Wizards of the Coast Says That China Tariffs Will Have Minimal Impact on D&D

Official Dungeons & Dragons products should largely be unaffected by the ongoing US/China trade war. During today's Hasbro earnings call, Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks said that the only Wizards of the Coast products manufactured and shipped from China are the D&D boxed sets. While this means that the upcoming Heroes of the Borderland Starter Set could have a higher price than usual (Wizards has made no price announcement as of yet), it does confirm that Dungeons & Dragons will largely be unimpacted by the ongoing trade war between the US and China.

Due to the large print runs, Wizards usually taps domestic or continental printers for its various D&D products. English language D&D books (at least the ones on my shelf) all have "Printed in the USA" in the credits page.

The wider board game publishing industry has been hit hard by the ongoing US/China tariff war, with products manufactured in China receiving a 145% tariff upon entry into the United States. Several publishers with RPG products, including CMON, have announced layoffs and changes to manufacturing plans as a result of the tariffs.

 

[Queer Venger]

While this has been posted a bunch of times in various threads, I think some context is important. What the Arcane Library said was "People have asked a few times, so I want to reassure everyone: the current tariffs are not going to affect our pricing and fulfillment. We are able to safely absorb these costs thanks to backers’ strong support!" 21 days ago, on April 4th, when the tariffs were set at 54%. The tariffs were raised to 145% on April 9th.

To my knowledge, they haven't commented since. But given some of the fairly toxic "Why didn't you account for the tariffs? We all knew it was coming!" dialogue being spread round by certain elements, I think it's important to clarify that at no point did Shadowdark claim to have accounted for 145% tariffs, and it harms other publishers to spread that sort of disinformation. Nobody predicted this, or could have.

Fortunately, Shadowdark is in book format (not a boxed set) so seems likely to be exempt from the tariff, at least as things currently stand. I'm super hopeful that they will sail through this unscathed.

same Morrus, they are a young company and this is something that could hit them big. Though during the campaign Kelsey polled the contributors and we all almost unanimously requested more word contents as opposed to physical rewards to avoid potential tariff complications.

I hope they weather this well as well as other small publishers.

 

[Morrus]

same Morrus, they are a young company and this is something that could hit them big. Though during the campaign Kelsey polled the contributors and we all almost unanimously requested more word contents as opposed to physical rewards to avoid potential tariff complications.

I hope they weather this well as well as other small publishers.

As I said, they are shipping books, which are exempt from the tariffs.

 

[Mistwell]

Do you have an example of a miniatures or boardgames company that does their plastic mini/component manufacturing in India?

Pretty sure that would be proprietary information if it's information I had.

Plastic injection molding is a wide industry, injection molding boxes is something different from injection molding plastic miniatures. The US has had this same issue, companies have gone bankrupt trying to figure out how to do injection molding HQ miniatures well. Last time I checked Reaper miniatures has some production capacity stateside for their PVC miniatures, but the molds still got produced in China (and the last time I backed the production for the KS itself was also done in China).

Whith my limited knowledge there are currently four countries for plastic miniatures (HIPS/PVC), China, Japan, England, and Poland. With currently only China having the capacity to fulfill the US demands on production.

I do believe there are numerous companies in India doing it now. It's not necessarily for the American market right now.

 

[Clint_L]

I've not heard of anyone using India for miniatures production and I'm pretty aware of what goes on in that hobby space. Maybe there's a domestic Indian market I know nothing about; if so, I'd love to learn more! Citation needed.

Edit: I'm not sure if non-hobbyists fully understand the technical expertise that goes into mass producing plastic miniatures of the quality that enthusiasts like me have come to expect. These are not a simple product to make - a factory that produces plastic containers can't just add a run of hyper-detailed miniatures into the mix.

As @Cergorach asserted, I am currently aware of four countries doing large-scale plastic miniatures production, and they are China, Japan, the UK, and Poland. American companies mostly get their stuff made in China, which means most of their factory investment (e.g. molds) is held in China and not going anywhere.

It is far from a simple suggestion to assert that companies can just switch to India for this kind of production:

• India likely doesn't currently have the equipment or expertise.
• Companies like Reaper and Dwarven Forge are already heavily invested in Chinese production. The steel molds used to produce miniatures are by far the biggest production expense; financing their production is basically the whole reason those companies need to do KSs for the capital infusion needed to get those molds. If they walk away from China, they are essentially giving up their entire catalogue and starting from scratch.
• Even if those weren't issues, US trade policy is currently so unpredictable that it seems completely unfeasible to try to start over in a new country - who's to say that the US administration won't suddenly declare 145% taxes on imports from India next week because reasons?

"Move plastic miniatures production to India" is just not a feasible option - certainly not in the short-medium term (e.g. what currently existing companies would need to survive). The whole point of these import taxes is that they are supposed to motivate American companies to move their production back to America, regardless of how realistic that is in different industries. Thus, chaos.

The explicit aim of Trump's trade policy is to upend global trade patterns and reorient them around the US. If successful, these current disruptions are just the beginning, and it is very hard to predict what comes out the other side as pertains to our hobby. Probably, there will be an extreme winnowing effect...which is already starting to occur. Unlike Hasbro, these are mostly small companies without the resources to survive relocating their entire production model.

 

[Cergorach]

I do believe there are numerous companies in India doing it now. It's not necessarily for the American market right now.

Then do you have an example of an Indian company that produces PVC/HIPS miniatures/game pieces? A link would be useful. Or is that proprietary information as well...

 

[Staffan]

Pretty sure that would be proprietary information if it's information I had.

Wouldn't such items need to be marked "Made in India"?

 

[Morrus]

Pretty sure that would be proprietary information if it's information I had.

Not really. In fact, it legally has to be disclosed in most jurisdictions I’m aware of. Nobody wants to put “Made in China” on their products—they have to.

 

[Piperken]

Now I want a Cyberpunk version of WotC who sends edgerunners to your house when you use third party products or your house rules go too far astray of the orthodox.

Cyberpunk Edgerunner David had the equivalent of a skinny health care plan.

 

[occam]

I don't think one huge company should be a thing in the games industry, and hearing their press release that they'll manage through this crisis when I expect many smaller companies who in my opinion do as good or better work might not does not make me happy.

Okay, but then couldn't this sentiment have been expressed more positively as something like:

"I only wish smaller game producers were in as fortunate a position as Hasbro/WotC in dealing with the current conditions."

Rather than focusing ire on a so-called "megacorp", an affirmation of support for smaller companies would get across the same message and probably be met with universal agreement on these boards, don't you think?

How one says things on these boards can drive discussion in positive or negative directions, and I, for one, would appreciate more positivity and less negativity when we come here to talk about games.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Okay, but then couldn't this sentiment have been expressed more positively as something like:

"I only wish smaller game producers were in as fortunate a position as Hasbro/WotC in dealing with the current conditions."

Rather than focusing ire on a so-called "megacorp", an affirmation of support for smaller companies would get across the same message and probably be met with universal agreement on these boards, don't you think?

How one says things on these boards can drive discussion in positive or negative directions, and I, for one, would appreciate more positivity and less negativity when we come here to talk about games.

I suppose I could have, but it's not like how I feel about WotC's current slate of product and their gravity well-like effect on the industry is a secret around here, so I spoke my truth as I saw it. I already apologized to you about calling them a megacorp, since its clear that term was a real problem for you.