This week's biggest board game news
From BoardGameWire, the world’s leading source of industry news and analysis for board game professionals.
It’s been one of those weeks in board gaming news that feels like a month. Every time I think the biggest story has broken, someone else pipes up with a new controversial take to become the main character for the day.
Quackalope, a board game YouTube channel with close to 48,000 subscribers, was accused of offering to scrap footage he’d recorded of campaign board game Aeon Trespass: Odyssey showing his “quite frustrating” experience of the game in exchange for the developers paying him $7,500 for sponsored coverage of its Kickstarter. ‘Show us the evidence’, many in board gaming circles cried - so BoardGameWire obtained and exclusively revealed the contents of emails between the pair. The YouTuber has since released a 30 minute-long video statement, in which he manages to talk around the subject for a full 25 minutes before offering an apology.
Exclusive: Quackalope’s emails to Aeon Trespass: Odyssey devs offering to scrap ‘frustrating experience’ coverage in return for ‘discounted’ $7,500 sponsorship
Not to be outdone by Quackalope, Alderac Entertainment Group chief operating officer Ryan Dancey decided to tell Wingspan designer Elizabeth Hargrave that male board game designers vastly outnumber their female counterparts because women are “socialised in the West to avoid situations involving harsh criticism”.
Hargrave, a multi-award winning game designer and one of the most prominent women in the industry, had been sharing data on Twitter highlighting the severe and consistent lack of women nominated for the Spiel des Jahres prize – widely considered the biggest award in board gaming.
Dancey later apologised, promising to make concrete changes at AEG to address the problem, and asking people to check back with him in a year to hold him accountable. Which we’ll absolutely be doing.
Women underepresented in board game design because they’re ‘socialised to avoid harsh criticism’ – Alderac COO
Elizabeth Hargrave’s Twitter thread was inspired by the stark lack of women appearing in this year’s Spiel des Jahres nominations, which were revealed earlier this week. Carla Caramel, by Austria-based designer Sara Zarian, was the only game designed by a woman in any of the three award longlists, and just eight non-male designers were involved in the 290 games considered for the Spiel and Kennerspiel awards this year. Spiel des Jahres chairman Harald Schrapers described the situation as “unfortunate”.
Fun Facts, Next Station London and Dorfromantik: The Board Game will go head to head in this year’s Spiel des Jahres prize, widely considered the biggest award in board gaming. Planet Unknown, Challengers! and Iki made the shortlist from the Kennerspiel des Jahres award, aimed at games for more experienced players, while the contest for the children-focused Kinderspiel will be between Gigamon, Mysterium Kids and Carla Caramel.
Dorfromantik, Next Station London, FunFacts revealed as Spiel des Jahres 2023 finalists
Yesterday we got the first full-year results from tabletop gaming giant Asmodee since its €2.75bn buyout by video games business Embracer Group - and they highlighted just what a whopping great whale Asmodee is in the industry. The company’s financials have been closely under wraps for most of the last decade while the company was owned by private equity firms Eurazeo and later PAI Partners, but that has all changed now it is part of a publicly-listed business.
Asmodee recorded $1.22bn of sales in the last financial year, comparable to the $1.25bn for Embracer's video games segment - that's stuff including Tomb Raider, Borderlands, Metro Exodus and Dead Island. But Asmodee’s board game sales declined slightly in Q4 due to a “more hesitant market environment”.
Asmodee’s first full-year results since €2.75bn Embracer buyout shows board games sales declined in ‘hesitant’ Q4
For BoardGameWire’s first deep-dive interview we caught up with Conor McGoey, the founder of Earth publisher Inside Up Games, who talked about his decision to “bet it all on black” and print an enormous 25,000 English language copies of the plant-themed tableau builder.
He also revealed the importance to Earth’s huge sales of having created a TableTop Simulator mod after the prototype got stuck in European customs, and mentions they're working on a somewhat inevitable expansion. I expect he’s pretty sick of seeing the words “I almost lost my lunch” after the story hit the front page of BoardGameGeek - sorry Conor.
“I almost lost my lunch” – Earth publisher Conor McGoey on managing one of 2023’s biggest board game successes
Other news:
Making microscopic mosaics from algae is this year’s Cardboard Edison unpublished game of the year
Elden Ring board game maker seals Kickstarter exclusivity deal in wake of mass redundancies
And finally…
Looks like we might be getting a legacy version of Ticket to Ride, after Days of Wonder teased a new project between Pandemic Legacy designers Matt Leacock and Rob Daviau and the creator of the train game, Alan R. Moon.
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