After making $100m on Kickstarter, Zombicide studio CMON takes future board games exclusively to Gamefound

CMON, the board game studio best known for handling the expansive Zombicide series, has announced that its future crowdfunding projects will be hosted exclusively on Gamefound, breaking a long and successful tenure on Kickstarter.

The Singapore-based studio (though it now operates on several continents) released a statement on February 16th in coordination with Polish company Gamefound, Kickstarter’s biggest rival in the crowdfunding ecosystem. CMON is currently running its second Gamefound campaign for a skirmish-sized version of A Song of Ice and Fire: Tactics but already feels confident enough to ink an exclusive partnership for an untold number of future tabletop titles, plus the recently announced God of War baord game adaptation.

“I am extremely happy to bring CMON campaigns to Gamefound. They were not only pioneers in board game crowdfunding and the biggest crowdfunding creator of all time, but most importantly are creating and delivering amazing games to customers all over the world,” said Gamefound CEO Marcin Świerkot. “Gamefound’s features and continued growth over the past two years make this partnership a natural fit, and will help both of our companies reach new audiences, ensuring great games make their way to great people.”

It’s hard to understate the sheer amount of money CMON has amassed through Kickstarter. Zombicide made waves a mere three years into the platform's lifespan when it raised over $780,000 for the launch of what would become CMON’s bread and butter. Future seasons raked in ever-growing mountains of dollars over the next decade: $2.5 million for Season 2, nearly $2.9 for Season 3, $4 million for Black Plague, $5 million for Zombicide: Green Horde and peaking with an eye-watering $9 million for Marvel Zombies in February 2022.

This all goes without mentioning the cavalcade of 60+ projects that have filled out CMON’s release calendar over the years, including big titles in their own right such as Cthulhu: Death May Die, the Bloodborne board game and Ankh: Gods of Egypt. Their leaving Kickstarter for greener (heh) pastures won’t kill everyone’s favourite platform, but it certainly isn’t great news during a period of relative financial contraction for all crowdfunding platforms that publicly report their revenue. Locking down a known quantity like CMON is one strategy to combat recession spending habits that often leave luxury hobbies such as board games out in the cold.

“At CMON we always look to innovate and provide the best products and experiences for our customers. Gamefound has a number of excellent features that our fans have been asking for, and we feel their platform is a great fit for us as we move into the future. We want the consumer experience to be as smooth as possible, and Gamefound gives us the tools we need so we can focus on creating great games.”

CMON first hosted Masters of the Universe: Clash for Eternia on Gamefound to the tune of $719,000, and A Song of Ice and Fire: Tactics has already garnered over $1,000,000 at time of writing. The company says they plan to announce the next project “in the very near future”, which will be the first crowdfunding exclusive of its kind. Whether this begins a new trend of official partnerships remains to be seen.