardGameWire predicted last month that the tabletop group’s strong performance had potentially put it in the shop window to help Embracer pay down its debt, with Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors saying at the time that Asmodee was “one of the absolute most important businesses we have”. Asmodee will be spun off within the next 12 months through a separate stock market listing on the Stockholm bourse, with Embracer saying the move will allow the board game company to better focus on its core strategy and markets, as well as “quickly resume its value accretive M&A strategy”.
No AI art: Wingspan, Scythe maker Stonemaier Games draws hard line on using AI in ‘creative work’
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”. Stegmaier’s announcement that his company “does not, has not, and will not use any form of AI to replace or augment creative work” follows several high-profile instances of AI being used to generate artwork in the board game industry – all accompanied by a sizeable backlash from industry professionals and tabletop gamers.
Stegmaier told BoardGameWire, “I want to play games designed by, illustrated by, and written by people, not algorithms.”
Rummikub maker Goliath continues push into hobby gaming with Lucky Duck Games buyout
Goliath, the veteran game company behind Rummikub and other child and family-weight games, is making a further push into the hobby games market by buying tabletop publisher Lucky Duck Games. Netherlands-headquartered Goliath is already a global toy and games heavyweight, although most of its designs are focused on kids and light family games including Sequence and Wheel of Fortune, as well as classics such as backgammon and checkers.
But the 44-year-old company has been spreading itself from mass market into hobby gaming this year. Three months ago Goliath bought the board game assets of pop culture and collectibles giant Funko, including games from the Prospero Hall team responsible for design such as Disney Villainous, Horrified and Pan Am. The vast majority of Prospero Hall’s 30-plus strong team were let go as part of that deal, but Goliath said Lucky Duck will remain an “independent” studio within the company, and will continue to be run by founder Vincent Vergonjeanne and his team.
Wizards of the Coast, Magic: The Gathering continue to outperform as Hasbro’s deep cost-cutting raises profits
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. Wizards of the Coast, which includes both Magic and D&D, saw revenues rise 7% in Q1, continuing its outperformance for Hasbro across the whole of 2023.
Its operating profit surged 60%, to $122.8m, compared to Q1 2023, greater than the total for the whole of Hasbro, after a $46.9m operating loss from its consumer products segment – including Nerf guns, Transformers and Peppa Pig toys – and costs from the sale of its eOne entertainment division weighed on the company’s overall profits. Wizards of the Coast’s continued strength has been underpinned by the powerful performance of Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons – particularly the “blockbuster” August release of the hugely popular video game Baldur’s Gate III.
CMON’s profits jumped 35% last year on $45m sales, to thanks to huge drop in costs
CMON, the crowdfunding board game specialist which left Kickstarter for rival Gamefound earlier this year, saw its net profit jump more than 35% in 2023 amid a hefty drop in its sales-associated costs. The company, famous for miniatures-focused games such as Zombicide and Blood Rage, saw its net profit rise to over $1.3m compared to about $1m in 2022, according to its latest annual report.
That rise came amid a more than 20% drop in its cost of sales, with huge reductions coming via inventory, shipping and handling costs. Kickstarter projects made up almost 60% of CMON’s $45m of sales last year, bringing in revenue of about $26.3m – about 40% more than the $18.6m the company made through its wholesale channel.
New-look Charles S Roberts Awards aims to better reflect broadening definition of ‘wargames’
One of the longest-running awards honouring conflict-focused tabletop games has shaken up its categories again, in an ongoing attempt to leave behind a traditionally narrow definition of ‘wargame’. This year’s Charles S Roberts Awards, which traces its history back to 1975, has removed mention of the word wargame from all but one of this year’s 20 categories, as well as splitting the awards into historical and design mechanic-focused segments and adding a specific award for the “best historical conflict simulation dealing primarily with a non-military conflict”.
The changes have been partly driven by the success and popularity of recent games such as Tory Brown’s Votes for Women, which uses wargame-style mechanics to model the political fight for women’s suffrage in the US.
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Exeunt Press highlighted on Twitter that Skeleton Code Machine has a two-part series to help designers find public domain art for their projects
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Clint Warren-Davey highlights a great example of small-scale board game company marketing success.
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