Game Trade Media’s Production Manager and contributor to the upcoming Overstreet Guide to Collecting Tabletop Games Rick Ankney was on hand at the inaugural PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia, PA on November 17-19, 2017. The weekend was packed with board game tournaments and plenty of hands-on action for great upcoming new games.

Ankney MC’d a panel during the convention, called “State of the Tabletop Industry and Beyond!” The panel looked at, of course, the status of the industry at large and panelists featured were Scott Gaeta (President, Renegade Game Studios), Justin Ziran (President, WizKids) Mike Webb (VP Customer Service, Alliance Game Distributors), Travis Severance (Owner, Millennium Games), and Tom Vasel (Owner, The Dice Tower).

“It finalized with an overall consensus that the board game industry is at its all time high and still shows to be a growing market,” Renegade Game Studios wrote on their blog. “More and more gamers every year which means more and more games are being produced. The top quality we are getting in our boxes today are setting the standard for what a board game should be and what is expected. Who knows when, but there will be a plateau, but as we are seeing it, we are at the best of times!”

Stay tuned to Scoop for more PAX Unplugged coverage in the coming weeks.