Just after Stonemaier announced the third and final installation in the Wingspan series, it appears their website was overloaded with interested board gamers. The site was so overwhelmed by fish-loving fans of the previous games that it briefly went down, despite Stonemaier having prepped their web host for an incoming wave of rampant ichthyophiles. I imagine they didn’t put it like that, though it would explain why they didn’t seem to get the message.
As much as I’m excited about a fishy version of Wingspan and Wyrmspan, I’m still working my way through the best board games list now. So I promise I didn’t contribute to the site crash! This isn’t the first time it’s happened, either. Fishy Wingspan expansion Oceana crashed the Stonemaier site back in 2018, when masses of people flocked to get their pre-orders in.
There’s been a lot of speculation around what the next Wingspan game would look like, which no doubt helped to foreshadowed the big influx. BoardGameGeek forum users speculated around certain trademarks in one thread, with one user noting that Finspan had actually been trademarked a while back. Having gotten the date wrong, Jamey Stegmaier of Stonemaier games chimed in to correct them.
“I’m not here to confirm or deny anything about our January 8 announcement, but I’d like to clear up one thing and make one request”, he says. “We actually applied for the trademark mentioned in this thread on March 18, 2022”.
So the Finspan trademark had actually been floating around for two-and-a-bit years before finally coming to a head. Either way, Jamey goes on to ask of anyone thinking of sharing trademark information – which he acknowledges is public information anyway – to keep that kind of thing out of speculation threads since “that’s a spoiler, not speculation”.
“The request really isn’t fair for me to make, but I’ll make it anyway: When you see that a company has applied for a trademark […] please keep that information to yourself. It doesn’t seem like it’s in the spirit of speculation to share that. If someone really wants to know which trademarks a company has applied for, they would have looked up that information on their own.”
He then goes on to thank those in the know, such as his playtesters and the like, for keeping what they knew under wraps until the big reveal. A fair request, but to expect people on the internet not to spill the tea is asking a lot.
Finspan is expected to set sail on January 22, with its gorgeous artwork and apparently less complex design. You’ll be able to grab it on the Stonemaier games website, which is back up now in case you were worried.
For more recommendations, why not check out the best card games or best two-player board games.