27 Sorts of Folks for Whom I’m Thankful (Stonemaier Games 2025) – Stonemaier Games

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’d like to specific my gratitude for varied varieties of people that have had a optimistic influence on me and Stonemaier Games this yr. Perhaps a few of these folks can be good sources for you as nicely.

I’m extremely grateful for…

1. Supporters, Fans, and Followers (Facebook, enewsletter, YouTube, Instagram, Discord, Bluesky): None of this is able to be doable with out you. I actually hope our video games, content material, and interactions have introduced you pleasure this yr. Thank you for supporting our video games, and thanks for sharing them with others. Our 2025 releases have been Vantage, Origin Story, Finspan, Tokaido (and expansions), Tokaido Duo, Smitten 2, Between Two Castles Essential, Wyrmspan: Dragon Academy, and the Wingspan promo birds, plus varied equipment, disc golf discs, and new Rolling Realms promos.
   

2. 

   Stonemaier Champions: I’m extremely grateful for the 15,000+ Champions who help the 100+ weblog entries and 250+ YouTube movies we movie every year for creators and designers, and having Champions use their 20% low cost on each order (amongst different perks) to purchase immediately from us has been an enormous assist in stabilizing the sustainability of Stonemaier Games.

3. Coworkers (Alan Stone, Joe Aubrey, Alex Schmidt, Susannah Eisenbraun, Dave Deenik, Christine Santana, and Erica Sanders): It’s so useful for me to at all times have individuals who know the enterprise in addition to I do to bounce concepts off of, playtest with, be accountable to, and delegate to, particularly in areas the place I’m weak and they’re robust.
4. Independent Contractors Who Feel Like Coworkers (Morten Monrad Pedersen, Dave Hewer, Shannon Lentz, Karel Titeca): These are individuals who produce other shoppers and jobs, however they do lots of superb work for Stonemaier Games, and I’m extremely grateful for them.
5. Retailers and Distributors (see retailers who promote our merchandise): You are the spine of our provide chain. Thank you for being the bridge between Stonemaier and prospects.
6. Shareholders: We’re lucky to have a couple of dozen traders who imagine in what we’re constructing at Stonemaier Games and who share wonderful recommendation, questions, thought, and insights. I’m actually grateful for our shareholders.
7. Independent Contractors and Freelancers: Notable artists for 2025 releases have been Clementine Campardou (Origin Story and Wyrmspan: Dragon Academy); Emilien Rotival, Soren Meding, and Valentina Filic (Vantage); Naïade (Tokaido); Ana María Martínez, Catalina Martínez, & Mesa Schumacher (Finspan); the Mico (Smitten 2); together with ongoing help within the kind disc golf artwork (Miles Bensky), realm artwork (Marius Petrescu), 3D sculpts (Heriberto Martinez), movies (JC Trombley, Pixel Potion Creative, and Emmanuel Ho), voiceovers (Megan Selke), music composition (Joel Winbigler), pictures (Tim Chuon and Erica Sanders), Henry Seymour (recreation instructing), and Andrew Cook (promoting). I’m so grateful that these folks talk rapidly and successfully–-I extremely worth that.
8. Lawyers, Accountants, Bookkeepers, Advisors, and Payroll (Michael Hargis, Zachary Strebeck, Justin Marty, Leigh Reiter, & Brandi Ruhland at Anders Accounting, Stephanie at Timely Totals, Drea at Execupay, Chris Fleming and Tara Blunt at our financial institution, Tony Aiazzi and Brian Hires at Moneta, and Benjamin Arana overlaying insurance coverage): I’m very grateful to have these legal professionals to assist us create tight contracts, safe strong emblems, and shield our IP, in addition to an incredible accounting, bookkeeping, and monetary advisors.
9. International Production Partners (Igromag, Feuerland, Maldito, Phalanx, Matagot, Delta Vision, Arclight, Surfin’ Meeple, Ludofy, ALBI, Ghenos, 999 Games, Rebel, and plenty of others): Thanks to those companions, we’ve been capable of attain tens of 1000’s of players who wouldn’t in any other case have entry to our merchandise.
10. Replacement Part Helpers (Helen, Mark, Devon, Christian, Dave, Austyn, Mark, and Yannis): To date, we have now obtained and responded to over 40,000 alternative components requests. I’m extremely grateful to have these diligent helpers positioned all over the world to care for misplaced, lacking, and damaged elements from our merchandise.
11. Automa: The inclusion of strong solo variants in our video games because of Morten, David, Lines, and different members of their group has been instrumental in extending our attain to solo players. I’m continually amazed by how nicely Automa Factory is ready to seize the sensation of a sentient opponent with out requiring a lot repairs or guidelines overheard.
12. The Mill and Positively Board Gaming: I actually recognize that Carol and Molly keep a sponsored YouTube channel particularly to speak about Stonemaier Games from a fan perspective. Our Facebook teams are nice for these conversations, however they actually breathe life to our fanbase by means of The Mill, and we’re proud to help it. I’ve additionally actually loved the conversations I’ve had this yr with Mitchell on our co-hosted podcast, Positively Board Gaming.
13. Digital Platforms (Tabletopia, Monster Couch, The Knights of Unity, Acram Digital, Digidiced, Board Game Arena, and Boardspace.web): The ability to take a tabletop recreation and translate it to the digital house for extra folks to find, take pleasure in, and study from is astonishing to me. I’m so impressed by and grateful for these people. I’m additionally actually grateful for Paul Hart, the developer of the free Stonemaier Scores app and Jans Carton, creator of Rulepop.
14. Shipping and Fulfillment Companies (ARC Global, Spiral Galaxy, Let’s Play Games, Miniature Market, and Asmodee Canada): While most of our video games are shipped in bulk to distributors, we provide extra direct delivery to those that order on our webstore thanks to those success corporations. We additionally supply native pickup in St. Louis!
15. Co-Designers and Game Designers (Ben Rosset, Matthew O’Malley, Hoby Chou, Kai Starck, Ryan Lopez, Elizabeth Hargrave, Morten Monrad Pedersen, David Studley, Travis Jones, Alexander Schmidt, Mike Young, Paolo Mori, Francesco Testini, Mihir Shah, Chris Scaffidi, Connie Vogelmann, Paul Salomon, David Gordon, Michael O’Connell, Antoine Bauza, Ryan Davis, Pete Wissinger, and others to be revealed subsequent yr): The expertise and dedication of those designers is astounding, and they’re integral to our means to deliver pleasure to tabletops.
16. Manufacturers (Shannon at Panda Game Manufacturing and Chris at Innova): It’s a real blessing to work with a producer like Panda. Their communication, high quality, care, and willingness to work with us on issues like making our video games extra eco-friendly makes them the one producer I ever need to work with. It’s additionally been enjoyable to proceed to make customized discs with Innova this yr!
17. Proofreaders: Using our proofreading and oversight course of, a devoted group of proofreaders can see each step of a product’s evolution through the proofreading course of. I’m extremely grateful for the effort and time that Dana, Michael, Josh, Ian, Brian, Inga, Justin, Crystal, and others have put into our merchandise this yr.
18. Ambassadors: Our ambassadors have made our group and video games so significantly better by answering questions on boards, playtesting our video games, making solutions for my high 10 lists (Aryn, Skiler, Abagail, Kari, Kaitlyn, and Dillon), and welcoming folks into our video games at recreation shops, occasions, and conventions. We at present have round 750 lively ambassadors–I really like that I can belief this group with concepts whereas they’re nonetheless being fashioned to get their suggestions. A couple of ambassadors are notably useful on an ongoing foundation are Josh Ward, Travis Willse, Garrett Feiner, and Julie Bode (although I ought to actually stress that there are lots of, many lively ambassadors who supply their time and expertise in unimaginable methods).
19. Reviewers, Journalists, Podcasters, and Video Bloggers: I can’t play each recreation, however because of the number of views from different content material creators, I’m capable of hear quite a lot of views from the consolation of my workplace. I’m additionally really grateful for the entire reviewers who create compelling content material to assist folks determine if our video games are a very good match for them, and I recognize reviewer who understanding that we are able to’t ship each product to all 550 reviewers on our checklist. Also this yr I’m grateful for the YouTubers who accepted our sponsorship for playthroughs.
20. Convention and Event Coordinators/Volunteers (Geekway to the West, Gen Con, Essen, TantrumCon, any conference that makes use of the play-and-win system, BGG@SEA, and so forth): It takes a lot of labor to place collectively a conference, and I’m grateful for my coworker, Dave, for coordinating our conference presence (and with the help of the great folks at Meeplesource and Inside Up Games). I’m so grateful for the individuals who create such welcoming environments for outdated and new players to commune with one another, in addition to the volunteers who assist us at these occasions. You can at all times test right here to see if we’ll have a presence at a conference. I had enjoyable briefly attending Gen Con this yr, at Geekway, Design Day, and the Finspan occasion, and happening the BGG@SEA cruise to Norway.
21. Blog Readers, Video Viewers, and Commenters (full KS Lesson checklist and game design YouTube channel): I hope this weblog, my weekly livestream, Instagram feed, my month-to-month Rolling Realms liveplays, and our YouTube channel added worth to you this yr, and I actually recognize if you be a part of within the dialog.
22. Design Day Attendees: The artistic vitality and generosity of time and expertise at our annual Design Day is at all times inspiring for me. Thank you to the entire designers and playtesters who attended in 2025, and particularly to Pieces Board Game & Cafe for being superior hosts.
23. Fellow Creators: I really like that there are such a lot of sensible, progressive creators and recreation designers. You all really encourage me to be a greater creator and a extra attention-grabbing recreation designer. I’m notably grateful for fellow publishers who share their recommendation, insights, and insights (publicly and privately)–I study a lot from you!
24. My Gaming Groups: Gaming is my most important social outlet, and I’m actually grateful to have a couple of constant recreation teams full of individuals who love all kinds of video games (together with disc golf). I like that these folks attempt to win however concentrate on having enjoyable, and it’s been enjoyable to play each different week with native pals in individual and each different week on Board Game Arena with pals exterior of St. Louis.
25. Charity Auction Participants: The extraordinarily beneficiant donors (together with different contributors like Fulfillrite and taking part content material creators) who positioned successful bids on our annual charity auction enabled us to donate $22,354 to 10 totally different charities, placing our complete donation quantity over all charity auctions at $211,216. We additionally donated tons of of video games this yr to organizations that function tabletop video games to serve communities who can’t purchase video games.
26. Third-Party Creators: This yr we added a showcase for third-party creators to function their Stonemaier-related equipment. We additionally launched 6 official promo packs that add 150 utterly new birds to Wingspan.
27. Friends and Family: I’m very grateful for the numerous methods my family and friends help me in my ardour for gaming, for Stonemaier Games, and for serving you.

What are you grateful for within the tabletop gaming group/trade this yr?

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