People & Organizations

Board games are created by people and published by organizations. The data model captures both with explicit, many-to-many relationships to games.

Person Entity

A Person represents an individual who contributed to a game’s creation.

Game-Person Relationships

The association between a game and a person includes a role that specifies the nature of their contribution:

Roles

A person can have multiple roles on the same game. A single individual might be both designer and developer, and those are recorded as two separate associations.

Many-to-Many

The relationship is fully many-to-many:

• A game can have multiple designers: Pandemic is designed by Matt Leacock (solo), but 7 Wonders Duel is designed by Antoine Bauza and Bruno Cathala.
• A person can design multiple games: Uwe Rosenberg designed Agricola, Caverna, A Feast for Odin, Patchwork, and dozens more.

flowchart LR
    subgraph "Published by Leder Games"
        RT["Root<br/><i>(2018)</i>"]
        UW["Root: The Underworld<br/><i>(2020)</i>"]
        OT["Oath<br/><i>(2021, IP sold 2026)</i>"]
    end

    subgraph "Published by Buried Giant Studios"
        AR["Arcs<br/><i>(2024, IP purchased 2026)</i>"]
        ONF["Oath: New Foundations<br/><i>(2026)</i>"]
    end

    subgraph People
        CW["Cole Wehrle<br/><i>designer</i>"]
        KF["Kyle Ferrin<br/><i>artist</i>"]
    end

    CW -->|designer| RT
    CW -->|designer| UW
    CW -->|designer| OT
    CW -->|designer| AR
    CW -->|designer| ONF
    KF -->|artist| RT
    KF -->|artist| UW
    KF -->|artist| OT
    KF -->|artist| AR
    KF -->|artist| ONF

The same people (Cole Wehrle, Kyle Ferrin) appear on games across two different publishers. The person entities stay the same – only the game-organization relationships change. This is why people and organizations are modeled independently rather than nesting people under their publisher.

Organization Entity

An Organization represents a company involved in bringing a game to market.

Organization Types

Game-Organization Relationships

A game commonly has multiple publishers for different regions:

• Root is published by Leder Games (US), Matagot (France), Schwerkraft-Verlag (Germany), and others.

The region field disambiguates which publisher is responsible for which market. The year field handles cases where publishing rights change over time.

Publisher Transitions

Publishing relationships are not permanent. Designers move between studios, and new expansions for an existing game family may ship under a different publisher. The data model must capture this without rewriting history.

Case study: Leder Games -> Buried Giant Studios. Cole Wehrle and Kyle Ferrin were the lead designer and artist at Leder Games (founded by Patrick Leder), where they created Root (2018), Oath (2021), and Arcs (2024). In January 2026, Wehrle announced that he and Ferrin were leaving to form Buried Giant Studios, joined by Drew Wehrle, Ted Caya, Josh Yearsley, and other longtime collaborators.

Crucially, Buried Giant purchased the rights to both Oath and Arcs from Leder Games outright – this is a full IP transfer, not a license. Root remains at Leder Games. The Oath: New Foundations Kickstarter (funded mid-2024) is now fulfilled by Buried Giant.

In the data model, this produces the following game-organization records:

Note that Oath and Arcs retain their original Leder Games publisher records – that is historical fact. The IP transfer does not rewrite history; it means new products in those families are published by Buried Giant. The person records (Cole Wehrle, Kyle Ferrin) are unchanged across both eras – they are credited on Leder-era and Buried Giant-era games through the same person entities. This is a key reason why people are modeled independently from organizations: a designer’s body of work spans their entire career, not just their tenure at one company.

Querying

Get all games by a designer

GET /people/cole-wehrle/games?role=designer

Returns all games where Cole Wehrle is credited as designer – spanning both the Leder Games and Buried Giant Studios eras.

{
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "01912f4c-a1b2-7c3d-8e4f-5a6b7c8d9e0f",
      "slug": "root",
      "name": "Root",
      "type": "base_game",
      "year_published": 2018,
      "role": "designer",
      "_links": {
        "self": { "href": "/games/root", "title": "Root" }
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "01912f4c-b2c3-7d4e-9f5a-6b7c8d9e0f1a",
      "slug": "oath",
      "name": "Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile",
      "type": "base_game",
      "year_published": 2021,
      "role": "designer",
      "_links": {
        "self": { "href": "/games/oath", "title": "Oath" }
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "01912f4c-c3d4-7e5f-af6b-7c8d9e0f1a2b",
      "slug": "arcs",
      "name": "Arcs",
      "type": "base_game",
      "year_published": 2024,
      "role": "designer",
      "_links": {
        "self": { "href": "/games/arcs", "title": "Arcs" }
      }
    },
    // ... Root: The Underworld Expansion, Root: The Marauder Expansion,
    //     Oath: New Foundations, Pax Pamir (Second Edition), etc.
  ],
  "_links": {
    "self": { "href": "/people/cole-wehrle/games?role=designer" }
  }
}

Get all publishers for a game

GET /games/root/organizations?role=publisher

Returns all organizations with a publisher role for Root, disambiguated by region and year.

{
  "data": [
    {
      "organization_id": "01913e5a-1a2b-7c3d-8e4f-5a6b7c8d9e0f",
      "name": "Leder Games",
      "slug": "leder-games",
      "role": "publisher",
      "region": "US",
      "year": 2018,
      "_links": {
        "organization": { "href": "/organizations/leder-games", "title": "Leder Games" }
      }
    },
    {
      "organization_id": "01913e5a-2b3c-7d4e-9f5a-6b7c8d9e0f1a",
      "name": "Matagot",
      "slug": "matagot",
      "role": "publisher",
      "region": "FR",
      "year": 2019,
      "_links": {
        "organization": { "href": "/organizations/matagot", "title": "Matagot" }
      }
    },
    {
      "organization_id": "01913e5a-3c4d-7e5f-af6b-7c8d9e0f1a2b",
      "name": "Schwerkraft-Verlag",
      "slug": "schwerkraft-verlag",
      "role": "publisher",
      "region": "DE",
      "year": 2019,
      "_links": {
        "organization": { "href": "/organizations/schwerkraft-verlag", "title": "Schwerkraft-Verlag" }
      }
    }
    // ... additional regional publishers
  ],
  "_links": {
    "self": { "href": "/games/root/organizations?role=publisher" }
  }
}

Get all artists who worked on games in a family

GET /families/root/people?role=artist

Returns all people credited as artist on any game in the Root family.

{
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "01913d4f-6f7a-7b8c-9d0e-1f2a3b4c5d6e",
      "slug": "kyle-ferrin",
      "name": "Kyle Ferrin",
      "role": "artist",
      "games": [
        { "slug": "root", "name": "Root" },
        { "slug": "root-the-underworld-expansion", "name": "Root: The Underworld Expansion" },
        { "slug": "root-the-marauder-expansion", "name": "Root: The Marauder Expansion" },
        { "slug": "root-the-homeland-expansion", "name": "Root: The Homeland Expansion" }
      ],
      "_links": {
        "self": { "href": "/people/kyle-ferrin", "title": "Kyle Ferrin" }
      }
    }
  ],
  "_links": {
    "self": { "href": "/families/root/people?role=artist" }
  }
}