Gen Con-style events, an extra hall: UK Games Expo mulls expansion options as it preps for its biggest, most international event yet
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The UK Games Expo has come a long way since 900 gamers converged on a Birmingham, UK conference centre back in 2007. The show has grown to more than 32,000 attendees since then, and the event is now pushing at the seams of its three giant halls at the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre. Director Richard Denning spoke to BoardGameWire about expectations of its biggest event yet, being inspired by Gen Con to put on more and larger entertainments, and how exhibitors and consumers are responding as budgets feel the macroeconomic heat.
We also have German tabletop game designers association SAZ claiming board game publishers in the country are short-changing designers when it comes to paying out royalties, Awaken Realms taking down AI-generated promotional images for its newly-announced Puerto Rico 1897 Special Edition crowdfunding campaign after Ravensburger stepped in, and a host of other news, design notes and our regular jobs roundup.
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Gen Con-style events, an extra hall: UK Games Expo mulls expansion options as it preps for its biggest, most international event yet
When the UK Games Expo first opened its doors in a Birmingham conference centre in 2007, it was co-organiser Richard Denning’s hope it could go some way to recreating the atmosphere of big name events such as Gen Con and Essen Spiel, albeit in a much-reduced form. About 900 excited gamers descended on the debut UK Games Expo that first year – a tiny proportion of Gen Con’s 27,000 attendance a couple of months later. But aside from a cancelled show during 2020’s pandemic and two subsequent years of recovery, that attendance has been growing ever since, reaching a record 32,000 unique visitors last year. Denning has had a front row seat while UKGE ballooned more than 30-times in size – and says the 2024 event at the end of May will break records again after the team pushed the boundaries of what can be squeezed into its existing space across three giant halls of the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre.
Thousands of Kickstarter backers left out of pocket as Super Dungeon Explore publisher Ninja Division files for bankruptcy
Ninja Division, the troubled miniatures game publisher which raised more than $3m via Kickstarter for a string of tabletop projects, has filed for bankruptcy. The company’s voluntary bankruptcy petition said it had liabilities in the range of $1m to $10m, with assets of between $0 and $100,000 – and up to 49 creditors, although that figure does not include the thousands of Kickstarter backers who never received their games from the company. Ninja Division made a name for itself as a successful tabletop games Kickstarter business in 2014, when it raised $1.2m from more than 6,500 backers to fund Super Dungeon Explore: Forgotten King, an extension of its Super Dungeon Explore line of miniatures-focused dungeon crawlers launched in 2011.
German game designers association calls out “questionable practice” from publishers over royalty payments
Board game publishers in Germany are short-changing designers when it comes to paying out royalties by using opaque payment structures, the country’s tabletop game designers association SAZ has said. SAZ claims that although the standard practice is to provide designers royalties based on the net selling price to retailers, that amount is often reduced by extra unspecified items, making the process a “black box” for designers. It said additional deductions have included rebates, discounts, advertising costs subsidies, retailer bonuses, export taxes, del credere insurances, commissions, transport and packaging costs, as well as other non-transparent extras labelled simply as “and similar costs”.
Awaken Realms pulls AI art from deluxe Puerto Rico crowdfunding campaign after Ravensburger steps in
Awaken Realms has taken down AI-generated promotional images for its newly-announced Puerto Rico 1897 Special Edition crowdfunding campaign after being contacted by the game’s licensor Ravensburger. The Gamefound campaign for the deluxe edition of classic economic strategy game Puerto Rico, which was revealed by Awaken Realms on Wednesday, quickly came under fire after promotional images appeared to show tell-tale signs of having used AI to create the artwork.
Awaken Realms has now pulled those images, replacing them with a blurred version of the box cover from the 2022 release of Puerto Rico 1897 superimposed with a plastic sculpt of a ship.
Asmodee promises more games coming from Canadian Plan B team after folding German operation into Lookout
Board game giant Asmodee has confirmed it has a string of projects in development at the Canada arm of its Plan B Games studio, following the firm merging the Germany-based part of Plan B into its Lookout Spiele subsidiary. Asmodee bought Plan B three years ago, gaining control of its eponymous game studio as well as Canada-based Next Move and Pretzel Games and Germany-based Eggertspiele – and a game catalogue featuring Azul and Century: Spice Road as well as Camel Up, Great Western Trail and Village.
BoardGameWire reported last month that Asmodee had moved Camel Up, Village and the entire Great Western Trail series to subsidiary Lookout Spiele, continuing a slow exodus of titles from Plan B Games. But Asmodee has now confirmed to BoardGameWire that the Canada arm is readying new games for publication this year.
Arkham Horror card game co-designer Maxine Newman hired as Earthborne Rangers design lead
Maxine Newman, the co-creator and long time design lead for the Arkham Horror card game, has been hired as the lead designer for sustainability-focused co-operative card game Earthborne Rangers. Newman spent more than 11 years at Fantasy Flight Games, initially working on The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game before co-creating Arkham Horror: The Card Game in 2016. She spent six years leading design and development for the game and its eight expansions, before moving on to other projects at FFG towards the end of 2022.
Her move to Earthborne Games comes a month after the company scored its second crowdfunding success by raising almost $1m for the new printing of co-operative card game Earthborne Rangers.
German board game, toymaker HABA exits insolvency in wake of plan to slash workforce by 40%
HABA, the 85-year-old Germany toymaker famous for its family-weight board games, has exited insolvency proceedings in the wake of a plans to shed over 650 jobs – about 40% of its workforce. BoardGameWire reported last September that Haba had gone into self-administration in an attempt to save the business. Company spokesperson Ilka Kunzelmann told BoardGameWire at the time that “some decisions made in recent years have been found to be incorrect in hindsight”, adding that disruptions in supply chains had also had a negative impact on the business.
A month later the company revealed it planned to cut its 1,677-strong workforce down to about 1,000 as part of a “comprehensive restructuring”, with the aim of restoring its focus on high-quality toys and games that promote child development.
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