This week’s board game news is predominantly talking about growth. Not just the swelling of our collective board game collections after Expo, but about how the hobby and everything attached is just getting bigger and bigger.
So sit back, relax and come and celebrate some good news and success in our little hobby in this week’s News Collider.
UK Games Expo Growth
Starting close to home and with the best board game convention in the world (as voted by four blokes in the West Midlands who frequently use the word “Ramshackle”): The UK Games Expo finalised and released the 2019 attendance figures.
Unique attendance was up c.18% on 2018 to 25,704 and turnstile attendance (all tickets whether 1, 2 or 3 days) was up c.15% to 45,097 which included 1 honeymooning couple - making the UK Games Expo the most romantic board game convention now too (again, as voted by aforementioned 4 blokes)
Some other interesting numbers include 97 games released over Expo weekend (27 of which were crowd funding at the time too) played across 32k square meters of NEC and Hilton Hotel floor space by over 430 exhibitors.
UK Games Expo Awards
This will be the last mention of the UKGE. Promise.
Results are in for the Judges awards meaning that a bunch of games can now proudly display either the People’s Choice or Best Game icon. Notable winners include Ruthless and Dice Hospital from Alley Cat Games, the Giant Book of Battle Mats for Best New Accessory and Root (obviously) and somehow the Mind and Azul are still picking up awards for “Best New Something or Other” even though they must have been around for the best part of a decade by now, surely?
If award winning games are your thing then you can see the full list here.
Wellycon Growth; New Zealand's Biggest Board Game Con
New Zealnad’s 12th Annual board game convention wrapped on the 2nd June in Wellington, New Zealand. This year the con saw fantastic growth as well as the NZ based District 9 from Weta Workshop (lucky buggers) and since they shared the convention dates with UK GE (sorry) punters enjoyed some of the same premier releases such as Inuit and Dust in the Wings from sponsors Board & Dice.
Cities: Skylines Announced for Essen
If you’ve listened to the latest podcast you might surmise correctly that I’m a fan of city building games, so I nearly had a little accident when I learned that the video game Cities: Skylines was coming to the tabletop.
When I learned that it is designed by Tribes and Nations designer, Rustan Håkansson, I actually had an accident. Interestingly this is a co-operative city building game where the simple aim is to make your populace happy.
Games Workshop Pays Out Over £5 Million in Bonuses
Games Workshop are enjoying a flipping fantastic year. In a trading update made last week the company announced their expectations for sales of the last 12 months to be in the region of £254 million - which is a 17% increase on last year with profits in excess of £80 million.
This success meant that they paid out over £5 million in bonuses and with 1,900 employees that's £2,500 each.
This, in turn, resulted in a very healthy 5% bump in their share price.
Stargate SG-1 RPG
MGM Studios and Wyvern Gaming have partnered to produce a Stargate SG-1 RPG making use of the D&D 5e Open Gaming License. As you would expect the core rule book covers everything a player or Game Commander needs to know about creating a character and leveling up etc.
The most interesting thing about what Wyvern Gaming are doing though is their online player tracker system which will not only help players through the leveling up process but will track their character's progress through the ranks of Stargate Command, this will allow player's from around the world to create truly unique characters as the receive promotions etc and unlock special items only available via this online portal.
Wyvern will be showing some sneaky peaks of the game during Gen Con later this year with the full release scheduled for Gen Con 2020. Signing up the the mailing list if you want to keep up to date with this one.
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