Just wanted to share this email, I don't have many thoughts on this other than "yeah ok", but Steve Jackson sent out an email complaining about tariff's and asking people to contact congress because they are going to keep manufacturing in China, but maybe will manufacture in US when more infrastructure/capacity builds up.

QuoteAn Important Message From Our CEO

Meredith Placko





On April 5th, a 54% tariff goes into effect on a wide range of goods imported from China. For those of us who create boardgames, this is not just a policy change. It's a seismic shift.

At Steve Jackson Games, we are actively assessing what this means for our products, our pricing, and our future plans. We do know that we can't absorb this kind of cost increase without raising prices. We've done our best over the past few years to shield players and retailers from the full brunt of rising freight costs and other increases, but this new tax changes the equation entirely.

Here are the numbers: A product we might have manufactured in China for $3.00 last year could now cost $4.62 before we even ship it across the ocean. Add freight, warehousing, fulfillment, and distribution margins, and that once-$25 game quickly becomes a $40 product. That's not a luxury upcharge; it's survival math.

Some people ask, "Why not manufacture in the U.S.?" I wish we could. But 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.

We aren't the only company facing this challenge. The entire board game industry is having very difficult conversations right now. For some, this might mean simplifying products or delaying launches. For others, it might mean walking away from titles that are no longer economically viable. And, for what I fear will be too many, it means closing down entirely.

Tariffs, when part of a long-term strategy to bolster domestic manufacturing, can be an effective tool. But that only works when there's a plan to build up the industries needed to take over production. There is no national plan in place to support manufacturing for the types of products we make. This isn't about steel and semiconductors. This is about paper goods, chipboard, wood tokens, plastic trays, and color-matched ink. These new tariffs are imposing huge costs without providing alternatives, and it's going to cost American consumers more at every level of the supply chain.

We want to be transparent with our community. This is real: Prices are going up. We're still determining how much and where.

If you're frustrated, you're not alone. We are too. And if you want to help, write to your elected officials. You can find your representative and senators' contact information at house.gov and senate.gov. Ask them how these new policies help American creators and small businesses. Because right now, it feels like they don't.

We'll keep making games. But we'll be honest when the road gets harder, because we know you care about where your games come from – and about the people who make them.

The times are definitely changing. 

We in the west have grown addicted, to a steady stream of inexpensively produced merchandise.  We have financially supported the "Make it in the East, and Sell it to the West" scenario, for numerous decades now.

I'm not sure how this all ends, but I simply won't buy things that are too expensive.  I'll have to prioritize, how I spend my money.  It is what it is.

That simply is how it is.  We as a nation have known for decades that having all of our stuff made by effectively slave labor overseas for pennies on the dollar while all of our manufacturing got priced out of the market was not a sustainable procedure.  It needs to be mended, and the only way to do that mending is to break the economic incentive that perpetuates it, because there's no way people out of the goodness of their hearts will support local manufacturing in enough numbers to sustain it to profitability.

The faux outrage is obnoxious. Literally outsource EVERYTHING to garbage Chinese manufacturing so you make more money, complain when costs go up because US companies cannot actually provide a service because you and them both benefited from garbage Chinese manufacturing and thought the gravy train would never end.

"These new tariffs are imposing huge costs without providing alternatives", i.e. "Boo hoo we knew this was coming and didn't actually have a legitimate plan in place, Trump is a fascist asshole, pity us, please."

I really do not give one fuck. It's board games and crap. Figure it out.

They'll just push the costs onto the customers. The only way that we'll bring manufacturing jobs back to the USA is if the government directly funds their creation and bans international competition. Make a new department of government called the Department of Manufacturing, who will build new factories across the USA and re-employ all those former coal miners.

While we're at it, we need to annex Mexico and make all Mexicans into USA citizens so that the evil corpos won't hire them as effective slaves anymore. Send in the military to blow the cartels to kingdom come. Change drug use from a crime to an infectious disease and treat the addicts as disease victims.

We'll need to annex Canada and Greenland to get access to their rare earth minerals.

Build a bunch of nuclear plants, preferably thorium-based, so we aren't dependent on foreign oil.

Build more homes and sell them at cheap prices to solve the housing crisis...

Honestly, there are so many things we need to do to make America great again that I can't even list them all. It's definitely impossible to accomplish within Trump's presidency, so it needs to become a permanent part of party policy.

I love when businesses try to pass off the tariff percentage as the overall cost increase. Like the restaurant owner in San Francisco that claimed a 20% avocado tariff requires a 20% price increase for guacamole (from $16 to $19. For a side of guac. In SF.)

Except that food cost is a fraction of the total expenst e required to put guacamole on your plate. Labor is the majority, and of course overhead takes a big bite as well. Nor does a 20% tariff result in 20% food cost increase: food cost is mostly transportation (which, last I checked, is getting cheaper lately thanks to falling gas prices).

It's pure disingenuous grandstanding. And also hilarious to watch these people carve the noses right off their own faces (with that mixed expression of indignation and terrible pain), as they drive customers away to make a political point.

No one ever asks Why.  Why is it so expensive to print paper items in the USA?

OSHA?  Environmental regulations?  Prop65 warning tags on everything?  Insurance?  Taxes?  The gov graft and fraud have pushed taxes into the 50% range.  If employers or workers paid less taxes, they could charge less and be competitive.

Games and toys are a luxury item, not a must have.  Don't care about sjg anyways.

I will be blunt; I think the big danger to the tariffs is printer manufacturers trying to charge 3000% markups on ink. The Chinese market would not let them get away with that (they are infamous for piracy), but the American market could get sold an Orange Man Bad song and dance while HP tries to mark up ink costs into the moon.

The idea that Steve Jackson Games is having problems finding printers and plastic makers in the US is ridiculous. Do you think this is the 1980s or something? Did you spend any effort at all thinking about adapting your business model? Have you never heard of 3D printing?

In the short run, I think the RPG market will try to go more and more in the digital direction. PDFs are so good at sidestepping all the logistical hassles physical books create that it makes more sense in many instances to sell the PDF and offer a voucher for a print on demand service if you want a physical book. Prices will not change (if anything, they may go down!) The business model will be the part that adapts.

I've been formatting my work around the standards of a local publishing house for a while now because I am a big proponent of "buy local" and because, if there's ever a problem, I can talk face-to-face with someone with a 40 minute drive and point directly at problems with the product instead of needing to get on the phone with someone on the other side of the planet and hope they understand my issues.

It doesn't hurt that 6x9" also looks damn good on a tablet and as two-page spreads (like you'd see if you had a physical book open) on a laptop/desktop screen without needing to zoom in for those of us with older eyes.

Guess how many problems I have with tariffs?

It has nothing to do with the tariffs or the rising costs.  He's angry and this is a good excuse to howl out loud. 

I mean this guy was gonna bitch about Trump no matter what.  He spends the email basically saying ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO MAKE ANYTHING IN AMERICA SO DON'T EVER BOTHER OK JUST DONT GIVE UP ITS OVER WE SUCK and like I just don't care that a bunch of random political winds hit this guy in the butt and his attitude sucks and he sucks and fuck him.

Who will pick my blueberries now?

Quote from: Venka on April 03, 2025, 05:49:48 PMHe spends the email basically saying ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO MAKE ANYTHING IN AMERICA SO DON'T EVER BOTHER OK JUST DONT GIVE UP ITS OVER WE SUCK

Yeah, that one raised my eyebrow. Maybe we can outsource Steve Jackson's job to China. It's not like he's doing anything useful.

QuoteHere are the numbers: A product we might have manufactured in China for $3.00 last year could now cost $4.62 before we even ship it across the ocean. Add freight, warehousing, fulfillment, and distribution margins, and that once-$25 game quickly becomes a $40 product.

So they charged $25 for a product that cost $3 to make last year. Now the cost could go up $1.62 but the price will go up $15 - from $25 to $40.

And yet they think they're the good guys. And claim to hate capitalism. And now want us to feel sorry for them.

I don't think so.

China is not a moral place.  They pollute their own country massively just to make more money, only allow foreign investment if they also get to be involved/steal the designs, hack our computers to mine them for technical information, have zero control over IP theft, actively forced women to get abortions during 1-child policy era, and is currently sterilizing the Uhygrs of western China.

Let's pay more and get out of that place.