Gamers near Plano, Texas have an opportunity to practice their crafting skills with Goliath Games. The company is looking for a part-time Prototype Maker.

The U.S. Chess Federation is searching for an experienced Director of Development. A new position with the organization, the Director of Development’s role will be to “create and implement a comprehensive development plan for short- and long-term revenue growth in support of the US Chess mission.”

WizKids is looking for an experienced Product Manager in Hillside, New Jersey to develop long term plans, develop packaging, and interface with operations on the company’s unpainted miniatures line.

Ludo Fact needs Machine Operators and Assemblers for board game manufacturing in Lafayette, Indiana.

For production of miniatures, Privateer Press needs a Metal Caster in Bellevue, Washington.

Topps has multiple openings at its locations in New York City and Scranton, Pennsylvania, among them a New Product Development Associate with drawing and modeling skills and a Brand Manager for non-sports entertainment properties.

Hasbro’s 100+ openings include:

• Games Brand Writer to write copy for games packaging and to “produce accessible, friendly, and accurate rules.”
• Product Design Manager for the kids gaming category, which includes Jenga, Simon, Bop It, Connect 4, and Twister.
• At Wizards of the Coast, Manager of Global Brand Marketing for Dungeons & Dragons.
• Also at WOTC, Technical Product Manager to focus on the company’s product development process.

TCGplayer has numerous openings in Syracuse, New York and Atlanta, Georgia. Lots for Software Engineers and Product Engineers. Also for finance and data analytics and shipping. Two individual positions are worth highlighting, though. There’s one for a Digital Marketing Manager to be responsible for online marketing campaigns. And the company is looking for a General Manager of Seller Services, who will be a member of the executive leadership team and responsible for the company’s line of business supplying software tools to retailers.

ACD Distribution has several warehouse opportunities in Middleton, Wisconsin and Fresno, California. Also sales positions in Wisconsin.

Alliance Game Distributors is looking to hire a Sales Specialist in Roseville, Minnesota, specifically to work with Asmodee North America. The company also has openings for a Sales Trainee and an Administrative Assistant at its home offices in Maryland.

Asmodee North America, itself, is recruiting for a Trade Marketing Manager to support the sales team with PR, media relations, trade shows, and merchandising.

Games Workshop has many openings for retail work at various locations worldwide, also for a variety positions at headquarters in Nottingham, UK, including:

• Middle Earth Product Manager to coordinate production, promotion, and consistency with the source material.
• ‘Eavy Metal Painter for Forge World products including Horus Heresy and Middle Earth miniatures.
• Managing Editor for White Dwarf magazine.
• Games Developer for Warhammer Age of Sigmar products.
• Games Developer for Warhammer 40,000 products.
• Armies and Battlefields Painter for products to be showcased in Codexes, Battletomes, and other publications.
• Games Developer for specialist brands, such as Blood Bowl and Necromunda.
• Model Designer for specialist brands. Experience preferred but the position may be offered at a trainee level.
• Concept Artist to be part of the Citadel Miniatures conceptualiser team.

Gamerati in DuPont, Washington is looking to hire a full-time Social Content Creator/Community Manager for the company’s services to game publishers.

Board game-related freelance jobs posted on Upwork include:

• Design and production for an employee-training game ($3,000 fixed price).
• Rulebook-writing for a historical board game.
• Production of an animated instructional video for an adult card game.
• Social media management for an upcoming Kickstarter project: Facebook and Twitter.
• Graphic design for a game’s box, cards, and tokens.

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Some giveaways:

• By Encounter Roleplay, the three core books of Dungeons & Dragons from Wizards of the Coast.
• By Singlehandedly, three games from subQuark Publishing: Mint Tin Pirates, Mint Tin Aliens, and Mint Tin Apocalypse Deluxe, one to each of three winners.
• By Game Trade Media, Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate from Wizards of the Coast.
• By Board Game Revolution, Coldwater Crown from Bellwether Games.

Snickelsox is giving away five Dungeons & Dragons Starter Sets when he gets to 3,000 followers on Twitter.

Geeknson’s Summer Sale means 20% off the company’s gaming furniture.

The discounts are also 20% in Buffalo Games’ Summer Sale on puzzles.

With a Kickstarter going for a new entry in the series, PSC Games is giving away a set of three Quartermaster General games, the original Quartermaster General, Quartermaster General: 1914, and the upcoming Quartermaster General: The Cold War.

Goliath Games is 10 prize packages of five games each, Pop the Pig, Greedy Granny, Shark Bite, Googly Eyes, and Build or Boom.

Crusader miniatures from North Star Military Figures are half-priced while supplies last.

Days of Wonder is giving away a four-night trip for two to New York City and also 10 copies of Ticket to Ride: New York.

The proprietor of DramaScape, who’s getting married, is holding a Wedding & Honeymoon Map Sale.

Fantasy Grounds is offering an additional 25% off Dungeons & Dragons modules, making them 50% off if you buy the whole bundle.

For every $40 spent at ReaperMini.com during July, get a free Dungeon Dwellers Orc Miniature.

Osprey Publishing’s July Sale is 20% off on Campaign, Fortress, and Raid series titles.

Save up to 69% on Super Dungeon Explore titles at Miniature Market.

The Summer Sale at Free League Publishing includes discounts of up to 40% on RPGs Tales From the Loop, Corolis, and Mutant: Year Zero.

Goodman Games is giving away free pulp novels with every direct order.

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Green Board Games (High Wycombe, U.K.) is looking for someone to fill the position of National Account Manager. The job entails a wide range of responsibilities, including new business development, managing stock levels, and product development.

Panda Game Manufacturing has several openings, including one for an EU Account Manager, one for an EU Project Manager, and one for a Senior Shipping Specialist. Most Panda positions allow remote work from home. The EU positions require non-English language skills. And the shipping job requires experience with international logistics.

The Broken Token (Escondido, California) needs a Laser Operator and a Shipping Associate. One makes the products, the other sends it out to customers. Pay for both is $11 per hour.

With a recent infusion of investment cash and plans for expansion, TCGplayer has a number of job openings: Product Managers, Software Engineers, Database Administrators, and Shipping & Receiving Specialists. The openings are mostly split between Syracuse, New York and Atlanta, Georgia. A few of the Software Engineers can be remote.

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TCGplayer has received a $10 million equity investment from Radian Capital. The company says the money will allow it grow staff while it expands its collectible market portal and retail support service from CCGs to board games, roleplaying games, comic books, sports cards, and video games.

Mayfair Games is closing up shop and has sold all its remaining game assets, as well as its majority stake in Lookout Games of Germany, to Asmodee North America. Lookout will continue to operate as a design studio of Asmodee.

Spin Master has signed a distribution deal with Toysmith for a variety of toy brands, including games and puzzles from Spin Master’s Cardinal subsidiary. The arrangement, which takes affect in June, will see Toysmith as exclusive distributor to the specialty market for the covered ranges.

North Star Games has instituted a minimum advertised pricing (MAP) policy, which is “non-negotiable for all North Star Games’ resellers and will be strictly enforced to ensure the continued value of its brand.” The company also issued a statement saying that, effective immediately, except for two unnamed parties, all sellers will be restricted from participating in Amazon’s Third-Party Marketplace. North Star promises to monitor product listings and suspend or terminate the accounts of those sellers that do not comply.

Hasbro has signed on as the master toy licensee for Power Rangers (Saban Brands), UglyDolls (STX Entertainment), Super Monsters (Netflix), and Top Wing (Nickelodeon), though only the announcement for Power Rangers specifically mentions games.

According to NPD, Mattel’s UNO card game was the top selling game in the United States in 2017.

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First up on my tour of the Winning Moves Toy Fair booth was a classic brought back to print by the company, Pente ($20 retail, available now). Reminiscent of Go, the goal in Pente is to either line up five in a row of one’s own pieces or capture five pairs of an opponent’s pieces.

Next was Monopoly: The Card Game ($11, now). This is neither the same as Monopoly Deal, nor the last Monopoly card game produced by Winning Moves. Instead, it’s more like a cross between Monopoly and Gin Rummy. Players can trade cards but to go out their hand must include at least one complete property color group. Card sets have a dollar value based on the properties in the namesake and the first player to a set dollar amount is the winner.

After that, Winning Moves was showing Classic Rummy Tiles ($15, now). It’s the company’s generic version of Rummikub with stadium-style tile racks.

Finally, there was the new Rubik’s Tower ($17, now) a 2x2x4 non-symmetrical version of the cube puzzle.

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For a limited time, every print order direct from Goodman Games gets a free vintage copy of Dragon Magazine.

Renegade Game Studios is giving away Byzanz.

Blue Orange Games is giving away a package of Kingdomino and Queendomino. And Board Game Revolution is doing the same.

Use coupon code “rain18” to get Paizo’s Rainy Day Discount of 10% on a single order.

Through the end of the month, $600 of LPJ Design Pathfinder products are available in one 95% off bundle ($30) at DriveThruRPG.

For the relaunch of Button Men, arriving at retail this month, Cheapass Games is giving away multiple copies through an online quiz that matches participants with the game’s criminal masterminds.

Orders placed today from HasbroToyShop ship free with promo code “LOVE2018”.

Also today (ending midnight MST), save 30% on card sleeves from Mayday Games with discount code “chinesenewyear30”.

In recognition of February holidays, Skirmisher Publishing has bundled, at a 90% discount, RPG ebooks representing Valentine’s Day, Black History Month, Chinese New Year, and Presidents Day.

A Traveller: The New Era bundle is available at Bundle of Holding. Just $26 gets you everything.

Alone in the Jungle, Flying Pig Games’ solitaire expansion for ’65 Squad-Level Combat in Vietnam, is 30% off, direct from the company through today.

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Mongoose has a major Traveller sale under way at DriveThruRPG. Discounts are 33-80% off.

Gypsy Knights Games is also running a sale on Traveller material, to celebrate the company’s seventh birthday.

Another sale running at DriveThruRPG is the BAMFsies Sale, celebrating superhero titles.

Superheroes are also featured in Bundle of Holding’s Heroes Unlimited offer from Palladium Books, while another offer at the site features Ulisses Spiele’s English-language translation, The Dark Eye.

Victory Point Games is selling everything at 10% off (except for Darkest Night products) in celebration of Valentine’s Day.

Giveaways:

• By Happy Li’l Minis, a whole core set of Star Wars: Legion from Fantasy Flight Games.
• By Angie’s Angle, a bundle of three Gigamic games: Yogi, Imagidice, and Differ3nce.
• By EverythingBoardGames, Arcadia Quest from Dragori Games, Lucky’s Misadventures (two copies) from Great Northern Games, and an Herbalism Founder’s Pack of 4 games from Deep Water Games.
• By Katie’s Game Corner, autographed GMT Games box art from Roger MacGowan.
• By OffWorld Designs, two tickets to Gen Con 2018.
• By The Giveaway Geek, Cytosis from Genius Games.

At Amazon, Starship Merchants from Toy Vault is 71% off and Bloodsuckers from Fireside Games is 59% off.

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Today marks 10 years since Yehuda Berlinger posted the first article on Purple Pawn, a brief story about board games mentioned in the Sally Forth comic strip. I hope in that time that you’ve felt informed and entertained. We’ve tried our best to make a positive contribution. With 8,370 articles published so far!

Purple Pawn presents a unique voice in the game field, covering all types of tabletop games—board games, card games, collectibles, roleplaying games, war games, miniatures, and more. Games with modern movie tie-ins and traditional games played by generations. Games for the dedicated hobbyist, as well as the casual gamer.

Of course we report news of product releases but we also work hard to document the business side of the game industry, provide tips to the game consumer, and highlight the significant role that games play in culture and society.

Purple Pawn would not exist if not for the vision and guidance of its founder, Yehuda Berlinger. Thank you, Yehuda, for letting me keep it going when you decided to move on to other game-related endeavors!

Thank you also to our various contributors over the years: Ben Clark, Thomas Deeny, K.C. Lee, Lory Gilpatric, Phil Kilcrease, Randy Snyder, Richard Bliss, Josh Street, Rob Kalajian, Sam Mercer, and Tracy Tang! In the early days it was Yehuda as the snarky commentator, Josh as the fanboy, and me as the straight-man. Ben provided an amazing inside look at the business side of games with the Paper Money podcast. Sam gave us some cool graphics. Rob—who, other than Yehuda and I, was with Purple Pawn the longest—was of tremendous support to me personally, did a wonderful job of covering the independent publishers, and also solved many technical problems behind the scenes. Thomas, who is still with Purple Pawn, has an amazing knack for identifying the hot trends and controversies.

And of course, thank you to our readers!

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As I reported before, board and card games have been known to cause seizures. But are board games also a factor in physical injuries?

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the answer is yes. Based on reports to the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS), there were an estimated 28,000 game-related hospital emergency room visits between 2012-2016. Another 38,000 visits were specifically associated with marbles.

About half the patients were children under 10 years of age. And in approximately 10 percent of cases, the patients were admitted following initial treatment.

The most common types of injuries involved:

• Infants and toddlers swallowing game pieces.
• Stepping or slipping on game pieces left on the floor.
• Dealing playing cards or rolling dice that end up hitting people in the eye.
• Wrist sprains from slapping cards down on the table.
• Games that fall off the shelf and hit people in the head.
• Dizziness and back pain from sitting too long.
• Numbness, bursitis, or pain in the arms, neck, and shoulders from long hours of playing and dealing cards.
• Falling off one’s chair.

However, some of the more unusual reports include:

• “11 year old female slipped on a playing card and slid down 20 stairs on butt”
• “2 year old female with a plastic bone in nose from the game Operation”
• “3 year old female was choking; swallowed one of the little plastic balls that the Hippos eat”
• “8 year old male fell onto Jenga game blocks and hit his mouth; there was damage to hardwood floor”
• “16 year old female; patient was home playing <REDACTED>; hit nose onto boyfriend’s knee; diagnosis nasal trauma with [nose bleed]”
• “Foreign body pubic region; 36 year old male embedded domino in penis ‘to please the ladies'”
• “45 year old white female at home having rough sex and playing naked <REDACTED>; partner’s knee hit patient’s elbow; diagnosis elbow dislocation”
• “42 year old male, 1 year ago carved down piece of domino, incised penis, inserted domino piece into penis; now wants it removed”
• “42 year old male hit in head with Jenga block playing and now has closed head injury”
• “19 year old male complaining of shoulder pain after doing extreme motions playing Charades at home tonight; diagnosis dislocation right shoulder”
• “51 year old male with abrasions to scrotum; notes was sitting down playing cards for hours”
• “32 year old male playing a game and jumped up hitting light fixture to head; diagnosis lacerated scalp”
• “13 year old female was dancing on a table when she slipped on a board game and fell and injured her right foot”

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Wielding a screwdriver, a robber in Osaka Prefecture, Japan stole $450,000 of Shogi game pieces from a manufacturer’s exhibit space. The man threatened an employee with the screwdriver, tied them up, and smashed the glass display cases. Forty sets of Shogi pieces were taken, some made of expensive boxwood.

Lucasfilm and Ren Ventures are in court arguing over trademark rights for the word “SABACC” in relation to card games. SABACC was supposedly the card game that Han Solo and Lando Calrissian were playing when Han won the Millennium Falcon. But that was just an imaginary game from Star Wars. Ren later produced a card game app with the same name and registered the trademark in Europe. Neither has a registered trademark in the United States.

In Bathurst, Australia, a man was arrested by police for threatening to bash a woman’s car with a mattock unless she agreed to return his board game or pay him $60.

In December, we were hopeful that the selection of Saudi Arabia as hosts for the World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships represented a diplomatic milestone between the Kingdom and the State of Israel. Unfortunately, while Saudi Arabia did grant visas to players from Iran and Qatar (with whom the country also lacks diplomatic relations), they refused to permit players from Israel to attend. Even more disappointing, though, is the complicity of FIDE [PDF], which refused to stand up for the principles it claims to represent. Instead, the organization was satisfied with changing the name of the event to the King Salman, Peace and Friendship tournament and the promise that things would be better next year.

Organizers of the next World Chess Championship (November 11-30 in London) revealed a logo for the event that’s being called vulgar and inappropriate. World Chess says that the controversy was intentional, a way to shake up the staid world of Chess.

After discovering that a Magic: The Gathering tournament judge had been convicted of a sex crime, Wizards of the Coast has instituted a new policy requiring background checks. The requirement applies to all personnel who interact with the public on behalf of Wizards Play Network stores and tournament organizers.

Herrick Productions is suing Mattel, claiming that the toy maker stole their idea for a reality TV show. Herrick claims that it proposed a show called Playmakers, in which people submit their toy and game inventions to a panel of judges and the winner would be produced and sold by Mattel. The company did not go with Playmakers but did launch The Toy Box with a similar concept—the panel of judges in this case being children.

In the case of Shlasinger and Gerardi vs. Yarrington and Myriad Games over a failed Staten Island game shop, a federal court jury found breach of contract by the defendant [PDF] but awarded the plaintiff zero dollars in damages.

Arbiters at a Chess tournament in Spain searched an amateur participant playing above his rating and found an electronic device that looked kind-of like a television remote control. As a result, the player was ejected from the competition.

The World Cube Association has decided to outlaw all Rubik’s Cubes with logos from blindfolded solving attempts. The organization received complaints about logos on overlay stickers influencing the results of recent world record solves of 4×4 and 5×5 puzzles. Though the WCA ruled that those specific results would stand, it made the change going forward.

A doctor in Heilongjiang Province, China was fired after she was caught on video playing Mahjong on her phone while at the same time operating a CT scanner.

Police in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia arrested 46 people at an illegal Mahjong parlor where gambling was taking place.

Police in Cebu City, Philippines arrested five for operating an illegal gambling den that hosted Mahjong and Poker.

A Mahjong parlor employee was arrested in Tokyo for accosting a regular customer in the elevator and attempting to rob the elderly woman of her bag. The assailant ran away empty-handed when the woman resisted but later admitted to the crime.

In Singapore, police arrested a man for throwing things out the 16th floor window of his apartment building, including a Mahjong table that landed on a playground.

Northumbria police are asking for the public’s help in finding the person who assaulted a man playing Dominoes inside a Houghton-le-Spring, UK social club.

A Cicero, Illinois man is in custody for allegedly shooting his girlfriend 11 times during a game of Dominoes.

Shootings associated with dice games took place in Atlanta and Newnan, Georgia; Beaumont, Texas; Memphis, Tennessee; Birmingham, Alabama; St. Louis, Missouri; and South Bend and Indianapolis, Indiana. In Glendale, Wisconsin, a man was beat up at a dice game. In Gary, Indiana, a man is wanted by police for sexually assaulting a woman after a dice game.

Four youths were playing dice and gambling in the basement lounge of a Cleveland recreation center when a gun in the pocket of a 13 year old accidentally went off. No one was injured and everyone in the room left the scene before police arrived. On surveillance video, though, police noticed that another person in the room also was carrying a gun.

When accused of trying to use counterfeit $20 bills to buy lottery tickets, a man in Fort Wayne, Indiana said that he had just picked them up as winnings in a dice game.

An elementary school teacher and Chess coach in Flagstaff, Arizona was arrested on suspicion of sexual conduct with a minor. A second charge of child molestation was later added.

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