Games Industry News Roundup- April twenty first, 2026

That’s why each week, we make it easier to keep within the know by rounding up 5 of the largest current tales within the gaming and gaming-related popular culture sphere within the Games Industry News Roundup. Our trusty information boy, Dan “Swiftblade” Richardson, is true right here on the very actual, cool, and newly refurbished TTB newsdesk with the inside track.

Marvel Studios Lays Off Over 1000 Employees; Majority of VFX Team

Credit: Disney/Marvel Studios

Let’s begin this one off on a excessive be aware, and by excessive be aware, I imply wanting instantly on the horrors.

According to reviews, final week Marvel Studios let go of over 1000 employees in a sweeping layoff across all of its divisions.

The layoffs attain all areas of Marvel’s operation in each its Marvel Entertainment department in New York and  Marvel Studios in California, and characterize about 8% of Marvel’s general workforce. According to management at Marvel’s dad or mum firm, Disney, these layoffs are part of an try to “streamline” operations beneath a brand new consolidated Disney enterprise advertising and marketing division.

“Over the past several months, we have looked at ways in which we can streamline our operations in various parts of the company to ensure we deliver the world-class creativity and innovation our fans value and expect from Disney,” CEO Josh D’Amaro wrote in a memo to staff. “Given the fast-moving pace of our industries, this requires us to constantly assess how to foster a more agile and technologically-enabled workforce to meet tomorrow’s needs.”

Among essentially the most heavily-affected groups is the Visual Effects division at Marvel, who’ve been decreased to a barebones abroad employees. Andy Park, the director of Marvel Studios visible growth since 2010, was one of many workers let go, writing on his Instagram page that, “It has been the honor of a lifetime to be part of the team that helped create the visual language of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I couldn’t be prouder to have been part of the entire history of this department.”

Going ahead, Marvel intends to rent for visible results work on a contract-to-contract foundation, and the remaining in-house VFX group’s position will probably be to observe and handle these contractors.

This is the biggest spherical of layoffs at Marvel since 2024, the place Marvel made a “small round of cuts” across all departments according to Deadline. This adopted a a lot bigger spherical of cuts in 2023, the place 7,000 roles have been eradicated at Marvel.

GAMA President Loses Reelection in Board Vote

Credit: GAMA

There’s been an enormous shakeup of management at GAMA, as Nicole Brady has lost her reelection bid for GAMA President after two years in the role, and is being changed by GAMA VP Meredith Placko.

During Brady’s stint as President, she was instrumental within the creation of a brand new 10 yr plan for the group. In stated plan, Brady outlined her imaginative and prescient to reorganize GAMA and refocus the corporate away from enjoying “whack-a-mole” with important points into addressing them by forming long run, sustainable strategic plans.

“I am proud of the many things I have done to help advance the organization, including making history as GAMA’s first female president,” Brady informed Boardgamewire. “My greatest accomplishment as president was spearheading GAMA Vision 2035 at the fall 2024 strategic planning session. We put together a big picture of what we wanted for the future and that focused on becoming the epicenter for tabletop gaming.”

Brady’s substitute, Meredith Placko, was one of many co-founders of Turbo Dork paints and served because the CEO of Steve Jackson Games for 2 years. Placko joined the GAMA board in 2025, and was elected VP later the identical yr. 

“I applaud the work that has been done on that 10-year vision,” Placko informed Boardgamewire. “The next step is to turn it into a strategic plan. I do believe it will need evaluation and tweaking, as it very much is a living vision. As GAMA’s needs change, we must be prepared to adapt.”

Ross Thompson, advertising and marketing supervisor for Critical Role, was elected by the board to tackle Placko’s former VP place. As of this writing, the GAMA board has not chosen a brand new govt director for GAMA, following John Stacy’s departure from the position in October 2025. 

One Page Rules Launches a Massive Crossover with Multiple Gaming Companies

Credit: One Page Rules

model=”font-weight: 400;”>Remember the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny? One Page Rules (OPR) definitely does, because the OPR group is launching “the biggest collaboration in wargaming history” with its upcoming Worlds Beyond Brawl line on MyMiniFactory.

Launching on May twelfth, the Worlds Beyond Brawl line is a collaboration between 18 completely different firms on the MyMiniFactory platform, and can embody over 500 miniatures. Notable collaborators embody Paizo, Warmachine, Titan Forge, MiniWargaming, and DakkaDakka. All of the miniatures included in Worlds Beyond Brawl will probably be playable in each of OPR’s free skirmish sport rulesets, Grimdark Future: Firefight and Age of Fantasy Skirmish. 

These crossovers are made attainable by OPR’s Compatibility Program, an open license program that, in response to OPR, “allows miniature creators to release rules for OPR games custom crafted to ensure their models behave with just as much creativity in battle as they do on the painting desk. OPR Compatible models can be used immediately to play with the huge community of OPR gamers out there across our library of free miniature games.”

As far as earnings go, OPR has acknowledged that the cash produced from the Worlds Beyond Brawl line will probably be break up evenly throughout all 18 of the businesses taking part within the vary. Though the marketing campaign is about to launch on MyMiniFactory in lower than a month, OPR has not introduced the pricing for Worlds Beyond Brawl right now.  

The Dungeon Crawler Carl TTRPG Raises $5 Million in Crowdfunding in One Day

Credit: Renegade Game Studios

The hit guide sequence Dungeon Crawler Carl has determined to provide followers the prospect to dungeon crawl on the planet of Dungeon Crawler Carl with a brand new TTRPG and solo-play/Co-Op card sport, and it appears to be like like followers are fairly excited. The Backerkit campaign, which launched on April 14th, soared past its crowdfunding goals and raised a staggering $5 million in a single day.

Developed by Renegade Game Studios, the TTRPG lets gamers create their very own crawler to discover the excessive stakes, violent, and frantic World Dungeon from the guide sequence, encouraging gamers to make use of their wits and creativity to outlive the galaxy’s deadliest sport present. The card sport, Unstoppable, places gamers within the sneakers of one of many essential forged from the sequence as they navigate life threatening traps, creatures, and different threats hurled at them by the System AI. 

The preliminary purpose for the marketing campaign was $250 thousand, and at time of writing the marketing campaign has raised over $7 million with 24 days left to go earlier than the marketing campaign closes. This already makes the Dungeon Crawler Carl campaign the third highest in Backerkit’s history, behind two Brandon Sanderson tasks: Hoid’s Storybook Collection ($11 million raised) and Worlds of Radiance Leatherbound ($23 million). The Dungeon Crawler Carl pushed out Gloomhaven Grand Festival from third place, with Gloomhaven elevating $5 million.

According to the marketing campaign web page, each merchandise will probably be customs pleasant to stop any extra expenses after closing, with a deliberate achievement date in October 2026.   

The King of Weird Dice and Inventor of the d100, Lou Zocchi, Passes Away 

One of wargaming’s most eccentric characters, Lou Zocchi, handed away final week on the age of 91.

Zocchi is most well known for founding the dice manufacturing company Gamescience and his work in creating non customary cube. Most famously, Zocchi invented the 100 sided cube, or d100, dubbing it the Zocchihedron. Other cube created by Zocchi embody the d3, d5, d14, and d24. 

Outside of constructing unusual cube, Zocchi was one of many first editors for Avalon Hill’s wargaming journal, The General, working within the position for 11 years. Zocchi additionally had a prolific hand within the creation of a lot of wargames and journey video games by means of the Nineteen Seventies and Eighties, together with titles like Luftwaffe, The Battle of Britain, Alien Space, and Flying Tigers. Zocchi additionally created guidelines and designed miniatures for Star Fleet Battles in 1977, which might later be licensed out to his pal Franz Joesph in 1979.

Zocchi printed his guide “How to $ell Your Wargame Design” in 1975 primarily based on his expertise within the video games business, and would run panels at Gen-Con devoted to serving to new and upcoming wargame publishers discover success within the business and discover a marketplace for their video games. Zocchi was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming’s Hall of Fame in 1979, and in 2022 he was awarded the Gary Gygax Lifetime achievement award.

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