Steamforged Games, which made its name adapting video games such as Dark Souls into multi-million-dollar board game Kickstarters, has confirmed its second set of redundancies in three years as it refocuses away from crowdfunding and towards its booming Warmachine miniatures line.

The company has been one of tabletop crowdfunding’s biggest success stories over the past decade, raising tens of millions of pounds across campaigns based on major video game licences such as Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, Horizon Zero Dawn and Elden Ring.

About a third of the company’s employees are estimated to have been affected by this year’s restructure according to multiple sources who spoke to BoardGameWire on condition of anonymity – mirroring the scale of a previous round of redundancies Steamforged embarked on in 2023.

They said the staff cuts affected a range of departments across the business, including the creative, game design, production, project management, QA, marketing and commercial teams – adding that they feared the cutbacks would lead to problems delivering long-term projects.

Steamforged would not confirm the scale of the latest redundancies to BoardGameWire, but a spokesperson described the staff reduction as “carefully considered”, adding that the company “retain[s] both the internal resource and the external capabilities needed to deliver on our commitments”.

Those commitments include seven currently unfulfilled crowdfunding campaigns which raised more than £15m including late pledges, for titles such as Monster Hunter World Iceborne, Elden Ring: Rot & Sorcery, Helldivers 2: The Board Game and the special edition of classic eurogame Terra Mystica.

Steamforged is also currently attempting to fulfil a pre-order campaign for 6: Siege – The Board Game after buying the title from bankrupt board game crowdfunding specialist Mythic Games – and came under fire from backers last week for posting AI-generated images in a production update it says were sent to it by the manufacturer.

The Steamforged spokesperson told BoardGameWire the AI images were not caught by its team before posting due to “simple human error”, adding “We took this extremely seriously, investigated, and swiftly provided authentic images.

Other currently unfulfilled projects from the publisher include the US production and shipping of Horizon Forbidden West: Seeds of Rebellion and Euthia: Cruel Frost, both of which were postponed due to tariffs uncertainty last year, and the second wave of its P3 Paints crowdfund, which has been delayed by up to a year due to a production issue with the metallic colours.

When asked for reassurance that those campaigns would be fulfilled despite the redundancies and strategic shift, a spokesperson for Steamforged told BoardGameWire, “Steamforged has never failed to fulfil a crowdfunding campaign, even during difficult times, or to make tough choices to deliver on commitments.

“Right now, 6: Siege – The Board Game is entering the final stages of production and will start shipping to supporters in July.”

Steamforged confirmed to BoardGameWire that the redundancies were part of a decision to “reduce new board game crowdfunding activity for the moment” amid the surging growth of Warmachine, the miniatures wargame line it bought from Privateer Press two years ago alongside P3 Paints and the Iron Kingdoms roleplaying series.

The spokesperson said Steamforged had tripled Warmachine and P3 Paints revenue in the last 21 months, despite facing significant stock constraints in the first year due to heavy demand.

They told BoardGameWire, “Demand has been high and we’ve scaled production to meet it. Our US production capacity for Warmachine has increased by 70% since last March, with a 25% increase in Europe
since August and new production facilities introduced in the UK in February 2026.”

The spokesperson added, “Steamforged has always had two strong sides, both retail and crowdfunding, and was originally founded as a miniatures game company. Warmachine’s growth has shown clear demand over and above expectations and has become a core focus to support that growth.

“Our board game crowdfunding projects are currently in various stages of production with the vast majority of creative work complete.

“Our intention to reduce new board game crowdfunding activity for the moment while we focus on supporting Warmachine’s growth meant we needed to restructure accordingly, which included a confidential redundancy process in Q1 of 2026 that’s now complete.”

When asked how the strategic shift towards Warmachine would affect previously announced future crowdfunds such as Tyrant, the spokesperson said, “Steamforged has always looked several years into the future and our internal roadmaps reflect that.

“As with any company, particularly one that works with other studios the way we have, that means many potential projects have been put on ice over the years as opportunities change and emerge. Some of those came to fruition later, and others didn’t.

“Tyrant was an early announcement and was always intended to be a slow build. Given our strategic focus, it’s not something we intend to move forward with in the foreseeable future.”

Asked what they expected Steamforged Games to look like as a business over the next couple of years, the spokesperson concluded, “Over the next two years, we expect Warmachine will continue its strong growth supported by our dedicated team and launch plans in the miniatures and hobby categories.”

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The Diana Jones Award committee has picked a trio of TTRPG creators as the latest winners of its emerging designer program, who will each receive a $6,500 prize package that includes an all-expenses trip to Gen Con.

Glaiza Champion, J Strautman and Kodi Gonzaga will also receive one-year memberships to trade bodies GAMA and the Tabletop Game Designers Association through the award, as well as prizes including prototyping credit at The Game Crafter, an online badge to Protospiel and a game demo spot on Gen Con TV.

The emerging designer program, now in its sixth year, seeks to amplify the voices of up-and-coming tabletop creators, with a particular focus on designers from marginalized communities.

Filipino-American designer Glaiza Champion describes themself as a ‘third-culture’ kid whose experiences span Brunei, Cambodia, the Philippines and Korea.

Champion is a game designer, writer, performer, podcaster and variety streamer, whose work is rooted in tabletop roleplaying games and storytelling – with designs to date including Beef, Missing Month and Meet Your GelCub.

Toronto-based RPG designer J Strautman, who also works under the name Yes No Goodbye, combines game design with a career as a professional musician.

Strautman has released the GM-less zine-sized RPGs Contact and Insatiable Cravings, and in 2025 co-released A Fool’s Errand through Planet Arcana Games.

Alongside their design work, Strautman tours internationally as a professional bass player, and co-hosted, and scored and edited the tarot-infused science fantasy actual play podcast Planet Arcana.

Los Angeles-based designer Kodi Gonzaga began designing games in 2018, and has since created a growing catalogue of tabletop RPGs including Extra Ordinary, Misfits & Mayhem SRD, Down the Road Through the End of the World, Voxinn: A Firebrands Hack and In This Echoing World.

Gonzaga is also a creative writer, actual play performer, Big Bad Con POC Scholar and former IGDN convention coordinator.

Other finalists in this year’s competition included Wyrmspan and Apiary designer Connie Vogelmann, Cretaceous Rails designer Ann Journey, and Elijah Djan – the co-creator of FinMaster, a game designed to help teach families about investing and enable positive discussions about money.

Also making the list of finalists this year was board game designer Gene Koo, who works to promote tabletop game designers based in the Washington DC metropolitan area.

Last year’s emerging designer program winners were High Tide designer Marceline Leiman, Ashraf Braden, Elliot Davis and Lyla McBeath Fujiwara.

Speaking to BoardGameWire after being selected last year, Leiman said the award had enabled her to attend Gen Con at a time when financial pressures and industry uncertainty would otherwise have made the trip impossible.

“Gen Con is an incredibly important convention for freelance designers to get their work noticed and signed,” Leiman said. “This amazing opportunity for underrepresented and underprivileged folks represents a great step in equalizing this dream of a creative field for all.”

The Diana Jones emerging designer award program was launched in 2021, with Jeeyon Shim picking up the inaugural award.

The emerging designer program is part of the wider Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming, which was founded and first awarded in 2001.

That award is presented to the person, product, company, event, movement, concept or any other thing that has, in the opinion of its committee, best demonstrated the quality of “excellence” in the world of hobby-gaming in the previous year – and is traditionally hugely wide-ranging in its choice of candidates.

Previous winners across the award’s 22-year run have included Blood Rage designer Eric Lang, Nigerian games industry publisher and evangelist NIBCARD, and the entire ‘actual play’ movement of people livestreaming and podcasting roleplaying games.

Last year’s Excellence in Gaming award was deemed a tie between author Rose Estes and the climate action-themed board game Daybreak, designed by Matt Leacock and Matteo Menapace.

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Frosted Games, the German-language publisher of titles including Too Many Bones and Endeavor: Deep Sea, has brought in board game industry veteran Michael Kränzle to lead its marketing operations – and hired a board game podcaster as its sales head.

Kränzle has a storied history within the German tabletop market, having previously spent more than a decade working in editorial and marketing for Pegasus Spiele, followed by another five leading marketing efforts at HeidelBÄR Games.

He replaces Jörg Hopfengarten, who has left Frosted to become project director for fair management at Spiel Essen.

Frosted Games CEO Benjamin Schönheiter, who worked with Kränzle at Pegasus Spiele in the early 2010s, told BoardGameWire, “I know Michael from way back in the day at Pegasus Spiele – and I was always impressed with his ability to create a strong brand awareness both offline and online.

“I want him to bring that same drive and success to Frosted Games to help us build on our twice in a row nomination (and our previous win) at the Kennerspiel des Jahres this year.

“We are still only a small publisher, and not known to many players. And there is none better to change that.”

Frosted launched in 2015 with the announcement it would publish a board games advent calendar, with each door revealing a different small expansion for a popular hobby board or card game.

The company has since grown to become a significant publisher of German language board games, including last year’s Kennerspiel des Jahres winner Endeavor: Deep Sea and big name titles such as Andromeda’s Edge and The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era.

Frosted is in line for a potential second Kennerspiel des Jahres win in a row this year as the publisher of Reiner Knizia’s tile-laying title Rebirth.

Alongside Kränzle’s arrival Frosted has also appointed Dennis Oettershagen as sales manager – a figure best known in German board game circles as a host of the Board Game Theory podcast.

He joins Frosted from barefoot shoe manufacturer Wildling, and previously spent more than a decade working for furniture giant IKEA.

Schönheiter said, “While Frosted Games wants to have a much stronger and better retail presence and experience – we are very much focused on a tight relationship with our players.

“…Dennis has exactly that experience from his previous job at Wildling shoes, a barefoot shoes pioneer. His main focus in 2026 will be to solidify our retail presence while overhauling our e-commerce platform and direct to consumer channels.”

Schönheiter added, “In general, I want to keep doing in 2026 what we have always been doing – creating and delivering phenomenal games with partners around the world.

“Our tag line is ‘We love games’. What seems like a foregone conclusion in an industry mainly driven by the hearts and souls of players that create games, it was nevertheless important to me to make that statement.

“And I want Frosted Games to publish games we love, not games that ‘just sell well’. And I want to keep investing in every single game, to give it the attention it needs and deserves always as a first thought – as a dedication, not a business model first.

“And I think that I have a great team that lets me achieve this goal, and I can see that the industry appreciates this as well.”

Titles set for release by Frosted this year include the German language version of Entropy, designed by Tommaso Battista, Simone Luciani and Nestore Mangone.

Last summer BoardGameWire reported that Frosted had signed a deal with industry heavyweight Asmodee to expand its distribution across Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

That deal came just over a year after Frosted ended its years-long distribution deal with Germany’s Pegasus Spiele, saying at the time that as a niche publisher of small print runs, “the wholesale route was no longer financially viable without either drastically increasing the prices of our games or making massive cuts somewhere in the production chain”.

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