Trump destroys board games

As satire doesn't travel well on the internet, I'd like to remark that the title of this post is deliberately done in a click-baity style for humorous reasons. But there is a kernel of truth in there, and to understand that, we need to discuss how crowdfunding of board games works.

How much does a $100 crowdfunding board game cost? Obviously a trick question, and the answer is: It depends; mostly on where you live. The $100 pledge level of a crowdfunded game doesn't include shipping, nor does it include any applicable taxes. In the early days of Kickstarter, there were still board game crowdfunding projects that got away with not paying value added / sales tax. Crowdfunding projects still insist that you aren't actually "buying" anything, you pledge monetary support to the development of a game, and then get a copy of the game as "reward". Tax authorities weren't fooled very long by that charade, and by now it is very clear that sales taxes, like the EU value added tax, apply fully to Kickstarter projects. In a transition period some companies just raised the sticker price, but as sales taxes differ a lot from state to state and country to country, taxes are now usually paid together with shipping cost. So when you pledge $100 for a board game, you might very well pay another $20 for shipping, and if you live in Europe another 20% of VAT. As VAT is applied to both the game and the shipping cost, you end up paying another $44 when the pledge manager opens.

So where does Trump get into this? Trump's main economic policy is based on tariffs, he plans to install a blanket tariff of 10% to 20% on all imports, with additional tariffs of 60% to 100% on goods brought in from China. Now large board game companies producing mostly retail games often have their own production facilities, and those can be in their home country. But the overwhelming majority of small board game companies that produce crowdfunded games don't have any production facilities, but outsource the production of the games to China.

If you back a game on Kickstarter or Gamefound now, it might very well have an estimated delivery date of late 2025. And crowdfunding projects are often late, so it could very well be that the pledge manager only opens in 2026. Now imagine the US customer who pledged $100 for a board game, expecting to pay only $30 for shipping and sales tax, but finds he has to pay another $100 for the China tariff in addition to that. That is going to cause quite an uproar. Very quickly new crowdfunding projects will be required to mention the tariffs in the shipping & delivery section of their project. And once US customers realize that a $100 crowdfunded board game costs them $230, demand will shrink rapidly. The problem for people living elsewhere is that the US accounts for two thirds of pledges on Kickstarter. If tariffs keeps US customers away, the remaining pledges from the rest of the world might not be enough to make the crowdfunding project viable. Some games simply won't be produced at all.

The purpose of tariffs is to encourage manufacturing to the US. The small board game companies that live of crowdfunded projects don't have the capital to build up their own manufacturing capacity. It is possible that US companies will develop which manufacture board games for others. But that sure won't happen very fast. There are other Asian countries that might actually benefit more from the China tariffs, as making a board game in let's say Thailand with a 10% to 20% tariff might still be cheaper than producing it in the USA. Given the length of a typical crowdfunding board game project, it will take years before all of this settles down into a new equilibrium. Until then, there is some pain ahead for small crowdfunding board game companies and their customers.