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.
Another record attendance at North America's biggest board games industry trade show, GAMA Expo, has left the event pressed for space once again - just a year after the show was transported to Louisville in an attempt to handle surging interest.
The board game industry has been awash with discussion about the potentially crippling effect of tariffs for several months now, with publishers, distributors and manufacturers all scrabbling to prepare for a leap in the cost of importing games to the US. Chief among the issues is the uncertainty surrounding the situation - tariffs of up to 100% on imports from China, where the vast majority of board games are made, were being talked about by then President-elect Donald Trump last November, stoking fears of a “great collapse” of the US board game industry. So far those tariffs have only reached 10%, but ongoing sabre-rattling from Trump and tit-for-tat tariffs on US goods introduced by China have created an unpredictable trading environment. In this article for BoardGameWire, Robert Geistlinger, president of US board game major Arcane Wonders, explains how even a 10% tariff rate will have an outsized effect on publishers already working on razor-thin margins.
Husband and wife board game design team Sheila Santos and Israel Cendrero have been collaborating on their creations for almost a decade - and have sealed their status as notable eurogame architects in recent years with standout titles The Red Cathedral and The White Castle. The pair - who go by their board game design monikers Isra and Shei - sat down with BoardGameWire to talk about their journey into the industry, why working as a duo is essential for them, and the major error they see new designers making when pitching to publishers.
French board game publisher Super Meeple plans to step up its own direct sales this year after struggling to get individual retailers to stock more than a handful of copies of each of its heavier games through 2024.
Capstone Games, the Ohio board game publisher which made a name for itself bringing complex eurogames to the US from Germany, has inked its first partnership with a Japanese publisher.
Hachette Boardgames has added another publisher to its ever-growing distribution business, scoring a deal to distribute MicroMacro publisher Edition Spielwiese's games in the US and UK.
Tabletop gaming giant Asmodee is preparing to "reignite" its strategy of buying up smaller board game publishers and distributors following its upcoming split from troubled owner Embracer Group.
The designers behind LEGO's first tilt at board games in over a decade have teamed with the creator of Gnome Hollow to launch new tabletop publisher Uncommons Publishing.
Discord community management platform Levellr has raised $1.75m of funding from a clutch of venture capital firms and games industry executives.
