New Tariffs On RPGs Printed In China

ICv2 is reporting on new tariffs on imports to the USA from China, which include various categories of items including toys, comics, and games... including tabletop RPGs. The tariffs are up to 25%. Many game companies print RPG books in China, so this will affect them.

ICv2 is reporting on new tariffs on imports to the USA from China, which include various categories of items including toys, comics, and games... including tabletop RPGs. The tariffs are up to 25%. Many game companies print RPG books in China, so this will affect them.


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The New York Times reports on it in more depth.

So, here's a simple breakdown of it as I understand it -- while tabletop games are not currently under any tariff, they will be affected by the 25% rate coming in a couple of months. There's a grace period of about three weeks for items in transit.

The tariff doesn't necessarily mean the games will cost 25% more. It's based on the manufacturing and shipping costs, which are only a part of the cost of producing a product. The price increase to consumers, therefore, will likely be substantially lower than 25% (although it's completely up to the companies how they handle it - some might even just absorb it, while others will pass it on).

It'll likely start showing in prices in games in Autumn or so.

This, of course, only affects games printed in China and shipped to America. And lost of other things, apart from games!
 

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Morrus

Well, that was fun
Staff member
Hopefully companies will either move some of their business back stateside or China will negotiate. Either way would be good for our economy.

I print in Lithuania and ship to a warehouse in the UK, so I'm fortunately not affected. Goodness knows what the future holds given the big changes going on over here though.
 


Vicente

Explorer
Hopefully companies will either move some of their business back stateside or China will negotiate. Either way would be good for our economy.

Not really that simple, if prices go up because of tariffs or because production is more expensive in the US, people will buy less, so bad for the economy.
 

Sometimes I read news about China by "The Epoch Times" and my opinion is the businessmen should run away from China if they don't want to be like Richard Gere's character in the movie "Red Corner". China doesn't like speculative fiction very much, nor neither fiction set in pre-revolution historical ages. Speculative fiction is also a propaganda weapon in the cultural war, and we will see this in manga-anime+(Korean Manhwa) vs (Continental, non-Taiwanese) Manhua, also in the videogames industry.

China wants to buy mass media companies, but the control and censorship will spoil the fiction, and not only speculative fiction ( = fantasy + sci-fi).
 
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Trastone

Villager
I love how people’s comments are so overly simplified about what is going on. There are a lot of implications from short term/long term. Yes the cost goes up for the people/companies importing in the short term. This price may be passed on, but takes time for retail prices to adjust(if they do).

The real reason for the tariffs is to cause negotiation for more favorable trade. This might be short term and it might be long term depending on whether negotiations happen. If the cost ends up higher on a long term basis than elsewhere you will see companies transition to other suppliers if they can get equal quality or better quality for better prices(if they exist-obviously they do as Morrus states he uses a company in Lithuania).
 

dave2008

Legend
I love how people’s comments are so overly simplified about what is going on.

Personally I wouldn't expect a detailed analysis of the economics of trade and tariffs on an RPG website, but perhaps my expectations are off ;)
 
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