Monthly Archives: April 2025

Board Games: 54% Tariff Increases and a Global Coalition to Keep Toys Tariff-Free?

Posted on by
Reply
Image courtesy of wilsoncenter.org.

The insane stupid rodeo of tariff threats, retractions, delays, and new threats continues, and the board game industry is reeling.

Some companies are pausing Kickstarter pledge managers and rollouts until they consult with lawyers and printers. Others are cancelling projects outright.

And these companies are being incredibly honest and forthright with their audiences. I’ve seen at least a half-dozen posts from across the industry, and there are probably many others I’ve missed.

But I want to share one in particular.

The CEO of Steve Jackson Games, Meredith Placko, put out a post about the tariff situation and how it’s affecting the industry.

Feel free to click the link to check it out, but I’m going to post much of the text here as well, because it’s straightforward and informative. It avoids hyperbole and confronts the unpleasantness awaiting board game companies going forward. Plus it gives us real numbers to crunch.

(Meredith’s comments are in quotation marks, my comments in italics.)

“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.”

Covering the board games industry has been a rollercoaster since COVID 19 reports in China emerged and factories began shutting down. Board game companies adapted quickly, but many suffered, and more than a few closed their doors.

I was hoping that would be the worst of it for the industry, but sadly, that’s obviously no longer the case. I can only imagine what the last five years have been like for board game creators.

Image courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.

“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.”

Getting real numbers has been a revelation, and I’ve been sharing this post all over in the hopes of people realizing the genuine effect these tariffs will have on businesses.

“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.”

Image courtesy of Etsy.

This is the real lesson here for anyone supporting these tariffs. You can’t just say you’re bringing manufacturing back to America. You have to DO it. You have to have the facilities, the manpower, the training, the materials, and the wherewithal. These tariffs aren’t just putting the cart before the horse, it’s pushing the cart down the hill and blaming gravity when it crashes.

“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. 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.”

Hey folks, it’s your friendly neighborhood puzzle guy back again. (Just wanted to make it clear that everything you read going forward is me, not Meredith.)

It’s a rocky road ahead for board game companies.

Thankfully, we are already seeing industry leaders making moves to handle Trump’s tariffs.

The U.S. Toy Association (founded over a hundred years ago!) is trying to forge a coalition with toy and trade associations across the world with the lofty goal of a global 0% reciprocal tariff on toys.

The list of organizations agreeing to work on this is impressive… and inspiring. Sure, it’s a business decision. My cynical little heart sees that.

But imagine if they succeeded and made toys tariff-free across the globe. What a gift to parents and children around the world that would be! What a boon that could be to game designers.

(I reached out to the U.S. Toy Association to confirm if board games and RPGs fall under the toy umbrella, but have not heard back yet.)

So, what can you do in the meantime?

Well, if you have the means to do so, reach out to your officials. Support local game companies. Speak up, loudly and often.

When you think of the board game industry, you probably think of the big companies, the big brands… but there’s only a few of them.

The VAST majority are small businesses led by passionate designers, creative minds, and hardworking people of all ethnicities, ages, backgrounds, and gender identities. They are a chorus of voices that make gaming better, that tell us stories about ourselves through gameplay, that bring history alive and challenge our minds, our reflexes, our collaboration, and our cunning.

THAT is the board game industry I want to see succeed.

I hope they can weather the storm.

Roll Them Bones!

Posted on by
Reply

Meme culture is constantly evolving. As new memes emerge, others are updated. They mutate, they cross over with other meme styles. It’s virtually a language at this point, a hyper-dynamic vernacular where the rules change as fast as the imagery.

And yet, old memes can resurface for new audiences and make an unexpected impact, like the one I stumbled across this week.

Two years ago, an archaeology report hit internet news feeds. Archaeologists in Kazakhstan uncovered the burial mound of a young girl, somewhere between the ages of 12 and 15. The grave dated back to the Bronze Age, about 5000 years or so.

But that wasn’t what caught the Internet’s attention.

It was the sheep bones that captured everyone’s imagination.

You see, she was buried with 180 ankle bones, also known as astragalus bones, from dozens and dozens of sheep.

Researchers were unsure of the significance of these bones, attributing them to cult practices, totems for meditation, or symbols of good luck to wish the deceased well in their transition to a new world.

Internet readers came to a different conclusion. They believed this young girl was a world-class gamer and these were her trophies, the spoils of victory.

Knuckle bones, ankle bones, and other small, easily-rolled bones have been associated with gaming for centuries. For many cultures, they were the first readily-available dice. This is true in Kazakhstan as well.

In fact, there is a Kazakh game called Assyk, and it’s similar to marbles. Players take an ankle bone and try to knock other ankle bones from the game space. It requires considerable skill, since you’re tossing the assyk from a distance.

Rules vary depending on your sources, but according to some articles about this traditional Kazakh game, winners would keep the ankle bones they knock out of the circle, just like in marbles, pogs, and other games of this nature.

So, if our Bronze Age assyk master followed this rule — and based on the number of bones in her grave, it’s a distinct possibility — that means she didn’t just dabble in this game… she dominated at it, collecting dozens of victories.

Appropriately, the Internet celebrated her as a pro gamer, a tournament-level champion with the hand-eye coordination to dominate modern games as easily as she did games of assyk around her village.

And honestly, how can you not love something like that? Everybody needs a hero, gamers included. A 5000-year-old Bronze Age astragalus-hoarding game sniper is not a bad place to start.

Happy sheep-bone-tossing, everyone!

Anagram Cluing: Hiding in Plain Sight!

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve got anagrams on the brain today.

The Puzzmo mini crossword is always accompanied by notes from the constructor and the editor. The comments from yesterday’s puzzle centered around anagrams, since the mini had not only an anagram in the theme entries — MAORI and MARIO — but actually had the word ANAGRAMMED crossing those entries.

In those comments, both Will Eisenberg and Brooke Husic discussed a really playful subset of cluing involving misdirection.

You give the solver an anagram, but present it is as a statement, rather than just saying “ABLE, to BALE.” When done properly, it takes a second for your brain to actually register the anagram, even though it’s right in front of you!

Will used the example “Ancients, for instance,” which cleverly employs the standard crossword trope of “for example / for instance / for one / e.g.” to conceal the anagram. Brooke had another banger example, offering “Anemone, to name one.”

I delved into the archives on Xwordinfo to look for other examples of this misdirection cluing style, and I found some fun ones. (Obviously, ANAGRAM isn’t an incredibly common entry, but I was genuinely surprised by the variety of options that awaited me in the archives.)

Back in 2011, Oliver Hill and Eliza Bagg gave us “Neo, for one,” which is such an effective misdirect than I can imagine writing the wrong answer more than once in the grid before realizing the trick, since this sort of clue is used so often for things like HERO or ROLE.

Other constructors phrased their anagrams as if they were slang or specialized jargon, leading solvers down the garden path while showing off their own impressive anagramming talents.

  • Ryan McCarty and Nelson Hardy gave us “Schoolmaster for the classroom, e.g.”
  • Margaret Saine offered “Illustration for an ill tourist?”
  • Sam Trabucco crafted “Nerd’s epithet for the president?”
  • Bryant White presented “Coasters for Socrates, e.g.”

Naturally, cryptic crossword or British-style crossword solvers probably suss out these clues faster, since this sort of stealthy wordplay is standard in cryptic cluing, where clues are written out like sentences, rather than the more direct cluing typically used in American crosswords. (Cryptic crossword icons Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon had one ANAGRAM clue in the Xwordinfo archives, the elegant “Broadcast of bad actors, e.g.”

Some constructors take it even further, employing the age-old trick of apropos anagrams for celebrities.

The Simpsons helped popularize knowledge of this game when Lisa learned that ALEC GUINNESS anagrams into GENUINE CLASS. Another famous one is CLINT EASTWOOD anagramming to OLD WEST ACTION. FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE aptly anagrams to FLIT ON, CHEERING ANGEL.

Patrick Merrell employed this nicely with his clue for ANAGRAM, “Horrid glances from Charles Grodin?”

I could go on and on listing examples, but Patrick’s clue is hard to top.

I’m obviously a huge fan of misdirection clues, so it was a joy to deep-dive into a different genre of cluing and watch clever people work their magic. Hopefully you enjoyed taking this puzzly stroll with me.

Happy puzzling, everyone!