News & Week In Review - Final Fantasy & Avatar Board Games, COO of AEG AI Controversy & More!!!

0:00 Hey, I'm Alex Radical from Board Gameco and this is news and weekend review where we're going to dive into a variety of news pieces. We do actually have a lot of news to go through this week. The videos of the week, the games we covered this past week, as I say this last week, but this past week I think sounds better. Some of the games I've played, all of that and more. Links and timestamps to everything down below. With that said, let's go ahead and dive into it. But first, before we do, a note from our channel sponsor, Allplay. Allplay is a sponsor of the channel. You can get a bunch of things over on allplay.com. And recently, as I've been preparing for Gamma, which is a convention for more for the industry side of things, but with things like Origins coming up with things like I don't know, Dice Tower East or Dice Tower West. Actually, Dice Tower West is coming up if you're going there. Uh check out All Play if you want to go ahead and get any board game bags, which I find very, very helpful for traveling with board games, moving with board games, even bringing board games to board game night. Allplay bags are my favorite bags from the variety of board game bags that I've tried. And if you are, if you want to check out allplay.com, you can get board game bags there. Or at most of the conventions that you go to, the Allplay booth will have board game bags. If you found that you went to a convention and didn't plan for the amount of games that you're bringing home. With that said, let's go ahead and dive into the uh the news.

1:07 Starting off with all the news, there is a lot to go through here, so I'm not going to speedrun it, but I'm going to speedrun it a little bit. We have Final Fantasy uh from Cesco released. Final Fantasy, the board game is coming in 2026. This is um you know, Cesco, who has done a bunch of things. Most recently, One Piece is their newest IP. Uh, they are apparently doing a Final Fantasy board game. This is probably very exciting for a lot of people. I've never played Final Fantasy, so like this isn't exciting to me. I'm not against the board game necessarily. I've just never played Final Fantasy. I know nothing about Final Fantasy. I've always been intrigued. Never really dove into it. Maybe the board game is the first time I actually do. So, then we have over here another IP from Mish Media. My media announcing Avatar Fight for Pandora. Uh, know nothing about this one, although I have watched the Avatar movies or the first two. I have not watched the newest one yet. I've heard good things. I was waiting till it's out of theaters cuz I didn't feel the need to sit through a 3-hour movie in theaters. I don't have that kind of attention span anymore unless I'm really really invested in the movie. And in the case of Avatar, I enjoy the movies. I'm not that invested in them. But with that said, aside from the movies, at least I know the IP over here. I've been wanting to play the Frontiers of Pandora video game, but I've heard so many mixed things. If you have played Frontiers of Pandora and you are a video game person, let me know if you think I would like it or at the very least if you like it because I'd love to know. Separately from that, Avatar Fight for Pandora.

2:20 This is a board game coming to coming coming to you from Ma Media. Don't know much about it yet as far as where, how, crowdfunding, retail, all of that stuff, how the game plays, but I'm sure we will find out more as the game uh as we get closer to release. Then we have Forbidden Legacy. This one does have me pretty excited. Forbidden Legacy to debut at Gen Con 2026 from GameRank. Matt Leok and Rob Davio joining forces once again for a new legacy game. This part, this time set in the Forbidden World. the Forbidden Island, Forbidden Desert, Forbidden Jungle, Forbidden Skies, Forbidden Skies, and now we have Forbidden Legacy. Call me interested. I like legacy games. I am currently playing through Ticket to Ride Legacy. Actually, Ticket to Ride is going to come up twice more in this video. I'm currently playing through Ticket to Ride Legacy for the second time right now. I really enjoy a good legacy experience. I don't yet know if this is going to be a good legacy experience, but I am always interested in all legacy experiences.

3:06 Then we have Code Names expansion packs from CGE. This something new they're doing. They have expansion packs. They have expansion packs for code names, code names, duet for pictures. We have cute critters, we have fairy tales, we have sci-fi, more card packs, uh, debuting in in Q2 2026. I am intrigued by this. It's just more cards. I don't mind more cards, more cards, and more words adding to code names. Certainly not a bad thing. I can't say like I'm super excited for this, but I'm excited enough that I'm sure I will partake. Then we have over here we have Heroes of Teranoth. Uh, Heroes of the Descent, Teranoth, this is Descent, is going into video game mode. Descent, which is has multiple iterations as sent first edition, second edition, and third edition. And now they have the PC edition or I guess video game edition. I don't know if it's PC. I assume it's PC but I don't know what other platforms it'll be. But Descent from F from Fantasy Flight is going uh full fully digital, not just an app this time, but you can fully play it digitally. And honestly, once you're playing with the app, you may as well play it fully digitally in my opinion. I'm not against a good digital implementation. Descent was one of those times where I felt like the app was too present and took me out of the game experience personally. But anyways, uh Descent. If you're interested in Descent, uh and if you're interested in playing Descent as a video game, which I am more so than the board game, uh this should be on your radar.

4:13 Then we have, speaking of Netflix, I mentioned already. Speaking of Ticket to Ride, which I said will come up twice more in this video. First Monopoly, then Katan, and now Netflix has announced a movie based on the Ticket to Ride board game. This is all over the place recently. Basically, they have Wait, wait, Ticket to Ride. Yeah, Ticket to Ride. This is This probably isn't the best. I'll I'll link something else down below, but basically Ticket to Ride uh that was announced as some sort of Netflix something or other coming your way. So, if you are interested in ticket ride and you want to see a video, movie or TV show about it, that is coming your way. Although, I can't imagine what they're going to do with that. Like, same thing with Katan. Like, these things are these things are interesting as a concept, but I don't know how the execution is going to practically speaking make sense to to to like what do you do? What does a ticket to ride movie look like? What does a katan movie look like? What does a Monopoly movie look like? Then again, I don't know what a Barbie movie look like. And they did knock that one out of the park, but that one still feels like an easier shot than any of these other things. I'm a huge board game fan. So, give me a movie in the world of Gloom Haven, I am here for that. You want to give me a Nemesis movie? I guess technically that's Aliens. You want to give me a um what's the the one that they have coming up that I really enjoy? Oh my gosh.

5:19 What's the Awaken Realms, the big giant box, Lands of Evershade? You want to give me a Lands of Evershade movie? I am here for that. Um but Monopoly, Katana, and Netflix, I don't know if um I don't know what that's going I'm going to watch them obviously. I'm sure you'll watch them probably. We'll see. But uh I just don't know if I'm excited for them outside of the curiosity of how this is going to play out. Then we have over here Sheriff of Nutunningham. Uh basically Asay is continuing the acquisition of Sean titles this time with Sheriff of Nunningham. Sheriff Nunningham is a fantastic game. One of the better games out there that have that bluffing aspect. Lots of tension. I love the game to death. I just played it so many times that eventually it became a little sy, but phenomenal experience. Highly recommend it. And I was excited to see that Asthma is picking this up. So it'll continue to see the light of day. Not that Sean is gone. And on that note, over on board game wire, Simon valued at over 7.5 million through successful share sale. Basically, they were able to sell a bunch of shares over there. They'll be putting like 1.2 million of that towards development and all that. So, it does seem more money is coming into Simon. And again, selling uh selling uh more titles that share Nutunningham certainly doesn't hurt. So, overall, if you are someone waiting on your various Sean titles, it doesn't seem like you have to give up hope yet.

6:24 Although, obviously, in most cases, I would not consider anything a done deal until you have the game on your shelf. Then we have over on board gamewire watch and play. Rodney Smith cuts ties with game night picks accus of unethical advertisers practices towards publishers. Man, Board Game Wire, I find you a very valuable source of news, but your titles sometimes are a little long. But anyways, uh over here, this basically goes into this. I went over to this as well. So, if you did see um Wednesday's video, I think it was, I covered this whole Rodney Smith and watch and play game night picks. Long story short, how do I do long story short? You know what? We'll talk about this more later when I cut No, no, talk about now. We'll talk about it now. very short version of this because I did a full video is Rodney Smith from Watch Blade uh effectively cut ties with Chaz Marlor who previously he had been working with for six years. Uh recently Chaz Marlor had started up his own channel and watch Blade effectively said hey if you look at all this it seems like they are buying views not disclosing that to publishers and then selling the publishers day selling the publishers uh ads based on view counts but then not disclosing the fact that those are low value views. Low value views is a very short terminology would be a typical view is going to actually watch a portion of the video. These lowv value views are dropping out for the most part. The retention rate is significantly lower. So the vast majority of these purchase views they're not real engagement and therefore 98% of them I think maybe 96% a huge amount of them are not engaging with the ads that publishers are being charged for the viewer potentially seeing even though they are low value views both low retention and also a lot of international audiences that are not the primary audience. So basically, it's

7:54 false engagement or not real engagement, but being sold as if it's real engagement. That's the very short version of all this. There's a whole lot more to go into. I do recommend if you want a full deep cut of everything uh going on, including some follow-up emails and things that happen, check out my Wednesday video. I do take time going through these things, but if you want a full in full overview, uh that will be present. Even this uh video of this even this uh board game wire article over here has a lot of things but doesn't have some of the newest things that were released or at least unless they updated the article further which I don't think they did but yeah anyways that is a very short version I did a full 30-minute video on this and then lastly we have more drama because drama does not stop in the board game space it is listen between you and me the drama is good for views I know this you know this we all know this I could do without the drama I could do without the drama I I don't I don't like how the space seems to have a disproportionate amount of drama relative to its size. Although maybe that's just me being in the space and knowing what's going on. But the drama doesn't stop. It doesn't stop. Uh one one second it's one thing, the next second it's the next thing. And now we have the next thing already. Although probably not as big as the last thing, but still still not a small one.

9:04 Tabletop industry veteran Ryan Dancy loses all direct COO after saying AI can generate game ideas as good as some of his company's designs. Again, Board Game Wire, please. You got to got to get the smaller titles. I know it's good for SEO, but it's such a mouthful. Long story short, Ryan Dancy, who was COO of Alderok Entertainment Group, uh basically the very short version is I said long story short already and then I repeated myself is he posted on I want to say Twitter, maybe it was Blue Sky, I don't remember. He posted somewhere effectively saying that game effectively his post was game designers aren't that important. AI can do it. Um I added the aren't that important, but is very implied in his statements. Uh this is not the first time he has gotten into hot water over controversy. I can't remember if it was a few I think it was a few years ago. He had a similar kind of conversation or post about uh female game designers. And both of these posts over here, both posts, the female game designers post and the AI post, I'm not saying there aren't interesting conversations you can have. And I'm not saying that sometimes in life harsh truths can exist that are uncomfortable.

10:02 To be very clear, that's not me validating any of his things. Well, I guess that's more context. And now I need more context because I don't want to be I think I said that poorly. He had a post up of female game designers kind of implying that most female game designers weren't they there weren't there wasn't enough talent in female game designers. It was poorly phrased overall. Um I think there could be some interesting conversations to be had about the frequency and prevalence of how many female game designers there are versus how many male game designers. My own personal take of his last nightmare of a thread was that he kind of took maybe 5% of interesting truths that we could have to have a conversation around these things and then inserted into there like you know 95% what felt like hogwash with the added disclaimer that I am not someone who takes pictures from designers. So I can't comment I can't comment as someone who's taking pictures but it certainly felt like a very um it felt very sexist.

10:57 That's from the outside it felt very sexist. Maybe there were maybe there were more truths in there than I want to give credit to. Don't know. Um then this one with AI, I think there are some interesting hard truths around AI. I think there are some there I think it's very possible that we might have good games that are developed by AI that might be better than some games de developed by people. That is very possible. AI is always constantly growing. And I never want to underell what AI is capable of. I think if you only ever if your only argument against AI is ever about well it's not as good as a human that argument will fall apart as soon as you personally cannot distinguish it from what a human does which I think will continue to happen. I think there are long hard uncomfortable conversations around AI. I also think that once again he took a post that could be an interesting conversation and then buried it in a poor phrasing of the situation that felt like he was dumping all over his own game designers of the company that he is COO of. It felt like he was giving zero credit to actual designers and effectively telling everyone you are all replaceable. And so the CEO of Aldderok Entertainment Group effectively said to him, you are also replaceable. I mean, I'm just being that that's me being cute in terms of the way I phrased it, but ultimately he let him go, which to me makes sense. Uh, I'm not again, I to echo what I said about Sam Elely, I do not generally I'm not generally a fan of calling for people's jobs. I am a fan of natural consequences. I am a fan of the fact that sometimes people will lose jobs because of decisions they made. I'm not advocating for that and I will rarely, if ever, advocate for that. Uh,

12:28 but the idea that he I guess the way I'd put it is it's clear to me that he's representing a liability to his company because he continues to do these things that basically bring a lot of negative attention to AEG. And so at that point, the idea that you might then lose your job, it's not the craziest concept. Anyways, that's kind of my take on it. You can watch you can read the board game wire article. More drama in the board game space. And with that with that, we can go ahead and move on to the videos of the week. The videos of the week, there were not many in the videos of the week category. I mean there lots of videos but there were a lot of game focused videos in general. We had a gamefound end of year update once or twice a year. I try to do once a year but sometimes if something happens I'll do a second one. I do a dedicated gamefound video. So I did a dedicated gamefound video this past Sunday I want to say uh just to covering the how gamefound did in 2025 going into a lot of details information. If you are someone that's interested in that kind of thing that video is there. If you're someone that's not there are three,000 other videos to watch. There's more than 3,000. There's lots of other videos to watch on the channel. Then on Wednesday, I covered the watch or played and game night picks controversy. Lots to go into there. Again, I did a little bit of a deep dive already, so I won't cover it heavily here. You can watch Monday's video, Wednesday's video, or I already talked about it a little bit ago. That's basically the videos of the week. And that brings us to the games we covered this past week. Lots of games covered.

13:38 There was a Labyrinth review. I really enjoyed Labyrinth. I I already started playing with my kids again, so like I'm It's a prototype and I'm already in my second playthrough of the game. It is fun. I enjoy it. It is very much light and I I don't feel that challenged by it, but it is a fun, simple, very easygoing experience. I enjoy it. That's what that's what I can say. Is it worth $75? I don't know. I've gotten enough fun out of it that maybe it was, but I I don't think I'd like if it was a legacy game. Here's I can tell you for sure. If it was a legacy game with destructible components, I wouldn't have rebought it to start it again. I know that. But like, it's hard. Like, that's that's a prototype I got for free, and I don't think I don't think I would have purchased it, but I certainly have enjoyed it. Does that make sense? Either way, I gave it a 3.5 out of five with the caveat that I'm probably enjoying it. I'm I'm getting a lot of enjoyment out of it, but I don't think it's a great game. It's a good game. It's a better game than Labyrinth is. Then we had a uh we had a gameplay for Gateway.

14:26 I will actually have a review for that going up today. So, if you're interested in that, check out later today. Uh but I won't give you my thoughts on that. Gateway was sponsored content, but I did a review that was not sponsored content. Obviously, whenever those uh cross streams are present, take that bias into account. Then, there was a preview for Glimmed Deep done by Meg. I did not review this. I do enjoy Glimmer Deep. I did play that one. I had a lot of fun with it. I'm not yet sure if it's a game that I will or won't add to my collection because again 200 I'm trying to maintain 200 games which means every game even if I enjoy it is a hard decision but I think Glimmer Deep likely would make the cut. I can think of a few games I would replace and put Glema Deep in that spot at least for now. Then there was a a Nexus solo mode video done by Meg. I didn't play Nexus solo. I played Nexus multiplayer so I can't comment on the solo but if you're interested in that the pledge manager is open and Meg did a solo video on the channel. There's a core of discovery duo review. I really enjoyed core of discovery duo but I'd rather play core of discovery every time. So for me that's a good game but not one I feel the need to add to my collection. Core of Discovery is is a better game experience for me and plays well at too just more cooperatively than competitively. Then we have well notes sorry core of discovery duo is also cooperative different vibes as far as how they play. Then there was forage.

15:30 There was a review for forage. I liked forage to I liked aspects of forage. I really liked the last few turns. I felt the game spent too much time getting to those last few turns and that took a little bit of the fun out of it for me. Uh again it's a good game. I just think there are better role mod games out there for me. There's a a preview for Cadmon went up on the channel. Cadmon is upcoming upcoming game. There will also be an upcoming gameplay coming as well. But Catman upcoming crowdfunding campaign. Check that out. And then lastly, there was a gameplay for Rurick. Uh Rurick Dawn of Kiev or Rurick second edition, I guess technically it's called. Uh I love Ruric. Uh huge fan of it. I reviewed it last week. If you want to see my thoughts on it, I think they did a great job with this new version. And um yeah, if you want to see a gameplay of it, that went up on Friday. That is basically the games we covered this past week, which brings us to today. No, not today. The games I've played, games I've played this past week as usual. This is a smattering of some of the game experiences I've played. I played Ticket to Ride Legacy for three more plays. I started Toride Legacy finally again with the new group. Um, and I'm I'm three plays deep and I expect to finish it in the next like 3 to 4 days. Uh, going through all 12 games of it. I really enjoyed Legacy the first time around and I'm enjoying it a lot the second time around. Kind of like Labyrinth. It is a lighter experience, but I think I think because it's competitive, I feel the tension more.

16:35 Lab Labyrinth was because it's cooperative, the tension wasn't as present, even if it is fun overall. But Ticket Legacy is a absolute banger of a game. I highly recommend it. It's not cheap, but if you split the cost with like three or four people, it's pretty decent as far as the entertainment value you're going to get per person per dollar. Then there's a four shuffle. I've been playing more for shuffle regular. It's been a while since I played regular for shuffle. I mostly been playing for shuffle Dartmore. So going back to regular four shuffle is a nice breath of fresh air. Still enjoy it. I think both for shuffles are amazing. Always a great time. Love playing it. I did try the scoring app. The scoring app you can take photos. I think it's helpful to a degree, but I kind of like scoring it myself to get a sense of where I got my points from, if that makes sense. I find that is very helpful to be like, "Oh, that bat strategy really worked out for really worked out well for me this game, that lizard strategy, not so much." I like that kind of feedback as I score thing myself. I think I think I've started to realize in general digital scoring apps, while they can be incredibly helpful, they separate me from the scoring that is happening in the game. And then there's Age of Civilization. Phenomenal game. I love Age of Sil Edition. I have do back into it with a Vengeance starting to play a bunch of it again. Uh I I really hope this I would love to see a deluxeified version of that, a bigger box. Like I know Portal did an Age of Galaxy version. I'd love to see a better version of Age of Civilization or just more content for the game. I think it's such a good experience, a a hidden gem of an experience. Oo, I should put that my I should put Age of Civilization on my hidden gem list. I'm going to do that now. So when I eventually get to my hidden gem video, um expect to see that there probably. And then lastly, I started Cozy Stickerville. Loving Cozy Stickerville. I don't know exactly when I will have my coverage for the game. I want to play through the whole thing

18:05 first. Uh but I I I'm one game into it and it's so cozy and charming. I am already prepped for the fact that I will almost certainly be buying Cozy Stickerville again so that I can dive into it. Like Ticket Ticket Legacy, I played it two years ago. Diving into it again now. Loving it. Cozy Stickerville. I might buy another copy just to ensure that I have it and it doesn't go out of print so that like two years from now I can dive back into it. Uh but overall initial thoughts, very charming, very cozy. I'm not playing it solo. I do wonder if I prefer it solo, but I think I prefer it probably multiplayer. We'll we shall see. I'll see if I ever dive into it solo. But if you are interested in Cozy Stickerville one game in, I am a huge fan. That is basically some of the games I've played this past week, which brings us to today. Today, we will have a review for Gateway going up as well as a preview for Foes of Middle Earth. And then later next week, we'll have a gameplay for Foes of Middle Earth happening. That's an active crowdfunding campaign at the moment. Uh, as far as next week, we're going to have a bunch of things. We will have Soore and Fracture Sky expansions launching on well launching on Tuesday, but the videos for that will be going up Monday if you want to see content around those.

19:01 I'll also have a 2026 New Year's resolutions. Granted, we are basically at the end of February. I filmed this video a little bit ago, but it's finally going up midFebruary to tell you my New Year's resolutions for 2026, of which I am making halfway progress on them so far. That's basically everything, which brings us to the games on the shelf. As usual, this is a smattering of some of the games I hope to be playing this week. We have six sour, which I would love to table this week. I have not tabled yet. I read the rules. I've been trying to table it. It hasn't happened yet. We have Wondrous Creatures, which has been too long since my last play and I hope to be diving into it again. And then we have Ticket to Ride Legend of the West, which I'm already three games deep and I expect to be playing four or five games today alone. In any case, and until next time, I am Alex Radcliffe from Board Gameco. I hope you enjoyed this video. Have an excellent week and as always, I hope you have a good one.