The German Conference of Ministers of Culture of the Federal States and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media confirmed yesterday that 18 living traditions will be included in the nationwide directory of intangible cultural heritage – including “playing board games”. The SAZ welcomes the decision and demands consequences.

A recent statistic shows that loans of analogue games in German public libraries doubled to more than five million loans per year in the period from 2020 to 2023. The statutory remuneration claims (library royalties) must finally be fulfilled.

Foreign authors must apply to the German Federal Central Tax Office (BZSt) for an exemption so that the German publisher is not forced to reduce the royalty payment by 15% withholding tax for licenses. In a press release, SAZ criticises the bureaucracy at the BZSt as well as the practice of many publishers and makes suggestions for simplifying the system.

The "Spiel des Jahres 2024" is Sky Team by Luc Rémond (Kosmos / Scorpion Masqué), and e-Mission by Matt Leacock and Matteo Menapace (Schmidt) was chosen as the "Kennerspiel des Jahres 2024". The "Kinderspiel des Jahres 2024" award went to Der magische Schlüssel by Markus Slawitscheck and Arno Steinwender (Game Factory / Happy Baobab).

An exciting research project is being launched under the leadership of TU Braunschweig in Germany. With public funding, the "QUANTista" project team is developing a board game about quantum technologies to familiarise a wide audience with them.

The 42nd Game Designers Convention will take place in Goettingen on June 1st and 2nd, 2024. Detailed information about the event and the online registration form can be found under this direct link or under EVENTS on this website.

Much has already been written about the diverse ways in which analog games promote cognitive and social skills. One aspect has so far been neglected and is currently highly topical: promoting an understanding of democratic principles and their application. An article in Politik & Kultur goes into this in detail.

Reiner Knizia is like royalty in the board game community. With more than 700 published games, spanning a 25-year career, he is one of, if not the most prolific board game designer in the world. Euronews presents him in an article and a video.

The German Kurt Wolff Foundation has published an illustrative overview of the book industry, which uses an exemplary literary title to show how the costs and revenues of a book are shared.

At a ceremony in Berlin on August 31, 2023, the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Artists' Social Insurance was celebrated. As the German government pointed out, the Artists' Social Insurance is a unique social and cultural policy achievement in Europe. Freelance game authors also benefit from this.

The Game Designers Association (SAZ) is pleased to announce the founding of SAZ Nederland, its second foreign group after SAZ Italia (2017). This was the logical consequence after the membership in the Netherlands had developed positively in the last years.

At its general assembly in Göttingen on June 2nd, the SAZ elected a new board: Hartmut Kommerell as Chairman, and Markus Hagenauer and Rita Modl as Vice Chairmen.

Filmmaker Luca Bitonte and game expert Andrea Angiolino dedicated this documentary to game designer Alexander Randolph on the occasion of his 100th birthday in 2022, based on interviews with game authors, illustrators, publishers and experts who met and collaborated with Randolph.

Over 300 people were present at the event. IDEAG celebrated with great success the 18th national meeting organized by SAZ Italia that took place on 1st and 2nd April in Parma. The 75 tables were intensively used by the more than 160 registered authors and the 22 present publishers.

Leading German creative associations have expressed their concerns about the current development of AI systems in a first position paper, emphasizing the value of human creativity and making a number of demands for regulation.

Plagiarism seems to be booming. The German game author Anja Wrede reported on BoardGameGeek about a Chinese plagiarism of her game "Karla Kuchenfee", which was first published in 2010 by her own publishing house Edition Siebenschläfer.

The 18th Italian Meeting of board game authors organized by SAZ Italia will take place on 1st and 2nd April, 2023 in Parma at the Parma e Congressi Hotel. Registration for authors, bloggers, and playtesters will open on March 1st, while publishers can already sign up. More details at www.idea-g.it.

In the video, Reiner Knizia introduces his listeners to the world of a game author and describes the path from the initial idea to the finished game. In the process, he gives a clear vote for analog games in which people sit together at the table and have fun.

After a two-year Corona break, the International Game Designers' Convention, originally based in Haar, will take place at the Spielwarenmesse on February 3, 2023. As a B2B platform, the event offers an intensive exchange between game designers and game publishers from all over the world.

100 years ago today, the pioneer of modern game designers, Alex Randolph, was born in Bohemia. His passion belonged to chess, but games like Twixt, Tempo kleine Schnecke, Sagaland, Hol's der Geier and Rüsselbande made him famous. In 1991, he was one of the founders of the Game Designers Association (SAZ).

Zoom Out Media presents "The Game Designers" and highlights the work and stories of five board game designers. Industry luminaries Antoine Bauza and Matt Leacock share their origin stories and also give a look into their latest projects

Link to the Video

In addition to a review of the past months, the participants at the GM on Friday, February 14, 2022, focused in particular on the intended adjustment of Ravensburger's contract and the handling of author rights at HABA and its subsidiary Heldbergs.

Luca Borsa has been nominated by the members of SAZ Italia, the Italian group of the international association of game authors, as the new speaker, taking over from Paolo Mori.

Spielwarenmesse eG will take over ownership of the International Play Days SPIEL event on January 1, 2022. The previous orientation is to be retained.

SENET is a new independent print magazine from England about the craft, creativity and community of board games. The magazine promotes board gaming as an art form. Each issue includes previews of the most exciting and intriguing upcoming games and features on the creative processes behind them, among other things.

„Spiel des Jahres 2021“ is MicroMacro: Crime City by Johannes Sich (Edition Spielwiese and Pegasus Spiele),  the award „Kinderspiel des Jahres 2021“ wins Dragomino by Bruno Cathala, Marie Fort and Wilfried Fort (Pegasus Spiele). Paleo by Peter Rustemeyer (Hans im Glück) was chosen as "Kennerspiel des Jahres 2021".

At its SAZ general meeting on June 18, the SAZ elected its three-member board for the first time in a digital general meeting: Hartmut Kommerell as Chairman, and Markus Hagenauer and Katrin Abfalter as Vice Chairmen.

On June 12 th and 13 th 2021, the Game Designer Meeting 2021 will take place in virtual form at which the announcement of the winner of the German Scholarship for Young Game Authors will also be made. A tutorial will already be offered on May 14 th 2021.

On the basis of recent events, the Game Designers Association emphasizes that it has been working against any kind of discrimination and for a culture of tolerance since its foundation. An international working group is now to draw up a "Code of Respect and Responsibility" and put it up for discussion.

In SAZ Talk No. 1, we looked back and opened the door to 2020, but also the door to 2021.

Historical board games are enjoyed by people from all walks of life, but their designers are predominately white men. The Zenobia Award hopes to change this by encouraging game submissions by people from disadvantaged social groups.

"A wonderful initiative", with these words Chancellor Angela Merkel praised the " Games Café of Generations" in Bavaria. It received the special prize in the nationwide Startsocial Competition to strenghten voluntary commitment in Germany.

The game inventor Tim Walsh explaines in this video the roots of UNO, which was sold estimated 150 million copies. Cincinnati Barber Merle Robbins and his son Ray designed 1971 one of the most popular games in the world, and gave people so much fun.

The Game Designers Association (SAZ) has launched a new service on its website with the section "Publisher Profiles". Game publishers can introduce themselves there in short form with their focal points and search fields for new games and give contact information.

The Jury "Spiel des Jahres" announced today the winners for the Spiel des Jahres (PICTURES) and of the Kennerspiel des Jahres (THE CREW).

Unfortunately, in accordance with the City of Göttingen, we are forced to cancel the event due to the Corona pandemic and the foreseeable regulations for protection against new infections.

In this special tribute issue, we honor the person who is the greatest American game designer in terms of both quantity AND quality – a combination impossible to beat: Sid Sackson. The World of Games has lost a true titan. Judging from the reactions around the globe, gamers around the world know this all too well and he is greatly missed.

At the general meeting on the eve of the Game Designers Convention in Göttingen, the previous board of SAZ was re-elected. With approx. 350 participants – including approx. 170 Game Authors and 80 publishing house representatives – the Game Designers Convention in the new location LOKHALLE was a complete success.

The Dutch website spellenmaakgilde.net published an interview with the manager of SAZ, Christian Beiersdorf – introducing himself and the Game Designers Association to the audience in the Netherlands.

In the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Deepmind is a leading research and development laboratory belonging to Google. The researchers chose the card game Hanabi as the ideal game to consider how to incorporate the 'Theory of Mind' into Intelligent Agents.

The Italian meeting of the game designers reach new records of participation. About 200 authors were present at the 15th edition of the Italian game designer meeting the 12th and 13th of January at the Hotel San Marco in Ponte Taro, in the province of Parma. During the event, 400 new prototypes were presented and tested.

The rights and conditions for various forms of digital exploitation are becoming increasingly important. This is also shown by a lawsuit by the Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, whose books were used as the basis for digital games. After a long dispute, a settlement was reached.

Some members of the Spiel des Jahres jury have launched the initiative "Spielend für Toleranz" (Playing for Tolerance), which has since been joined by many game bloggers and game websites.  The Game Designers Association (SAZ) supports this campaign ...

Recently, a campaign was launched on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter for a new edition of Alex Randolph's classic TwixT, which has since been cancelled after repeated criticism on the platform. However, the initiator Wayne Dolezal of Lil' Cerebral Games still wants to publish the game in the USA.

The 37th Game Designers Convention, organized by the SAZ and the City of Göttingen, ended on Sunday, June 3 with a positive result.

The subject matter is the game NEXTPRESS, for which Karsten Adlung was also responsible as author and referred explicitly to EXPRESS by Reiner Knizia. This game has been in the program of Adlung before.

Currently, the publishers send the license statements for the last billing period, mostly for the second half of 2017. Despite all the joy of the upcoming payments, we recommend from actual experience to check these statements very closely.

The so-called "bestseller paragraph" (§ 32a German law of IP) provides for the subsequent participation of an author if the original remuneration is in a "conspicuous disproportion" to the income. On the basis of this law, the cameraman has now been awarded an appropriate remuneration.

For this demand, SAZ and German game publishers have submitted an application in the section Socio-Culture and Cultural Education in the German Cultural Council. Games are a valuable cultural asset and have a high social significance. Facilitated access is worthy of promotion.

At the gamescom 2017 in Cologne, the representatives of five parties expressed their support for the promotion of the digital game culture. We now confronted CDU, SPD, DIE LINKE, B'90/DIE GRÜNEN and FDP with our demands for the promotion of the analogous game culture.

The famous game author Wolfgang Kramer is celebrating today, June 29, 2017, his 75^th birthday. The SAZ congratulates him cordially and honors him by awarding the honorary membership.

The 36th Game Designers Convention in Göttingen on the 10th and 11th of June 2017 can announce a participation record with more than 300 registrations this year.

After the termination of the contract to Reiner Knizia EXPRESS, Adlung Games launched in autumn 2016 NEXT PRESS with the author stating "Karsten Adlung" – promoted by the publisher expressly as a further development and as "The new EXPRESS".

The PREMIO ARCHIMEDE 2018, organized by studiogiochi in Venice (Italy), is a competition for unpublished board games. Further, some special prizes will also be awarded. The entry fee is May 31st, 2018.

The Game Designers Association (SAZ) lost its founding member and first chairman of the board (1991–1993). The games designer and book author Hajo Bücken died on 30th December 2016 in Berlin at the age of 72.

On June 3, 2011, the eve of the Game Designer Meeting in Göttingen, the Game Designer Association (SAZ) held it‘s general meeting. At the regular end of the term, a new executive board was elected: As new members join Harald Mücke, as 1. Chairman and Dr. Michael Feldkötter as 2. Chairman. Christian Beiersdorf was reelected as treasurer.