Wow, I had no idea Phil Eklund was such a superstar! I met him waaaay back in 1990 when he still lived in Tucson and would bring his whacky home made games to the “Historical Games Society” club at the U of A. Way to go Phil!
I know Phil Eklund primarily from hard-core science simulations such as High Frontier and Biosgenesis. I do know him, but I wouldn't rank him among game design superstars such as Uwe Rosenberg or Reiner Knizia. His games are not exactly mainstream.
Speaking of which, this article suggests that boardgames are niche, but games like Siedler von Catan, Agricola, or the many, many games by Reiner Knizia, are absolutely mainstream. At least in Europe. I spent 1997 giving everybody Siedler von Catan for their birthday (and later the Dutch translation), so I would hope everybody vaguely interested in boardgames has it by now.
This does kind of happen. I have a friend who used to drag us to play Camelot in some strange bar. Fast forward 10 years, he translated or edited most of titles I play these days. As in, his name in credits of every other box.
