Tariff Timelines Leave No Room for Board Game Adaptation

The board game industry is a notoriously innovative and collaborative field. It’s also a low-margin one. Now the usually optimistic group of designers, publishers, and retailers faces a potential existential crisis: a new 54 percent import tax on Chinese-made games coming into the U.S.

Designer Jamey Stegmaier, known for hits like Scythe and Wingspan, tweeted his incredulity and dismay at the new tax this week. In a follow-up post on his blog, he shared a more in-depth take on his anxiety about the new policy—and its likely fallout for the board game industry as a whole.

“I tried to work on a new game I’m brainstorming last night,” Stegmaier wrote, “but it’s really hard to make something for the future when that future looks so grim. I mostly just found myself staring blankly at the enormity of the newly announced 54 percent tariff.”

That emotional transparency is atypical for a designer of Stegmaier’s stature. He is responsible for many of the world’s bestselling and most celebrated tabletop games. Yet his post—which has been reshared by hundreds of publishers, designers, and stores in the industry—resonates with them all.

A global production problem

In simple terms, the United States has no domestic infrastructure for modern tabletop game production. Designers and publishers turn to China for printed cards and full-color booklets, yes, but also for custom plastic miniatures, wooden tokens, die-cut boards, specialty dice—you name it.

Producing those items domestically is, in theory, possible. In practice? Incredibly expensive. “I was quoted $10 from a US-based manufacturer,” Stegmaier recalled, “for a single, empty game box. I could produce and package a game for that price in China.”

It’s no wonder, then, that the new tariff is such a catastrophic announcement for U.S.-based board game publishers. (Note: Most are small to mid-sized, which adds to the problem.) Costs have effectively doubled overnight, with no lead time to adjust for the change. The disruption of that scale was felt, in some quarters, almost as a physical blow.

Words from those in the know

Other executives have been quick to follow up Stegmaier’s post with similar accounts. Meredith Placko, CEO of Steve Jackson Games (publisher of hits like Munchkin), notes the same limitations of the U.S. industrial landscape. As with most publishers, Placko’s company manufactures its games overseas because that’s where the talent, equipment, and processes are.

“The reasons I don’t (or can’t, yet) make my games in the U.S. are the same as everyone else,” Placko wrote in a recent blog post, echoing Stegmaier’s words. “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.”

For Placko, that’s a distinction without a difference. “This is not just a policy change,” she noted in the post. “It’s a seismic shift for the entire industry.”

Rob Daviau, co-founder of Restoration Games (publisher of Pandemic Legacy and more), has been warning of such disruptions on social media for months. The current environment, he’s been saying, involves “almost every business meeting” being “an existential crisis about our industry.”

Daviau was more explicit in an interview with BoardGameWire, where he predicted a “great collapse in the hobby gaming market in the US” in the event of such tariffs.

Retailers and players will also suffer.

The implications go beyond publishers and designers, too. Gamers themselves will also feel the impact of this policy. Retail prices on new games will go up (especially given the tariffs are retroactive to September). Some companies may try to cut costs elsewhere to maintain the same prices, likely meaning lower production quality. Others may simply scale back on planned new releases.

Local game stores, meanwhile, are already dealing with competition from online sales. If gamers choose to stick to their collections (many of which have unplayed games languishing on what’s known as the “shelves of shame”) or purchase online for lower prices, those shops may struggle as well.

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

Few workarounds, much consternation

A few publishers may try to redirect shipments to non-U.S. distributors. The European market, which isn’t subject to the tariffs, is especially large and diverse. But that’s little consolation for American publishers (many of whom sell 65 percent of their products in their own country, per Stegmaier).

Even more frustrating: Timing. Games that are in the design or early-production stages can at least theoretically rejigger budgets. Games that are already made and leaving Chinese factories will not be able to avoid the tariff under the new rules. “I have 8,000 games leaving a factory in China this week,” Chris Solis, head of Solis Game Studio in California, posted on Twitter. “Need to now scramble to cover import bill.”

The broader industry response

The Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA), which advocates for the U.S. board game and hobby tabletop publishing industry, has been actively lobbying against the tariffs. So far, those efforts have shown no signs of success.

All in all, the board game industry is confronting a major shakeup in its modern era. For an industry built on happiness, collaboration, and inclusivity, the future feels deeply uncertain.