Crier from the Castle 4/29

This week's events including Free Comic Book Day and Star Wars Day. If you purchase a copy of Godzilla vs. Los Angeles, IDW will donate proceeds to victims of the Los Angeles wildfires. 

Alliance Impact Premiere

 Alliance Impact Premiere event this weekend.  $25 gets you packs and entry into the 1 p.m tournament on Saturday.

Store Walkthrough

 In case you would like to take a look at the current layout of the store, we did a walkthrough video to maintain our Ravensburger OP status.

Crier from the Castle for 4/21

Tariffs and dice

 Spoke with the owner of a small dice company last night who stopped by the store on his way north.  He says that, unless the tariffs are drastically reduced, he will likely have to shut down his company by the end of 2026. There is just no way for him to stay in business in the face of 145% tariffs.

Interview with the Owners of Runaway Parade Games

 Interview with the owners of Runnaway Parade Games on the effect Trump's tariffs are/will have on their boardgame company. It's not positive.

Tariffs Effect on Boardgame Companies

 

If the tariffs continue, things will get bad for the hobby game industry. A tariff of 10% could be absorbed, even a 20% one with some stress. A 35% tariff inflicts serious damage on the industry but a 146% one is devastating. In this interview, Price Johnson of Cephalofair Games says his company may have to quit distributing its games in the US due to the tariffs. One shipment costs $840,000 to manufacture and Cephalofair has to pay another estimated $873,000 in taxes to bring it into the country, effectively doubling the cost, with no additional benefit to the company.

Crier from the Castle 4/13

Brandon discussing this week's events at the store.

Games Workshop New Releases for May 3.

 Games Workshop has new figures for Legion Imperialis and Warhammer Old World High Elves listed for May 3 release.  Let us know if you want any so we can put an order 

Disney Lorcana Pricing

 

I am seeing sealed booster boxes of Disney Lorcana’s Into the Inklands selling for as low as $30 at some bargain outlets. From what I have heard, Ravensburger heard complaints about the scarcity of First Chapter and Rise of the Floodborn booster boxes and decided to give players (and stores) what they had asked for, a print run of Into the Inklands sufficiently large enough that no orders would need allocations.  Stores apparently did not believe this and played the allocation game, putting in large ordered with the expectation allocations would occur and the store would receive some number close to the quantity wanted. Instead, stores got just what they ordered and either had to pay on receipt or, if they have good credit, on 30 day terms. Given the amount of Into the Inklands hitting the market, supply and demand says the industry will see drastic price cuts to move the product, below cost in many cases, merely to recover some of the money invested in the set.

Tariff Impact on Jobs and families

 

Given the recent announcement of two  10% tariffs on imports to the US from China, the game industry is looking at 20% minimum price increases on the items we import from China, which is a whole lot of products. The idea, as the administration has said multiple times, is that foreign governments pay the tariff, billions of dollars flow into the US treasury and, to avoid tariffs, companies flock to move their operations to the United States. None of which is going to happen. Remember the tariffs put into place during the first Trump administration? They resulted in fewer jobs in the US, reduced GDP by a full 1%, cost taxpayers about $900,000 per job saved, cost the average household just over $1200 per year,  cost the American workforce about 245,000 jobs, and did nothing to reduce the national debt.

Crier from the Castle 4/7

Tariff Impacts

 Tariff Impact:  It isn’t Pretty

Given the recent announcement of two  10% tariffs on imports to the US from China, the game industry is looking at 20% minimum price increases on the items we import from China, which is a whole lot of products. The idea, as the administration has said multiple times, is that foreign governments pay the tariff, billions of dollars flow into the US treasury and, to avoid tariffs, companies flock to move their operations to the United States. None of which is going to happen. Remember the tariffs put into place during the first Trump administration? They resulted in fewer jobs in the US, reduced GDP by a full 1%, cost taxpayers about $900,000 per job saved, cost the average household just over $1200 per year,  cost the American workforce about 245,000 jobs, and did nothing to reduce the national debt.

Here is what the game industry can expect to see in terms of price changes this year as a result of the tariffs.  Publisher manufactures a game in China.  Why? Because it takes 2-4 years to create a new supply chain. Companies cannot shift their channels of distribution within a month or so. Ergo, publisher bringing the product into the US has to pay a tax of 20% on the imported product. A game that cost $10 to manufacture and ship will now cost $12, with $2 of that going to the US government. Distributor margins are about 10-15%, at least they were when I worked in distribution decades ago. If anyone in distribution wants to share more recent margins my email is at the end.  Distributors will have to sell the game to retailers for about $18. If retailers want to keystone the game’s price to make a 50% margin, the price goes to about $36 when sold to the consumer, about $6 more than the game would sell for without any tariffs. 

Another problem is the general uncertainty regarding the imposition of the tariffs. The Trump administration has said it will impose tariffs on Canada, the European Union and Mexico than changed its mind almost the next day, pushing back the start day. Although we probably won’t see any roll back, absent negotiations, of tariffs on Chinese imports, it could happen What do manufacturers do, absorb the cost of the tariff in the hope/expectation that the Trump administration will roll them back or figuring them into the cost of good sold as a fact of doing business, keeping higher prices which could reduce the number of price sensitive customers buying? If the tariffs get negotiated away and manufacturers increased prices, do they roll back the price and leave other members of the channel holding products with tariff inflated prices?

From what I have read, expecting increased tariffs after Trump won the presidency, a significant number of manufacturers chose to ramp up production runs during the last quarter, opting to warehouse product brought into the US under the previous tariff structure and have enough inventory on hand to avoid tariff fueled price increases through the end of Q2 or beginning of Q3, with the hope that the Chinese tariffs get negotiated away and the 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports never get imposed but it does not look promising.

Cryer from the Castle for April 1