Here at Goonhammer, we know that it’s hard to keep track of all the news happening all the time in the games industry. So much is always going on with games of all sorts, and their related media, it can be a real blink-and-you’ll miss it situation.
That’s why every week, we round up five of the biggest stories in the gaming sphere from the past week in the Games Industry News Roundup. Our trusty news boy, Dan “Swiftblade” Richardson, fresh back from paternity leave, is here at the very real and cool Goonhammer newsdesk with the scoop.
Ubisoft Closes UK-Based Studio, Lays Off 185 Staff
Of course I would come back to more layoff news. I don’t know what I should’ve expected, this rake won’t step on itself.
To the surprise of no one, it looks like 2025 is going to be another hard year for workers in the video game industry, starting with employees at Ubisoft.
The company announced last week that it would be undergoing “restructuring efforts” in order to reduce overhead costs. These actions include downsizing in the Dusseldorf, Stockholm, and Newcastle offices, and the complete closure of the UK office based in Leamington. In total, around 185 jobs are being slashed.
When asked for a statement on the matter by Eurogamer, Ubisoft execs stated, “As part of our ongoing efforts to prioritise projects and reduce costs that ensure long-term stability at Ubisoft, we have announced targeted restructurings at Ubisoft Düsseldorf, Ubisoft Stockholm and Ubisoft Reflections and the permanent closure of Ubisoft Leamington site. Unfortunately, this should impact 185 employees overall. We are deeply grateful for their contributions and are committed to supporting them through this transition.”
For Ubisoft, this is another blow in what has been a rough start to 2025. Star Wars Outlaws failed to meet sales expectations in 2024, and the next major Assassin’s Creed release, Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, has been delayed once again to March of this year. As for those at the affected studios, while some Leamington employees will be kept on at the company in remote roles, the remaining individuals are forced back out into an increasingly unforgiving job market in the Video Game industry. At this time, little is known about the severance and support packages these former employees will receive from Ubisoft.
Major TTRPG Award Walks Back Allowing AI Generated Content
One of the biggest awards in the Tabletop Roleplaying world, the Ennie Awards, walked back its stance on allowing AI generated content to be submitted for awards consideration following severe criticism last week.
According to the official website for the awards, “The ENNIE Awards (the “ENNIES”) are an annual fan-based celebration of excellence in tabletop roleplaying gaming. The ENNIES give game designers, writers and artists the recognition they deserve. It is a peoples’ choice award, and the final winners are voted upon online by the gaming public.”. Born from the EN World forums in 2001 and hosted annually at Gencon, the ENNIES allow for TTRPG publishers to submit their products for consideration by a judging panel, who then create multiple categories with several nominees each for the public to vote on.
Last week, major news outlets like Polygon brought it to the public’s attention that the 2024-2025 submissions allowed for AI-generated content to be used as long as those using AI disclosed doing so. This caught widespread criticism from the community, with critics pointing out the danger AI presents to the creatives who work on TTRPG products as well as the flimsy protections the submission system had in place if a product used AI and simply did not disclose it.
On Sunday, the ENNIES released a statement on their website that while it is too late to adjust submission rules for 2024-2025, the 2025-2026 award season will not allow any form of generative AI in the products sent for consideration.
“While it is not feasible to retroactively alter the rules for the 2024-2025 season, this revised policy reflects the ENNIE Awards commitment to celebrating the human creativity at the heart of the TTRPG community,” wrote the ENNIE team. “The ENNIES remain a small, volunteer-run organization that values the ability to adapt quickly, when necessary, despite the challenges inherent in their mission.”
CMON Games Hires YouTube Veteran as New Marketing Head
CMON Games made a major hire last week by bringing in David Waybright, CEO and host of the popular tabletop gaming YouTube channel Man vs Meeple, as the new global director of marketing.
The global director of marketing role at CMON, which publishes several major tabletop games like Zombicie and the Song of Ice and Fire strategy game, has been vacant for around two months since Renato Franchi left the role to run Sandstorm Comics.
“We are thrilled to have David joining the team in this role,” CMON co-CEO David Doust told BoardgameWire, “and look forward to the impact of the experience he brings. He’ll bring a welcome perspective to all aspects of our operations, and lead marketing for everything we do.”
Waybright is a founding member of Man vs Meeple (MvM) along with Jeremy Salinas, who left the company in 2021.The channel has just under 75 thousand subscribers as of this writing, with BoardGameWire estimating the channel receives 100 to 200 thousand views per month.
According to the description for the channel found on Youtube “Our goal is to provide the best board game channel under the banner of positivity and fun. Board games are meant to bring people together, and we believe in sharing stories and games that encourage people to come together. We provide Reviews, Overviews, Live Plays, Full Playthroughs, How to Plays, and conversational talk shows like our reoccuring show ‘Chit Chat’”
Waybright intends to continue running MvM while in his new position at CMON, stating “My role at CMON is a full-time commitment, but with the help of the rest of the MvM team, we’re continuing to put the kind of content we want on the channel.” Waybright does emphasize that he will be transparent about his role with CMON for any of the company’s products discussed on the channel.
January 6th Wargame Created by Former Warhammer Designer
Alessio Cavatore, the lead designer for Warhammer Fantasy battles, was brought in to write the rules for Fight for America!, a part-game-part-performance event about the January 6th insurrection.
The event, hosted by the theater group “The American Vicarious”, was hosted in Brooklyn this past weekend. In the game, 20 players are assigned roles as either members of the Jan. 6 rioters or the capitol police, and events are moderated by a gamemaster who briefs each side and encourages players to embrace their character roles. As for the mechanics of the game written by Cavatore,, players are tasked with making decisions that may escalate or de-escalate the conflict, such as whether or not the police will deploy tear gas into the crowd, and dice are rolled to determine the success or failure of these actions.
The Fight for America! Website writes that the mission statement for this game is to ask players, “What about America is worth fighting for?”
The website elaborates on this, writing, “Fight for America! invites participants to confront political extremism, division, and the repercussions of a win-at-all-costs mentality, challenging us to reconsider our understanding of America’s political landscape. Through gameplay, we aim to reflect on how division threatens the very foundations of democracy. This project is not partisan; it’s about fostering unity through shared experiences and encouraging meaningful dialogue about the state of our nation.”
Three sessions of the game, each lasting 3-4 hours, were hosted during January 24th-26th, and featured thousands of miniatures and a scale replica of the Capitol building. The American Vicarious plans to host Fight for America! again later this year in London.
Age of Sigmar RPG Quietly Cancelled, According to Former Developers
Former developers at the video game development studio Thought Pennies confirmed to Eurogamer that the scrapped project they had been working on was an Age of Sigmar RPG in collaboration with the publisher Nexon.
Founded in 2020, the fully remote games studio planned to focus on social storytelling in roleplaying video games. In November of 2024, the company underwent major downsizing after an unannounced project was cancelled due to the at the time unknown publisher seeking “a new strategic direction”. Last week, Eurogamer was able to confirm that this project was an Age of Sigmar RPG project to be published by Nexon.
Nexon, a gaming publisher in Tokyo best known for games like Maple Story, Kartrider, and The First Descendant, signed an agreement with Games Workshop in 2021 to create an AoS RPG. According to the press release on Nexon’s website, the game would “feature a socially interactive player-versus-environment world supported by Nexon’s world-class Live Operations for sustaining the fun with new content and service,” and was scheduled for release on Console, PC, and Mobile devices.
Games Workshop said earlier this month in their earnings report that they are looking for the next big Warhammer video game following the success of Space Marine 2. With the high profile flops of multiple live service games in recent years, I don’t think this Age of Sigmar live service RPG would’ve been that blockbuster hit.
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