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, is at the very real and cool Goonhammer newsdesk with the scoop.
Funko CEO Departs After Just Over a Year
It’s not just board games that are suffering under the current tariff crisis; as it turns out, it’s also been a rough time for everyone’s least favorite dead-eyed vinyl pop culture collectibles, Funko. Funko fired Cynthia Williams from her role as CEO earlier this month, despite only being in the role for less than a year, due to financial challenges posed by tariffs.
Cynthia Williams was the head of Wizards of the Coast at Hasbro for two years before joining Funko, where she stepped into the role with the objective to make cost cutting decisions to improve the company’s bottom line. During her time at Wizards, Williams was responsible for ramping up Universes Beyond for Magic, and caught widespread criticism over the Dungeons & Dragons OGL controversy.
Williams will be replaced by Michael Lunsford as interim CEO of Funko, his second time in this role. While serving as Interim CEO, Lunsford aims to right Funko’s fiscal ship as well as select an appropriate person to take on the CEO role full-time.
“The board has asked Mike to help us realize the full potential of the business, including helping to identify a new chief executive officer, accelerating our organic growth, and exploring all financial and strategic options for the business,” a member of the Funko board of directors told media in a press release.
While Lunsford is presenting as optimistically as possible, telling the press that “I believe we have yet to achieve the full potential of Funko”, the company is in dire straits. Funko posted a loss of $28 million in the first quarter of 2025, and is currently over $200 in debt. To combat this, Funko plans to lay off at least 20% of its workforce during 2025, with the first rounds of cuts starting back in April.
As of this writing, Cynthia Williams has not made a statement about where she plans to go next following her Funko departure.
Ex-Dungeons & Dragons Senior Exec Joins World of Darkness Team
Fortune is a fickle thing, which is particularly true this week for former employees of Wizards of the Coast. It curses one ex-employee, like Cynthia Williams, then turns on its heels to bless another, in this case Jess Lanzillo. Lanzillo announced last week that she joined D&D rival White Wolf to take on the role of Creative Director of the company’s flagship IP, World of Darkness.
“It’s official: a lifetime of vampire LARPing has somehow led to me becoming Creative Director for the newly relaunched White Wolf,” Lanzillo writes on her Linkedin. “Turns out ‘extensive vampire roleplay experience’ is actually a legitimate professional qualification for exactly one job!”
Lanzillo was the former creative director of Magic: The Gathering before being promoted to Vice President of Franchise and Product for Dungeons and Dragons. Lanzillo left that role last month to pursue other professional opportunities, which turns out to be her new role at White Wolf.
“Bringing Jess on board to shape the creative future of World of Darkness is a big win for White Wolf,” said Marco Behrmann, White Wolf Executive Vice President. “She’s a world-class Creative Director with deep roots in developing transmedia properties and a sharp instinct for audience-first storytelling. Jess’s experience makes her the perfect fit to lead White Wolf in bold, ambitious ways.”
Lanzillo is the first new major hire at White Wolf since its parent company, Paradox Interactive, announced in May that it would be returning as an independent publishing and licensing entity for all things World of Darkness within Paradox.
Subnautica 2 Delay Blamed on Absence of Senior Leadership
Earlier this month, fans eagerly awaiting news about Subnautica 2 were given an unexpected and unwelcome surprise with the news that the three founders of the development team behind the first game, Unknown Worlds, had been fired from the company effective immediately by its owner, Krafton. Last week, the plot thickened as Krafton blamed these leaders for being the reason that Subnautica 2 has been delayed into 2026 in a post on the company homepage.
After the runaway success of Subnautica and subsequent purchase of the company by Krafton, Unknown Worlds CEO Ted Gill, co-founder and creative director Charlie Cleveland, and co-founder and CTO Max McGuir quickly got to work on the sequel. The project was met with long periods of silence and delays, initially planning for a 2024 early access release that was pushed back to next year.
Krafton lays the blame for this at the feet of those leaders, writing, “Subnautica 2 was originally planned for an Early Access launch in early 2024, but the timeline has since been significantly delayed. KRAFTON made multiple requests to Charlie and Max to resume their roles as Game Director and Technical Director, respectively, but both declined to do so. In particular, following the failure of Moonbreaker, KRAFTON asked Charlie to devote himself to the development of Subnautica 2. However, instead of participating in the game development, he chose to focus on a personal film project. KRAFTON believes that the absence of core leadership has resulted in repeated confusion in direction and significant delays in the overall project schedule.”
Krafton also claims that Unknown Worlds were promised a $250 million earn out for the development and release of Subnautica 2. Gills, Cleveland, and McGuir were apparently allocated 90% of this earnout, with “the expectation that they would demonstrate leadership and active involvement in the development of Subnautica 2.”
The former Unknown Worlds leaders dispute these claims, saying that Subnautica 2 is ready for early access, but Krafton refuses to release the build to the public. Additionally, they claim that they did not plan to keep the bulk of the earnout for themselves, and would split it between the entire development team.
The trio intend to take legal action against Krafton. Charlie Cleveland wrote on the Subnautica subreddit that, “We’ve now filed a lawsuit against Krafton: the details should eventually become (at least mostly) public – you all deserve the full story. Suing a multi-billion dollar company in a painful, public and possibly protracted way was certainly not on my bucket list. But this needs to be made right. Subnautica has been my life’s work and I would never willingly abandon it or the amazing team that has poured their hearts into it.”
TTRPG Developers Launch Kickstarter for Legal Defense Amidst Distributor Bankruptcy
Tabletop RPG publisher Green Ronin Games asked fans for help last week in raising money for legal expenses to protect the publisher’s inventory against its former distributor, Diamond Comic Distributors.
Diamond filed for bankruptcy in January of this year after forty years of dominating North American comic and tabletop distribution. The proceedings have already been a hotbed for controversy, such as the bizarre bidding war for Diamond subsidiary Alliance Games. Now, it looks like Diamond is attempting to abuse legal technicalities to claim ownership of millions of dollars of inventory for multiple companies, such as Paizo and Green Ronin.
According to Green Ronin, Diamond intends to claim legal ownership of the unsold stock of Green Ronin products, as well as the products of many other companies, that are currently held in consignment in Diamond warehouses, claiming that those companies have not “satisfied the requirements under applicable law to perfect their interests.” Should Diamond take ownership of these unsold products, they could sell them to creditors to pay off outstanding debts.
Green Ronin, a smaller RPG company behind games like The Expanse RPG and the Dragon Age RPG, say that this would be beyond devastating for the company, and intends to file a lawsuit against Diamond to stop it. However, Green Ronin states that on its own, it lacks the funds to pay for all of the expenses associated with taking a large company to court, even a bankrupt one. So, Green Ronin decided to turn to crowdfunding, asking for fans to help them raise money for legal fees.
“The funds raised through this campaign will be used directly to cover the escalating legal fees associated with fighting Diamond’s claim in bankruptcy court.” writes Nicole Lindroos, co-owner of Green Ronin. “This includes attorney retainers, court filing fees, and the costs of pursuing every possible avenue to recover our inventory and protect Green Ronin’s assets.”
As of this writing, Green Ronin has raised a little over $33000, blowing past their initial $9000 goal.
“The response to our call for aid has been absolutely amazing,” Lindroos writes. “So, first of all, let us say a huge thank you to all who have donated and spread the word! We are grateful, heartened, and humbled to see such an outpouring of love and support.”
Spiel des Jahres Announces Historic 2025 Winner for Best Board Game
The biggest award in board games, Spiel des Jahres, announced the winners last week for each of its three categories, bringing international notoriety and a healthy sales boost for the chosen games.
Spiel des Jahres, which is German for game of the year, began in 1978 and has since become the most impactful award in the board game world. Its three awards are picked by a panel of board game critics from a pool of hundreds of submissions. The main award, Spiel des Jahres, celebrates excellence in game design, while the Kennerspiel award focuses on more complicated games and the Kinderspiel award is for games aimed at children.
This year’s Spiel des Jahres winner, Bomb Busters, marks a historic moment in the history of the awards show. Created by Japanese designer Hisashi Hayashi, the 2025 award marks the first time in the history of Spiel that the award has gone to a game from Asia. Bomb Busters win also continues a very successful run for cooperative games at Speil, winning at five of the past seven years. In Bomb Busters, players must work together to prevent a bomb from exploding. Each player has a set of tiles in front of them that represent wires, and must utilize effective communication and teamwork to cut the wires in the right order and win the game. The game is distributed internationally by Cocktail Games.
This year, the Kennerspiel award went to Endeavor: Deep Sea, a rework of the 2009 Kennerspiel winner Endeavor with a nautical theme. The Kinderspiel winner was Topp de Torte, where players find themselves in a contest to bake big, colorful, and sugary cakes.
Winning Spiel des Jahres is a massive feather in the cap of a game. According to a 2023 interview from Boardgamewire, games that win the award can see a massive boost of sales. In the interview, award winner Kastan Esser estimates that the winning game can usually see anywhere from a 10 to 20 times increase in sales.
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