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“Board games are about to get more expensive”: Arcane Wonders president Robert Geistlinger on tariffs, razor-thin margins and the math of producing games

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.

“We cannot work without each other”: The White Castle’s husband and wife design duo Isra and Shei on creating as as team, design pitfalls, and which games impressed them in 2024

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.