Board game pros – multi-talented individuals with a passion

They’re imaginative, inventive, persistent – and playful well into their old age: people who invent board games, test them, and bring them to market; those who have founded gaming clubs and archives; and those who have dedicated their professional lives to ludology. Without them, there’d be no formative childhood memories like playing Hare and Tortoise or Funny Bunny, not to mention complex board games with lots of spin-offs like Catan, which brighten up the free time of thousands. Sixty-six of these people are now profiled in the German book Brettspielprofis (Board Game Pros).
The book was edited by Karin Falkenberg, who, until recently, was the director of the Nuremberg Toy Museum. The portraits are based on a scientific survey of the people behind the board games. The motivation behind the book was the desire to have German board game culture recognised as intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO – something that was achieved at the federal level in 2025. This may sound like a rather intellectual analysis of this cultural asset, but the portraits written by Peter Budig, Gabriele König, Toni Janosch Krause, Jana Mantel and Peter Neugebauer focus entirely on the personalities (mainly from German-speaking countries) and their colourful and highly entertaining lives. Elke Schillai illustrated them, with references to board game visuals.

 

Pioneers and young innovators

When making their selection, the authors focused on the rapid development of the board game scene in the second half of the 20th century up to the present day. The big names in the industry are featured, including those who have passed away, such as game reviewer Eugen Oker, post-game icon Walter Luc Haas, and inventor Rudi Hoffmann (Café International, Maestro), whose ideas and commitment to gaming helped the scene make great strides forward, as well as their younger successors, who are taking classic board games to new levels with their graphic, tactical, and story ideas.

When reading about the inventors and idea generators, it soon becomes clear that they are exceptionally talented people who are devoted to games – not in the sense of being highly gifted (although they sometimes are), but, above all, with a keen sense of the links between mental effort and pleasure, between haptic experience and fantastic journeys of the mind, between social interaction and competition. The club initiators, publishers, and specialist journalists interviewed are an integral part of the social aspect in playing games. Testing, discussing, comparing, and sometimes even rethinking games with new rules is an essential part of the cultural asset that is board gaming and the gaming scene. However, inventors Inka and Markus Brand critically note that the YouTube reviewers that are quick off the mark often don’t actually get to grips with the games in detail.

Moulded in childhood

Playing games as a family has shaped almost all of them – often with classics such as chess, Halma, and Ludo. And sometimes it’s the roundabout route via digital media that led some of them back to board games, as in the case of Petra Fuchs, who runs the Spielcafé der Generationen (Game Café of the Generations) in Pfarrkirchen and who found her way back to board games via LAN parties.
The starting point behind the ideas for games is as varied as the interests of their inventors: a knack for math puzzles, a love of literature, or a gift for graphic design. But their talents always overlap. Illustrator Doris Matthäus also has a keen appreciation for the mechanics of a game – but her husband Frank is 

primarily responsible for designing them. In general, it’s the teams of inventors that often make for the most interesting reading – perhaps because you get insights into the creative “ping pong” that leads to a great board game.

No publisher, no deal

Let’s not forget the entrepreneurs who make these successes possible: they’re the people who combine business acumen with a keen sense of what the public wants. And what they want is constantly changing, which is something we sometimes forget when we think of the great classics.
Many of the people portraited in the book have shown tireless commitment to board games as cultural assets: without them, there’d be no author names on the boxes, no SPIEL fair in Essen, and no game archives in Altenburg, Haar, or Nuremberg.
The book Brettspielprofis (Board Game Pros) takes a strictly biographical approach, which means that the links between inventors, illustrators, publishers, and reviewers become apparent only gradually. Some texts are rendered redundant by the subjects’ own additions. And there are certainly one or two personalities who weren’t included but who deserved to be. Nonetheless, the book provides a comprehensive insight into the diversity found in the industry.
After this entertaining read, there’s one thing that sticks in your mind: the people who cherish and nurture board games are all interesting and extraordinary individuals, tireless in their dedication and friendly competition. They’re all wonderful ambassadors who are able to convince us that playing games is the elixir of life and brings people together.
 

Info:

Board Game Professionals: People and Their Stories on the Path from Board Game to Industry.
Published for the museums of the city of Nuremberg by Karin Falkenberg. 
Michael Imhoff Verlag, Nuremberg, 2025, ISBN 978-3-7319-1560-7, €22.

The book was created with the support of the Spiel des Jahres e.V. association

Since 2025, playing board games has been recognized as part of Germany’s Intangible Cultural Heritage. Read more about it here: https://www.unesco.de/staette/brettspiele-spielen-brettspielkultur-in-deutschland/Many of the professionals featured in the book were committed to this cause.

About the author

Journalist and presenter Katharina Erlenwein was deputy editor of the arts section of the Nürnberger Nachrichten newspaper for many years. Since 2021, she has been dedicating herself to science communication, cultural adult education, and volunteering at the Literaturhaus Nürnberg. She likes board games with visual and tactile appeal. When playing these, winning is not so important.