Board game industry reels as Trump tariffs threaten job losses, company extinctions

Board game companies across the industry are bracing for price hikes, job losses and the potential shuttering of their businesses after US President Donald Trump unveiled sweeping import tariffs targeting countries across the world yesterday.

Publishers, designers, manufacturers, retailers and distributors alike have been left reeling by the scale of the tariffs, with imports from China – where the vast majority of board games are made – soaring to 54% under the new regime.

Board game makers and sellers have been scrambling since February to adjust their businesses after Trump initially imposed a 10% tariff on Chinese imports, which was doubled to 20% at the beginning of last month alongside threats of further tariffs on countries he deems are being “unfair” to the US through international trade.

The full scale of those threats was realised on April 3, when Trump more than doubled those China tariffs to 54%, alongside introducing duties of 20% on the European Union and at least 10% on almost every other country around the world.

Reaction to the news from across the board game industry has ranged from shock and fear over having to significantly hike prices, to existential concern that publishers, distributors and retailers will cease to exist once their already razor-thin margins are hammered by the new costs.

Roberto Di Meglio, director of production at War of the Ring publisher Ares Games, told BoardGameWire, “[My] gut reaction was ‘the board game industry in the USA will be killed by these tariffs’… together with the rest of the US economy.”

He said, “If the Congress does not force Trump to go back on these tariffs… our industry and many others will be killed, people will lose thousands of jobs, inflation will skyrocket, and the entire world will suffer from these decisions.”

Di Meglio added, “With the previous announcements of tariffs at 20%, we were already concerned, but we thought they might be handled with a combination of price increase and reducing our margins, with an expected increase between 10% and 20% as new products were reprinted.

“In fact, we had just sent out an announcement [the previous day] with price increases for about 20 new and reprinted products. 54% is a game changer – if not a game killer – and our immediate response was ‘the industry as it used to be is no more – we have to redesign our business model’.”

He said, “I think we will look at what our game catalog is, and find ways to produce games which are less reliant on China manufacturing and with high-end components and pricing.

“It’s still early to say, but overall I think this will be a trend for the coming years, with the market increasingly turning away from big, over-produced games, except as limited, direct-sale products.

“And the USA market, which was essential to our company, will need to become less of a focus for our business.

“The price increase will hurt everybody. However, publishers have at least a way out, partially – direct sales. Distributors and retailers do not, so I think they’ll be the ones suffering the most, and as a consequence, everybody else will suffer.”

Di Meglio added, “The lower tariff level for European production is surely an incentive to look again at the possibility of printing more games in Europe – we already started to do this in 2024, with the Mega Empires range – but given that, in these months, tariffs have increased in random and unexpected ways, it’s very hard to create a strategy to deal with them.

“We’ll have to navigate these troubled waters day-by-day, while steering away from the rocks – the US market – as much as possible.”

Retailer risks

Nate Petersen, the owner of West Michigan-based Backstage Hobbies and Games, has already seen his business weather the storms of the global financial crash and Covid-19 since launching in 2007.

He told BoardGameWire, “Like a few things we have dealt with, this is going to act as a brushfire and kill off some number of actors up and down the chain.

“In the Covid window, we saw a lot of people flush with stimulus money and remote work invest in opening new stores or starting a publishing imprint because the game industry is their passion and they had time and cash to do something about it.

“Some were immediately successful, some were not, and them some have kept up in the race but at a slower pace. We’ve seen some die off already as time has worn on. Those folks still in that middle, likely could face closure.

“A lot of Kickstarter producers are basically one tariff slap away from implosion considering the already tight margins they run, and a lot of Covid-era stores opened focused on one passion, be it a particular card game, board game, etc. and if their line-of-choice gets hammered, they can be in trouble.

“I feel like distribution is going to bear some of the worst; they’re caught in the middle and will be pinched by pressures on both sides.

“Good designers and publishing imprints will have one or two badly tariffed items or shipments in the near future that hurt the bottom line, but they will pivot. Bigger ones will negotiate new deals in less heavily tariffed fields, smaller ones can adjust their limited library of designs and scale them back or focus on new titles that can be produced more cost effectively.

“Retailers, a lot of us are doing things similar to what I wrote about above: changing the product mix, focusing on events and social outreach to less traditional markets. Distro? They don’t get that luxury. So I worry probably most for them.”

Todd Morton, chief revenue officer at major US board game sales and fulfilment service PSi, told BoardGameWire, “Publishers of all sizes will feel this hard, and it could cause some titles to be priced out of viability, or even result in delays or canceled launches.

“For distributors, this adds huge pressure on inventory planning and cash flow. And for retailers, it will mean more expensive games on shelves, which risks slowing down consumer spend.

“Larger publishers may be better positioned to weather the storm through scale or diversified sourcing, but no one is immune to a 50%+ increase in cost of goods.”

He added, “Honestly, the scale of this new round of tariffs feels like a seismic shift. A 54% landed cost increase for goods out of China could be devastating for many in the games business—especially when you consider how tight margins already are across the supply chain.

“At PSi, our first move has been to communicate clearly and quickly with our brand partners and retail partners. We’re reviewing which SKUs and brands are at greatest risk, advising on alternative sourcing where possible, and talking through shared strategies for absorbing or offsetting the impact. Every option is on the table.

“We are embracing the impact to our brand partners and identifying all solutions to mitigate the impact on the end consumer. It is currently all hands on deck—our logistics, brand management, sales, business development and planning teams are working closely with both our retailers and brand partners.”

Morton said, “Newness will absolutely continue to be an incredibly important part of our business model with our brand partners, and we will continue to lean into newness as a core differentiator with our brand partners.

“With costs going up, we will see less inventory dollars that retailers are able to allocate in chasing newness or offering a breadth of assortment, coupled with a projection of reduced consumer buying power.

“So we believe there may be a natural contraction in how many items retailers can take a strong position on and how much risk they can take on a new title.

Morton added that although he was concerned, he was optimistic about the future of the board game industry.

He said, “Our industry is not the only one being affected, and this will impact every consumer’s wallet. A tabletop game with replay ability that you can enjoy from the comfort of your home becomes incredibly appealing as you look to connect with the ones you love during hard times.

“This is a time for industry-wide collaboration. The more we can share best practices, advocate for sensible trade policy with your representatives, and support each other, the better chance we have of navigating this together.”

Frank West, who runs Isle of Cats publisher The City of Games, said in a blog post titled “An Industry in crisis: What can we do?”, that it was potentially time to rethink the traditional board game distribution model.

He said, “With the current model if I have a $50 game, it likely costs me $10. My distributor pays me $20, the retailer pays them $30, and they sell it to the end customer who pays $50. Everyone gets a consistent cut in the “five times multipliers model”.

“Now my production cost has risen to $15. If I multiply that by five, the game MSRP goes up to $75. My distributor pays me $30, the retailer pays them $45 and the end customer pays $75. The same game now costs 50% more. Everyone is making a little more money as well, but a relatively small change has had a major impact.

“But what if we changed the way we handled unexpected fees like tariffs? Instead, what if we added a flat fee? Keep the base price at $50 and add the $5 tariff cost across the board—publisher, distributor, retailer, and customer. Everyone shares the burden. The final cost to the customer? $55, not $75.

“It’s not perfect. Controlling what should be in the multiplier vs the fixed fee is difficult and perhaps requires too much trust. But maybe it’s time we stop relying on 20-year-old models and start building something that works in today’s climate.

“To survive, we need to adapt and think outside the box – because these are the things we, as an industry, can still control. Because tariffs, wars, and shipping crises aren’t going away.”

A crowdfunded future?

Stonemaier Games co-founder Jamey Stegmaier, who said the China tariffs would take a “heavy toll” on his company, agreed that crowdfunding and direct sales would “become the backbone of most publishers”.

In a detailed blog post on the situation titled “The Darkest Timeline”, he said, “The reality of a 54% tariff is devastating. There is no math that makes it work. There is no silver lining.

“It is a lose-lose-lose situation for everyone involved except the US government (which, in the long term, will also not benefit from the repercussions of the tariffs)”.

He added, “Crowdfunding and direct sales – online and at conventions – will become the backbone of most publishers.

“Tariffs will have a smaller impact on those direct prices than on retail prices, which involve a multiplier so distributors and retailers have sustainable margins. There will be far more games that are available exactly once and never again.

“Also, as proposed by Gamefound, we’ll probably see crowdfunding platforms allow creators to select different prices for customers in various regions due to tariffs.”

Gamefound CEO Marcin Świerkot said that while there was “a very limited amount of action we can take as a platform”, Gamefound was working on features including providing “a single SKU but multiple different prices for different countries”, as well as simplifying the process for creators asking for extra payments to cover unexpected tariffs, providing better tools for managing refunds and creating an “information base” to help people running projects in the future.

He said, “Over the past month, US trade policy has been very chaotic and constantly changing. We are definitely not going into politics – but in the past two months, tariffs on China changed from 10%, to 20%, to now – 54%.

“We have no idea if it will stay at that level, go higher or lower, or what will happen in the next 2 weeks. Unfortunately, this situation creates extreme disruption to all businesses and creators on Gamefound as well.”

While crowdfunding might become a welcome survival route for publishers down the road, companies currently sitting on unproduced projects which have suddenly seen their US import costs spike are among those facing the worst of the current crisis.

Matagot and Kolossal Games, who raised more than €1.25m on Gamefound for Kemet: Rise of the Gods last August, told backers earlier today that they would have to be charged an extra fee of between €2 and €7 depending on their pledge in the wake of the tariff rises.

They said, “We know this isn’t the news you wanted to hear, and honestly, it’s not what we wanted to deliver. We’re going to shoulder a significant portion of these costs ourselves, but we do need to ask for a little help to cover the rest.

“…we poured our hearts (and a lot of our budget) into making the new Kemet: Return of the Gods items as affordable as possible during the campaign. Unfortunately, these unexpected tariffs hit us pretty hard.

“While we’re covering the tariff costs for the add-ons and older titles, we just can’t swallow the entire cost for the new game. We also think it’s fair that US backers share this cost, just like VAT is shared in other regions.

“We’ve learned a valuable lesson here! Future campaigns will have these costs baked in from the start, so there are no surprises.”

Japanese publisher Uchibacoya was also quick to contact its US backers of its eurogame Sweet Lands, which raised about $730,000 from backers in November, saying the company now faces about $50,000 in unexpected shipping costs for the game due to the US tariffs.

It said, “We are carefully evaluating how best to respond to this change. Over the next two to three weeks, we will continue to monitor the situation closely and do everything possible to minimize any additional costs.

“However, if we ultimately determine that these costs cannot be avoided, we may need to reach out to US backers for support in covering a portion of the added expense. This would be an extremely difficult decision for us, and we want to be clear that we will exhaust every other option first before making such a request.

“We deeply regret having to share this kind of news with you. The board game industry, including countless publishers around the world, depends heavily on manufacturing in China, and these new tariffs are creating serious challenges across the entire sector.”

Large crowdfunding publishers such as CMON are yet to publicly comment on how the tariffs changes will affect their business.

CMON had already warned in mid-March that it could face losses of more than $2m for its business activity last year, saying the rising cost of living had eaten into its revenues from tabletop game sales.

The company currently has 10 yet-to-deliver crowdfunding projects, which raised more than $22m prior to the tariffs changes, in various stages of production. The $3.8m Zombicide: White Death is the next game due to reach backers in Q2 of this year. It also has seven more titles available for pre-order, five of which are currently slated for Q2 delivery.

Board game publishing and distribution giant Asmodee has also made no comment yet on the impact of the new tariffs, although its annual report for the 2024/25 financial year is due to be published on May 21.

The Stockholm-listed company’s share prices has fallen more than 20% since February 11, a few days after it began trading as an independent entity after splitting from former owner Embracer Group.

Weathering the storm

While Asmodee may have the cash reserves and financial firepower to weather the tariffs, smaller publishers already struggling under volatile trading conditions are potentially facing extinction under the new tariff regime.

Connor Alexander, the owner and CEO of board game and RPG publisher Coyote and Crow, said in a statement posted to BlueSky, “Yesterday’s news from the US Gov may have some devastating impacts on C&C Games as a whole. A cumulative 54% import tariff on goods from China will essentially kill my company (and the games industry).

“Sadly, it’s partially our own hobby’s fault that we’re in the worst position to weather this storm. For years, board games have operated on razor thin margins because many fans are resistant to price hikes.

“But even with the amazingly generous and awesome folks that support Coyote & Crow, we won’t survive this.

“I’m not going to ask anyone to “dig deep” or to in any way stretch themselves to support us. We’re /all/ going to be in bad shape in the coming months and years if this plays out like it look like it will.

“Instead, I’m going to do what Natives always do: we adapt, survive, and carry on.”

Chris Solis, owner of San Mateo-based Solis Game Studio, has launched a “tariff impact” sale in an attempt to cover the import costs of his next print run of games.

He said, “We don’t have the millions in capital to create our own manufacturing centers – we’re small businesses already operating on tight margins.

“I have 8,000 games leaving a factory in China this week and now need to scramble to cover the import bill.”

John Stacy, the executive director of 1,700-member board game trade organisation GAMA, told BoardGameWire the tariff changes were “dire news for our industry”.

GAMA was part of a 200-strong coalition of associations which banded together to fight Trump’s much more limited suite of tariffs in 2019 – and Stacy’s organisation has been meeting with other groups concerned about trade issues for months.

Stacy said, “These misguided tariffs will result in higher prices across the board for all Americans, as nearly a third of all US consumer goods—including clothes, food products, appliances, cars, and entertainment items like games—are imported. This means we will see higher prices across the board as all these products will have to increase prices to compensate for these new Trump Taxes.

“Not only will game prices go up, but everything is going to get more expensive, and people will have less discretionary income to buy entertainment items like games. This one-two punch is going to put a number of our members out of business or force them to downsize and lay off employees to survive.

“Given that the US lacks the production capacity to quickly ramp up and create replacement products at affordable prices, as the administration believes will happen, this is not a well-thought-out plan and is doomed to fail. This policy is going to have major repercussions throughout the US economy and probably lead to a recession.

“GAMA will continue to oppose this policy and is calling on Congress to show some common sense and work together to avoid wrecking the US economy in a misguided tariff war that is neither necessary nor needed.”