Yeah, Asmodee’s in a good place. Only 20% of their revenue comes from the US, and about half their revenue is from card games, which are simpler to produce, so their exposure is limited. Which is good, given how much debt their parent company saddled them with in their IPO.
Well, this is interesting. This game designer/producer says that the new tariffs shouldn’t be hitting board games, and that it’s stupidity/ignorance that’s made them subject to those tariffs for some companies.
The Board Game Industry Is Burning — And It’s Their Own Fault
Man, that’s a pretty harsh critique. Was there some prior bad blood between those companies? Doesn’t seem like a great time to be smack talking other board game companies right now…
The rest of the article feels like victim blaming too, like “Instead of making board games as passion project, you should’ve done your research and learned every intricacy of international tariffs and customs laws and kept up with the changes over the last decade. Your own damned fault you didn’t do that.”
Even if he’s technically correct (which I’m not able to determine), it still feels like a huge burden that wasn’t there before.
The Final Frontier statement never blamed the Tariffs. They essentially admitted they were floating today’s Kickstarter to fund yesterday’s (as I wrote a few posts above). This is definitely a morally grey area but is not uncommon in the industry (but definitely not universal). People have right to be mad (and I say that as someone who backed one of their games and lost money) but they also have right to be mad at what Trump is doing.
It is reckless bad policy that achieves no goals and is actively hurting people. What FFG did was arguably their own fault but what Trump is doing is his fault and his alone.
@DrDeth is correct insofar as finished goods pay tariffs on the schedule that was in effect when they ‘left port’ (technically when they were loaded on the containership, see “Does the shipment date matter?” in that WSJ link) even though they actually pay them 10-30 days after the shipment enters the receiving port, but that is essentially irrelevant to the point that game design companies are still hit with the shock of three figure tariffs unless their shipment happened to be in the ~1 month period for ocean freight between the China and the United States, they are stuck with whatever tariff policy is emanating from the White House in the week their goods are shipped. No game publishers knew that the United States was going to apply >1x tariffs when they put in a manufacturing order months or even more than a year ago, and nobody knows that the tariff schedule is going to look like even a few months out, so it is impossible to estimate total production costs including absurdly high tariffs levied by a mercurial self-described dictator. And except for the couple of large corporations that produce tabletop games like Hasbro, no game producer has the millions of dollars of cash reserves to weather a ‘trade war’ with no end in sight.
That comes off as less of an informed critique or helpful guidance in dealing with tariffs than as gloating arrogance over how much smarter the author is than everyone else, and is stocked to the brim with misapprehensions. For one, most game publishers have little to no understanding of the nuances of shipping regulations and procedures (unless they have someone on staff who has world in global logistics or they follow the excellent “What’s Going on With Shipping?” YouTube channel with Sal Mercogliano, and which covers all manner of maritime topics with greater depth and experience than a fistful of strategic analysts and market prognosticators) and even if they did they do not have any direct control over their freight forwarder (often a different company than the integrator) and whatever HTS code they apply, which is typically contracted by the manufacturing and logistics middleman, nor could they conceivably negotiate all of the individual factory production, assembly, and logistics themselves. Not only are their language and cultural barriers but any individual Kickstarter-level game—even one as big as Gloomhaven—just doesn’t have enough volume for individual manufacturers to be interested except through established production chains.
Even if small publishers could get their product imported for 20% tariffs, either by classifying it under a 9504.90 HTS code, or alternatively (as the author of the article suggests) purchase the individual components for domestic assembly, that is still a large hit on what is often a very modest profit margin even assuming things go well. And the idea of a small publishing house—often just a handful of designers and marketers—assembling thousands of game boxes without onerous costs, quality control issues, and OSD issues is absurd; it takes space, equipment, and a lot of time for untrained people to assemble and package professional-grade games, which is why virtually all crowdfunded boardgames outsource this to foreign assemblers. I’ve known a couple of indie RPG Kickstarter publishers—one or two person outfits where the principals work day jobs—who opted to package their relatively simple ‘zine-style publications with stickers and patches, and even after doing a few hundred of those takes up weeks of late nights and full weekends to package, check, label, and ship the packages, all the while they’re getting nagged on Kickstarter or social media as to why their projects aren’t delivering overnight even though they already received all of the components. Actually assembling the table of components listed in the article (cards, punchboards, dice, minis, boxes, inserts, and rulebooks) and then shrinkwrapping (because apparently even products that are never going to sit on a store shelf and are being sent directly to the consumer need a protective layer of once-use plastic) is many person-months worth of effort for a typical Kickstarter run of several thousand products even without consideration for special additions and add-ons. It’s a massive undertaking on top of what is often an unexpectedly exhaustive effort for communicating with their integrator, repeatedly correcting files and dealing with pre-production defects or issues, and all of the business of communicating with backers, many of whom think they should get a personal response within a few hours of messaging or emailing.
One salient point that is made in that article is that most publishers “don’t have a direct-to-consumer [DTC] strategy,” and are often using the Kickstarter as a way to bankroll a much wider retail sales campaign, which is a fair criticism because crowdfunding is primarily a DTC platform. (Many campaigns include a retail procurement option but I question that many brick & mortar stores are very interested in investing thousands of dollars to purchase multiple copies of an unproven boardgame delivered on an uncertain schedule to a customer base that is likely to back the game directly anyway.) Most crowdfunding campaigns want to spring out fully formed without first establishing themselves in the gaming marketplace with more simple games and supplements, and rely upon a combination of social media, promotion by other game designers or ‘influencers” to bolster their virtually non-existent reputation, and often hope that backend post-campaign sales will make up for shortfalls as word-of-mouth gets around to how amazing their special project is. However, that issue is really entirely separate from the unanticipated onus of spastic trade policy creating unfavorable conditions or their own country applying massive import tariffs.
I think the larger lesson here is that the crowdfunded boardgame industry (and to a large extent, crowdfunding in general) is a problematic business model that assumes predictable market and fiscal conditions in which one can leverage a new campaign upon the presumed success of the prior one without having a large cash reserve or expertise in the esoteric aspects of manufacturing and global logistics. Most game designers, unsurprisingly, just want to make a great game and a modest profit, and are not prepared or equipped to undertake major aspects of retail-type delivery from manufacturer to store shelf or direct-to-consumer without the aid of speciality integrators and their ties to manufacturing houses and freight shippers.
Of course, the end of this scathing article includes a plug for his own book on how to “do it right” in the game industry, which may well be on point but is likely beyond the means and experience of most indie game publishers. Which means that they either need to somehow raise enough capital to hire people who are experienced in all of the mundane aspects of game manufacture, assembly, and logistics, or sell their idea to one of the the handful of corporate game producers who will churn out a typically mediocre product for the mass market and pay a few percent of gross profits in royalties after they get done engineering the finances to put every possible cost against net revenues, and you end up signing away the IP to a company like Hasbro that will either ruin it or try to ‘monetize’ it into a ‘digital presence’ full of usurious microtransactions to suck every penny out of players instead of focusing on delivering a quality product.
Stranger
All true- which means Indy game companies that rely upon cheap labor in China may well be screwed, But maybe not, since trump could change his mind tomorrow. The outlook is chaotic.
Too many are doing what kinda amounts to a legal ponzi scheme- paying old customers with goods bought from new Kickstarters- wash, rinse, repeat.
Yep.
WotC/Hasbro prints most of their stuff in Europe for the better quality and less restrictions on content. However, most of their toys are made in China.
I was at ChaosiumCon US last weekend, a small-ish convention (maybe 500 attendees?), sponsored by Chaosium. All of the events were play of Chaosium’s games, primarily their tabletop RPGs (Call of Cthulhu, Runequest, and Pendragon).
Chaosium has been in the process of releasing materials for the latest version (sixth edition) of the Pendragon RPG for a couple of years, and their “Gamemaster’s Handbook” – a hardcover rule book – is currently in production/printing in Poland, with an anticipated release next month.
At the convention, I played in a Pendragon game which was run by a veteran GM who has done some writing for the game. He shared with us, from what the Chaosium people had shared with him, that it’s still an open question as to whether, when copies of the Gamemaster’s Handbook are shipped to the U.S., they will be considered “books” (and not currently subject to a tariff) or “games” (and subject to a tariff).
Years ago, it made the news when a judge ruled that X-Men action figures should be classified as toys rather than dolls. Marvel had been trying to keep them classified as dolls because it meant their costs were lower.
Interesting article. I’m dubious, but it’s still worth quoting. Here’s a quote:
MFN Status: The Reason You’re Not Already Paying 145%
Most people screaming about tariffs don’t realize their board games are protected by something called Most-Favored Nation (MFN) status . Most publishers don’t even know what an MFN tariff rate is—let alone why it matters.
Here’s the deal:
- MFN status means a country (like China) is still considered a “friendly” trade partner under WTO rules.
- Products under MFN codes (like board games) don’t get hit with retaliatory “reciprocal” tariffs , because there’s nothing to reciprocate.
- But if your freight forwarder files your shipment under something like 9503—miscellaneous toys (hello, puzzles and dolls), you’re toast.
The author may be correct, but his claims conflict with reporting by Bloomberg and the NYT. Those publications put the term, “Reciprocal” in quotes because the tariffs aren’t actually reciprocal at all. Passing truly reciprocal tariffs would be an arduous undertaking that apparently this administration is disinterested in. Because it would involve tens of thousands of line items.
The Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) appears to agree, emphasis added:
This column makes two points. First, the 2 April 2025 tariffs – which will surely go down in history as the “2025 Trump Tariffs” to echo the “1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariffs” – undermine the global trade system since they violate two key WTO principles: non-discrimination among WTO members (so-called MFN treatment), and respect for tariff concessions that were bound in previous tariff negotiations.
So according to CEPR, MFN status won’t protect you. The author of the table game piece may have located a loophole and if so, God bless. Or he may be blowing smoke. I would guess the latter. Either way, it’s interesting.
More:
Want to fact-check this yourself?
You can look up any HTS code and its tariff rate directly at the official U.S. Harmonized Tariff Schedule: https://hts.usitc.gov
Just type in the HTS code and hit enter.
Ok, I did that for dice (9504.90.60.00) and got a tariff of 40%, not 20%. And again, reporting suggests that China is getting special tariff rates, not “Harmonized” ones. The rates may have changed since the author posted his piece. Or not. Who knows?
Amazon calls them books.
I dont think those two drilled down that far into the fine lines there. I’d believe an industry source in a specialized field for something like that. Yes, there are loopholes.
Good to know. We’ll see what whoever determines the tariffs decides to call them.
Yeah. During all the years X-Men action figures were legally classified as dolls, I never saw them in the doll section of a toy department or toy store.
I misread the table. 40% is a column 2 rate, which applies to North Korea et al. Most countries receive a column 1 rate which is… free. There is no 20% entry that I could see. I’m not convinced that the table has been updated to include China rates. Given the discrepancy between what the industry author claims and my fact checking, along with basic conflicts with business reporting and the tendentiousness of the blog post, I can’t put my trust in that piece. Dr. Deth’s contention is plausible though: I just have a different call. For example, I haven’t dug too deeply into the government website’s documentation.
Even if that article’s author is right about every single point, there’s no guarantee he’ll still be right by next week. The uncertainty alone is disastrous.
I concur. The outlooks is very problematic and scary.
Is that why my 5th edition D&D books have been literally falling apart since about a month after I bought them?
That’s a bit garbled. It didn’t make a financial difference to Marvel, because Marvel doesn’t make the toys. Marvel filed an Amicus Curae briefing arguing that they were dolls, because the characters portrayed were human (that being the legal distinction between “dolls” and “toys”). It was the company that made the toys that was trying to lower costs, by arguing that the X-Men are not human, and that therefore the toys were not dolls.
Which leads me to wonder why on earth “dolls” are taxed differently from “toys”. But i suppose that’s drifting off topic.
Oops.My mistake.
I dont know anything about it myself, but its worth reading the comments on that article, they seem pretty convinced hes wrong.
For a start, apparently the website with the tariff amounts is out of date due to the speed things have changed, and the MFN rule he mentioned doesnt apply to the trump tariffs due to some technicality.