Board Game Company Threatened With Boycotts By Industry After Suggesting Use Of AI In Design

AEG or Alderac Entertainment Group was once known for their top-of-the-line collectible card games and RPGs like Legend of the Five Rings, 7th Sea, and Deadlands: Doomtown. In recent years, the company has shifted to what they consider accessible board games, trying to appeal to the more casual gamer and to the DEI-infested industry with their antics, but now the entire industry has turned on the company after its CEO made a statement positing what AI might be able to do in the future.

Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) is an American tabletop‑game publisher founded in 1993, originally to publish the gaming magazine Shadis. It was started by Jolly Blackburn, who left a few years later; the company was then led and largely owned by John Zinser, who helped steer it into the broader gaming market.

Eventually, they became known for their Legend of the Five Rings card game and RPG, along with a lot of other very creative CCG games, but they pivoted to the more generic board game market several years back. Today AEG is a privately held, California‑based company that markets itself as a “small but focused” board‑game publisher, producing hits like Tiny Towns, Mystic Vale, Thunderstone, Istanbul, and Space Base. The company emphasizes design‑driven, broadly appealing games and often uses crowdfunding and partnerships to bring new titles to market.

Part of their transition has, of course, involved Zinser and company moving hard to the left, virtue signaling to the woke activists in gaming and calling out and attacking anyone who’s family-oriented on the right to make sure the industry at large kept applauding them over the years. This move was unfortunate, as Zinser was always known as a long-time Republican in the industry, and seemed like a naked attempt to try to save his skin when the industry took out their pitchforks for anyone to the right of Mao.

Now, AEG’s current CEO has violated the narrative of the creative arts industry activists by making a statement positivng a use of AI:

This prompted complete outrage from the board game industry, as the establishment in the creative arts publishing is supposed to all 100% oppose AI in some Don Quixote-level running at windmills exercise in futility, just so they can feel better about themselves.

Suzanne, a former Dice Tower Contributor who’s been a massive proponent of cancel culture to the point of getting one of the largest retailers banned from Gencon out of personal animus, amplified the virtue signaling against AEG:

One of AEG’s own designers gave his take on how “sad” he/him is:

Another board game designer who lists he/him in his profile said:

A man who pretends to be a woman in order to sell his games on Kickstarter chimed in:

Shannon Applecline, who wrote a recent RPG history that lambasted original D&D creator Gary Gygax called for a boycott over the comment:

John Zinser, AEG’s owner who attempted to cancel the purveyor of Fandom Pulse for board game reporting in order to appease these people, tried to cover himself once again:

Like usual, his statements did little to appease those who were in the cancel mood, including another man who pretends to be a woman who organizes boycotts against Harry Potter-themed games because of his hatred of JK Rowling.

AEG is in a position where they could just lean into it and tell these people to buzz off, which is what any company should do. But it appears as if they might be so far down the rabbit hole that they’ll be forced to disavow AI forever, which means other companies will simply leap ahead of them in terms of logic and consistency for games, which will put them at a competitive disadvantage as the years go by.

Surely, AI won’t be able to come up with a creative masterpiece like “Point Salad,” could it? Why should they be afraid?

What do you think of this cancel mob brewing in board gaming?

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