An unpredictable tariff regime has and chilled a . Ahead of the holiday shopping season, one small business has bet its survival on shipping new products from China, where most of the world鈥檚 board games are produced.
鈥淲e were able to find manufacturers who could work at a bigger scale so that maybe we could lower the costs by printing larger volumes, which for us is a huge risk,鈥� said , co-owner of .
鈥淲ith the way that consumers are looking at things like board games, they鈥檙e worried about paying their grocery bill, they鈥檙e not going to pay more for a board game,鈥� said Ruelle. 鈥淚t鈥檚 looking right now like slimmer margins and having to print out these higher volumes [will] make it work.鈥�
Ruelle and co-owner Sam Bryant tried to find stateside manufacturers to avoid the tariffs, but in the end, China remained the only economical option.
鈥淲e set out to try to make our smaller card game, , inside the U.S., and that was a month-long journey of dead ends,鈥� said Bryant. 鈥淎 lot of companies couldn鈥檛 make the cards in the specification we wanted. Other companies would get quotes, and we鈥檇 be excited, and then they鈥檇 be like, 鈥榃ell, this is without the cards. It鈥檚 only the box and the rulebook,鈥� which is not exactly something to move forward on.鈥�
鈥淲hen we did get a quote for the whole game, it was about 10 times as much as we would have paid in China,鈥� added Bryant.
So Bryant and Ruelle spent thousands of dollars retooling their production pipeline to offset the cost of tariffs. They also tried to time shipments during three-month truces in the tit-for-tat trade war between the U.S. and China.
鈥淲e鈥檙e rushing as fast as we can to get it in during the pause because we could survive the 30% tariff,鈥� said Bryant.
But when President Trump threatened ahead of , Bryant and Ruelle accelerated their timetable. The move ended up costing them. While they tried to get ahead of a rate they couldn鈥檛 afford, the actual tariff rate dropped after Trump鈥檚 meeting with Xi.
鈥淲e were then thinking we were on the line for $45,000 that we weren鈥檛 aware of 鈥� but now, because we鈥檝e rushed, we鈥檝e been rewarded,鈥� Bryant quipped. 鈥淚t looks like we鈥檙e going to end up paying 30%, even though for board games it鈥檚 been reduced to 20% because our containers are coming in before the shift on Nov. 10.鈥�
Ruelle noted that this experience is just one sign of how the Trump administration鈥檚 chaotic trade policy has hurt the game industry.
鈥淓verybody we know is going through this level of uncertainty,鈥� said Ruelle. 鈥淎 lot of folks are getting laid off 鈥� we鈥檙e just seeing across the board people trying to survive rather than this long period of growth that we鈥檝e been experiencing for many years.鈥�
The downturn has even rattled Ruelle and Bryant鈥檚 confidence in their company, which they built out of a .
鈥淲e鈥檙e working harder to make less and it feels like we鈥檙e being bet against by our own government,鈥� said Bryant. 鈥淓veryone in our industry is scarred by this constantly shifting narrative where one day the tariffs mean the 鈥� the next day, maybe you can scrape by.鈥�
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produced and edited this interview for broadcast with . Perkins Mastromarino also produced it for the web.
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