Forty-eight hours to recall one's debut

At Gen Con 2025, at the Devir stand, there's a gentleman from Barcelona who has been shaking people's hands for years. His name is Benjamín Amorín, you'll find him as Benja in magazines, and for those who follow the gaming world, he is one of the faces of the Catalan publisher. He is the group's communication director. The one who presents other people's games.

That day, however, he is presenting his own game. Ace of Spades is the first game Benja signs as an author, after years spent speaking on behalf of Devir's catalog. A solo horror western, a poker deck illustrated by comic artist David Rubín, twelve enemies to defeat by playing card combinations. The production is meticulous, with a magnetic closure box, and even an official playlist to accompany the games. It's the debut of someone who has earned the right to create something of their own.

Less than twenty-four hours later, Devir withdraws all copies from stores.

What Benja has to manage, as Devir's communication director and the author of the game, is one thing with two sides. It is his product and his profession clashing in the same object. Devir recalls all copies, has the cards redrawn for free by the illustrator, publishes an official statement, and announces an editorial review of all future projects. The one phrase that remains from the statement, and in its Latin simplicity says a lot, is: never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. It is not a self-absolution. It is a declaration of method.

In May 2026, nine months later, Ace of Spades returns to shelves in a revised version. This is what I am importing to Frogames. Not the scandalous game cleaned up. The game remade. These are two different things, and the difference is the piece you are reading.

Poker is a game where the most important decision is not to play. Fold, let the hand go, wait for the next one. Patience is the central virtue of a poker player, and it is precisely the virtue that Ace of Spades forbids you.

You are in a duel. Before you is an enemy with ten, twenty, up to fifty health points. You have few turns to defeat them, and each turn you must play five cards. Eight in hand, five chosen, a poker combination. A pair is one point. Three of a kind is three. A full house is six. A royal flush is ten. No folding. No waiting for a good turn. The duel proceeds with forced moves, like those in the sun outside the saloon.

Defeat an enemy, and you take away one of their permanent powers. The further you go, the tougher the enemies, but the more cards you have to face them. The curve is designed so that the mathematically best hand is almost never available. You have to win with the shots you have, not the ones you want. It's a simple, very American idea, dressed up in a comic-book Western style by David Rubín, who draws the cards as if they were characters from a pulp graphic novel.

At the end of the game, no matter how it went, you realize one thing. The real dilemma wasn't against the enemy. It was against your desire to wait for the perfect moment. The Western duel is the metaphor the game uses to force you into a decision you always put off in life.

For once in this column, psychology is not about the player. It's about who produces the game. Because the story of Ace of Spades doesn't end with poker mechanics, it ends with what happens to a company when its product is returned. And here, research has something precise to say.

In 2024, in the Journal of Business Research, Matthew Hornsey, Cassandra Chapman, and their colleagues published two pre-registered experiments involving fourteen hundred and ten people. The question is simple: when a company publicly apologizes for a mistake, what does the public measure to decide whether to continue trusting it?

Psychology

Reform signals count more than culpability signals The study shows that when faced with a corporate apology, the public always reads two signals simultaneously. The first is the culpability signal: yes, they did it, they are responsible. The second is the reform signal: yes, it is likely that they have changed something, it is likely that it will not happen again. Both signals increase when the apology arrives. What the research finds is that regarding the consumer's concrete decision, whether to buy or not, whether to trust or not, the reform signal weighs more than the culpability signal. Not because people forgive the mistake. But because they evaluate the future with more weight than the past. Hornsey, Chapman, La Macchia & Loakes · 2024

Devir admitted without reservation, withdrew everything from stores, had the cards redrawn for free, and announced external consultations on future projects. These are all reform moves, not cover-ups. The Hornsey study says that this is precisely why the Revised Edition can be released and bought today. Not because people have forgotten, but because people read in the reform a concrete promise about the future, and that promise weighs more than the stain on the past.

This is something that goes well beyond board games. It applies to every company that has made a public mistake and is faced with the question of what to do in the first forty-eight hours. Research has an answer, and Devir in August 2025, without knowing it, followed it almost to the letter.

When you buy Ace of Spades in 2026, you will have two things in your hand. A game of poker and duels, well made, illustrated by one of the most recognizable Spanish comic artists of the moment. And a small physical manual of what a publisher does when their mistake makes them public. The way a company handles its own mistake says more about it than the way it publishes its successes.