Today I'm rounding up many asmodee-related items, including acquisitions, sales numbers, and new game announcements:
▪️ Hobby game giant asmodee has been on an acquisition tear of late — well, following its departure from Embracer and spinoff into a standalone company as of February 7, 2025. Many of those purchases have come from CMON — Zombicide, Cthulhu: Death May Die, Sheriff of Nottingham, and (on March 20, 2026) Japon Brand — but it also purchased the remainder of Exploding Kittens after buying just more than half of that company in 2021.
To add one more deal to the pile, on March 26, 2026, asmodee announced an agreement to purchase ATM Gaming SAS, a French publisher founded in 2018 that specializes in party games.
Looking up ATM Gaming on BoardGameGeek highlights the shortcomings of that site in terms of understanding the size of companies in the game industry. Of the 24 titles listed on ATM's BGG publisher page, only one game — 2022's Speed Bac, which was released by Blue Orange Games in 2024 as Slingz — records more than a thousand owners. Why do I bring that up? Here's an excerpt from the press release announcing the deal:
The acquisition further strengthens the global positioning of asmodee in social games, the fastest-growing category of the board games market, and is expected to contribute to the company's organic growth engine while being margin accretive. The purchase price, on a cash-free and debt-free basis, amounts to EUR 180 million, with payment in cash and issuance of class B shares. An additional performance-based earn-out of up to EUR 70 million may be payable in newly issued class B shares. For FY 26/27, ATM Gaming is expected to contribute at least EUR 50 million in net sales and in excess of EUR 25 million in EBITDA before synergies.
And here's a bit more from that press release: ATM Gaming employs 46 people; has worked with asmodee since 2019; generates approximately 10% of its sales via asmodee distribution, mainly in Spain and Italy; and recorded €34 million in sales in the 2025 calendar year. All of that activity is invisible compared to what one sees on BGG, so please don't view that site as a representation of the game market as a whole.
▪️ On a much smaller scale, Asmodee North America has entered into an exclusive distribution partnership with Crafty Games for Ostia: Mariner Edition, an English-language edition of Totsuca Chuo's 2022 game Ostia that includes the Merchant and Patronus expansions. This game has 1-4 players "take on the role of Roman merchants competing to build thriving maritime trading empires in the bustling port city of Ostia". This game will reach North American retailers in 2026.
To step away from asmodee for a sec, Spiral Galaxy Games will distribute Ostia: Mariner Edition in the UK and EU.
▪️ Along similar lines to the above item, in 2026 Asmodee North America will distribute the co-operative, campaign-based, narrative-driven card game Cyberpunk Legends from James Portnow and new publisher Night Crew Games, which crowdfunded this game in October 2025.
▪️ Looking back a couple of months, during Spielwarenmesse 2026 asmodee announced a distribution partnership with German publisher Ulisses Spiele and its Ottavio sub-label.
▪️ Asmodee partnered with McDonalds UK in 2023 for a Dobble promotion that included the game in Happy Meals, and it's doing this again in 2026, with five themed versions being available — Space, Vehicles, Fantasy, Gaming, and Music —since collectibility is a common feature in Happy Meal goodies.
▪️ On February 19, 2026, asmodee reported third quarter sales for 2025, specifically for October-December 2025 as asmodee's financial year runs from April through March.
In that period, asmodee's new sales were €524.1 million, 22.2% higher than in the same period in 2024, with 25.6% of that increase being organic growth, that is, growth not through acquisition, but just selling more of what you already own or distribute. As for how those sales break down, asmodee notes that:
- Games published by asmodee studios decreased by -12.7%.
- Games published by partners increased by 50.3%.
- Others decreased by -8.5%.
To show that in graph form, including a similar comparison for the YTD period of April-December 2025:
That middle section — games published by partners — highlights the strength of asmodee's distribution network compared to its in-house game properties, not that those are slouches, mind you. In an audio presentation accompanying this report, asmodee CEO Thomas Kœgler noted that the growth was "mainly driven by the European market, primarily supported by the continued success of trading card games", including Pokémon, One Piece, and Magic: The Gathering.
The graphic above is from that audio presentation, and I'd like to highlight this line: "Board Games softer for higher-priced products while dynamic performance in Social games". As I noted in March 2026, games for hobby and mass market are generally getting smaller and less expensive, and I'll point out once again that asmodee is paying €180-250 million for ATM Gaming, so clearly it's bullish on social games.
▪️ Finally, in line with the paragraphs above, asmodee North America announced its release calendar for May 2026, and few of the items listed are from asmodee studios. For May 1, for example, only CATAN: ZIP! Edition — which I covered in early March 2026 — is from asmodee itself; the other five items are distributed by asmodee, with a sixth distributed item — Shackleton Base: Below. Within. Above. — listed on the spreadsheet I received.
On the spreadsheet, May 8 lists twenty items — eleven of those being accessories for the Riftbound: League of Legends TCG — with only three Star Wars: Legion expansions and a Take Time game mat coming from inside the house, so to speak.
May 15 lists fifteen items, with asmodee's internal items being four more Star Wars: Legion expansions and Space Cowboys' First Giants.
May 22 is the only majority asmodee week, with two Marvel: Crisis Protocol expansions, two Star Wars: Shatterpoint expansions, and two distributed items, including SETI: Space Agencies.
The nine items listed for May 29 contain one asmodee item: Kei Kajino's dnup, which is credited to Space Cowboys, although the box has no publisher logo and only an asmodee copyright notice. Weird.
In total, out of 57 items asmodee North America will distribute in May 2026, fifteen come from asmodee studios, with only three of them being standalone games: CATAN: ZIP! Edition (a new version of an existing game), dnup (a licensed version of an existing game), and First Giants, the lone original game on the list from an asmodee studio.
Thus, no one should be surprised that asmodee is making three-quarters of its sales via distribution.
