Game Studios Consider Overseas Distribution to Avoid US Tariffs

The board game industry is one of innovation, close-knit communities, and, for the most part, slim profit margins. This week, it was struck with a financial hit that some fear could signal the end of the road. Jamey Stegmaier, designer of recent hits like Scythe and Wingspan, tweeted out in frustration this week, responding to a newly announced 54 percent tariff on goods manufactured in China and imported to the United States.

“I just tried to work on a new game I’m working on, but it’s really hard to design something for the future when the future looks so bleak,” Stegmaier wrote in a follow-up blog post. “I mostly just stared numbly at the enormity of the newly announced 54 percent tariff.”

For a designer who’s responsible for some of the most popular titles in the global market, it was a rare personal and vulnerable reaction to the new import tax. But for a lot of folks in board game publishing, especially smaller publishers for whom cost and margins are a major concern, it was the first time the new policy hit home.

A Chinese Production Pipeline, Severed

The United States’ board game market relies on Chinese manufacturing more than any other. That’s not to say that other countries, like Germany, for example, the spiritual home of modern tabletop gaming, don’t have board game manufacturing facilities. But when it comes to the full production pipeline, the domestic alternative just doesn’t yet cut it.

It’s more than just printed cards or other paper components. This includes plastic miniatures custom-made to each game’s design, wooden tokens cut and painted by machine, die-cut boards, and specialty dice.

The lack of production on those components domestically isn’t for lack of trying. It’s not for lack of desire, either, as Stegmaier points out. Stegmaier recalls one American manufacturer quoting him $10 to print and package a box of an empty game, without any inserts, art, or physical components whatsoever. The same $10 will buy full production and packaging in China.

That price point is a major reason the new tariff is so alarming to so many. U.S. publishers, most of whom are small- to mid-sized, are operating on smaller and smaller margins already. Those margins were already thin, and it is essentially unheard of for a production factory to build costs for future tariffs into its quote.

Leading Voices from the Industry

Some of the most significant voices against the tariff are coming from within the board game industry itself, and from its most high-profile companies. Meredith Placko, CEO of Steve Jackson Games, wrote in a recent blog post about her own company’s dependence on offshore manufacturing for reasons almost identical to its peers.

“Some people ask, ‘Why not manufacture in the US?’ I wish we could. But the infrastructure to support full-scale boardgame production—specialty dice making, die-cutting, custom plastic and wood components—doesn’t meaningfully exist here yet. I’ve gotten quotes. I’ve talked to factories. Even when the willingness is there, the equipment, labor, and timelines simply aren’t,” Placko wrote.

For Placko, this isn’t just a logistical problem or a supply chain question. It’s a foundational attack. “This isn’t just a policy change,” she wrote. “It’s a seismic shift.”

Rob Daviau, co-founder of Restoration Games and a designer in his own right, has also made waves in the weeks leading up to the tariff announcement. Daviau, who has been vocal on social media about the state of the industry for months, noted in interview with BoardGameWire in July that the tariffs represented “an existential crisis” for nearly every meeting he’s been in recently, and that he could foresee a “great collapse in the hobby gaming market in the US” if the tariffs were ever passed.

Gamers to Feel Impact, Including on Retail

The new tariffs aren’t just going to hit designers and publishers either. Gamers could end up paying the price, too. First, new games will cost more on retail shelves. To try and avoid that price hike, some companies will try and cut corners, which will result in lower production quality. Or they might not launch new games at all, focusing on their backlogs and last-gen titles instead.

The impact of the tariffs might also have a significant impact on brick-and-mortar stores. At a time when the competition from online vendors is already taking its toll, gamers choosing to play games already in their collections (some of which, as fans of long-unplayed game collections like to call their “shelves of shame” know all too well) or buying new games online for better prices means even more local stores going out of business.

“In a few months, US companies will lose a lot of money and/or go out of business,” Stegmaier said on Twitter. “And US citizens will suffer from extreme inflation.”

Few Options, Big Discontent

This isn’t to say that some publishers won’t try to route their shipments through non-U.S. distributors, whose markets (European, for example) are less drastically affected by the tariffs. This is, however, no real solution for U.S. companies, as Stegmaier points out, 65 percent of his sales are U.S.-based, for example. It just shifts the point of damage, rather than evading it.

In many ways, it’s the tariff itself that’s frustrating to many in the industry. For games that haven’t been designed or started production, the companies affected have time to budget accordingly. For games already in production, already boxed up and on their way from Chinese factories to U.S. warehouses, there’s nothing to be done but pay up.

Chris Solis, head of California-based game design and publishing studio Solis Game Studio, found himself in that situation. “I have 8,000 games leaving a factory in China this week,” he tweeted out. “Need to scramble to figure out how to cover the import bill.”

Industry on the Brink

The Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA), a trade association representing the interests of board game publishers, has been active in its fight against the tariffs. Thus far, those efforts have been stymied.

The board game industry, for all of its many strengths, is still in the process of reckoning with what could be the most seismic shift in modern history. For an industry built on joy and happiness, the future looks uncertain at best.