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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That is incorrect. What started the comments about analysis was this comment in post #8 by @Trastone: "I love how people’s comments are so overly simplified about what is going on."

Then my reply (and similar others) that I was not expecting detail analysis from the economic impact of tariffs from an RPG site.

And I thought his comment reflected a non economic use for the tariffs. That people did not know what was "going on" in relation to negotiations with China (diplomacy) versus any economic effect of them. I may be wrong, but that's what his wording says to me.
 

LlSinopa

First Post
The uncertainty of the effects of tariffs on print costs changed our plans for printing 47 Furious Tails, Issue One. We're printing domestically in the US now to avoid any complications which could affect our product delivery. It's simply driven by economics and a concern for timeliness of fulfillment of backer rewards and getting books into the hands of folks who want them.
 

dave2008

Legend
And I thought his comment reflected a non economic use for the tariffs. That people did not know what was "going on" in relation to negotiations with China (diplomacy) versus any economic effect of them. I may be wrong, but that's what his wording says to me.

To clarify, I wasn't trying to say whether or not trastone's comments were political, I was saying that my response and similar others were not political in nature.
 

Staffan

Legend
The basic idea being that local producers will be able to compete with foreign products due to the increased price of foreign goods. This impacts the foreign producer (the Law of Demand says it all, the higher the price the lower the demand, who will sell fewer) and it allows a domestic producer to compete at the new higher price. And consumers carry the weight by paying more.

The effect of increasing domestic sales is rarely worth the increased cost consumers pay. The standard argument for tariffs is that it protects / produces jobs and industry. People are always in favor of "saving" someone's job. They rarely understand the increased costs that all consumers pay for this, or that the loss of purchasing power they suffer is greater than the economic value of the limited amount of jobs / industrial capacity "saved".

A related but slightly different use of tariffs would be as compensation for "unfair competition." For example, the EU has stricter laws regarding treatment of farm animals than the US. This means that raising animals for food is more expensive in the EU. It would be totally fair for the EU to levy tariffs on meat imported from the US to compensate for this - and it makes little sense for the EU to say "We don't condone animals being treated this way, but we'll buy your meat anyway."
 

I would love it if they would allow the book to be printed in Germany, where they have a personal attachment to the game. I woudl pay more for a book that doesn't fall apart quickly.

The Torg Eternity books printed in Germany actually have sewn binding! I don't know the last time I've seen that in an RPG product. I wish I saw it a lot more.

The basic idea being that local producers will be able to compete with foreign products due to the increased price of foreign goods. This impacts the foreign producer (the Law of Demand says it all, the higher the price the lower the demand, who will sell fewer) and it allows a domestic producer to compete at the new higher price. And consumers carry the weight by paying more.

So that means that unless China is putting out domestic RPGs, this isn't going to be doing anyone any good on that particular front?
 

dave2008

Legend
And I thought his comment reflected a non economic use for the tariffs. That people did not know what was "going on" in relation to negotiations with China (diplomacy) versus any economic effect of them. I may be wrong, but that's what his wording says to me.


To clarify, I wasn't trying to say whether or not trastone's comments were political or economic in nature, I was saying that my response and similar others were economic in nature. My response was:

"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 ;)"

and Morrus' response to the same comment was: "Sure. Provide a detailed economical analysis then. We’ll wait. :)"

So whatever the intent of trastone, we started discussing economic analysis for some reason
 

dragoner

KosmicRPG.com
Economically tariffs are rarely effective at doing more than raising prices on your own consumers.

This is my take away as well, generally industries have their own supply chain, so that they are not easily replaceable; or if they are, it's through substitution, which could be e-books in this instance.

I am, in essence, an informed layman, not an economist.

I am not an economist either, though I have a degree in business (management) for which I did have quite a few econ classes.
 

I am a CFO of public companies and recently lived in China being the CFO of a large company that was fighting tariffs well before these ones came up. It is a really complicated discussion and not one that I would type out in an RPG forum where politics are not the greatest flavor to discuss.

The article here is correct in that tariffs on something that was tariff free in the past are a short term problem at least.

The rest goes to whether you think the USA and China play fair in international trade and what is in their best interests to do with the complication that each leader may not do the best thing for the country if it is not the best for them.
 

To clarify, I wasn't trying to say whether or not trastone's comments were political or economic in nature, I was saying that my response and similar others were economic in nature. My response was:

"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 ;)"

and Morrus' response to the same comment was: "Sure. Provide a detailed economical analysis then. We’ll wait. :)"

So whatever the intent of trastone, we started discussing economic analysis for some reason

I know, it was his reasoning in favor of tariffs (as a diplomatic tool) that I considered political, not later responses :)
 

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