It’s an extremely awkward time for the board game industry, and I dare say this is not going to get any better. At its current state, the business plan is rather simple. You can generally go crowdfunding, straight to retail, or both. Eventually, if the game is attractive enough, you sign some localization deals where people that have a better grasp of their home markets translate and market the game for you.

Regardless of the path taken, you generally mass-produce in China at a very good quality and competitive price, and ship it to a series of countries in order of interest. The larger the population mass, the better known the market, the better. Bonus points for English-speaking media that any board game enthusiast can consume, which invariably puts the US at the top of the list. This privilege largely explains the home advantage that many US publishers have had in the last decades; turns out having a large local market is a huge boon.

And then, tariffs

To be fair, tariffs are only the tip of the iceberg. The larger issue is worldwide stability. On April 2nd, 2025, DT woke up and unilaterally signed a very sexy table with import tariffs that threw the industry and the world at large off balance. A lot has been written about it. The logical conclusion is that the US has become a volatile market. Only, it’s one that, because of its size, consumptive culture, and media coverage, is hard to ignore. You can see where this is going.

And then, the world in flames

At the time of writing this, it’s been a week since DT sided with Israel to launch a rather dodgy attack on Iran. No comments on this. Oil prices have spiked, and so will energy and fertilizer prices, and therefore general inflation. Less money for food, less money for games. A lot of the commerce coming from China through the Strait of Hormuz has halted to a stop. How on earth we are going to get all those board games to Europe or even the US in this scenario, I have no idea yet.

But it’s also a problem that I don’t plan to concern myself with - we’ll solve it eventually. I can’t imagine the anxiety of other publishers in the industry at the moment, those with tight roadmaps and people on the payroll. The writing on the wall is clear: this is a terrible scenario to conduct any business, especially one that involves shipping games (a luxury product for the middle classes) halfway across the globe - a globe that is catching fire. Especially a business that relies on a very passionate but small clientele scattered across the globe. A business with such tight margins. If tariffs alone ruined quite a few publishers and distributors already, does this mean it’s the end of the board game industry as we know it?

The End Of The Internet

We may be tempted to go all digital. However, out of all the potential collaterals of AI, one seems certain: it may very well be the end of the internet. At the very least, it will be the end of the credibility of the internet. Once any content has the potential to become a fake, it seems the logical conclusion is to not believe anything posted on the internet. How to solve this is extremely unclear, as even a form of digital identity, with all its challenges of trusting a central authority to issue such identity, would not necessarily guarantee real human-made content. And therefore, the next logical conclusion seems a return to the physical, “see to believe” approach.

Is this a blessing or a curse? For now, it’s an opportunity.

What now?

There’s a contradiction between the dire straits the board game industry is increasingly in and the actual social need for board games. Board games can bring an incredible value to the world in the world to come. It's the same as any piece of physical art or media that you can hold in your hands, but probably even more. A book is a thing of incommensurable value, but it’s a rather individual experience. A board game, on the contrary, is both a social experience, a piece of art, and an opportunity for an increasingly necessary political commentary. With a book you learn; with a board game you can discuss. A permanent value in a digitalized, impermanent world.

It also doesn’t have to be hugely complicated to produce. Sticks, stones, and cardboard can create amazing board games. What’s more amazing, they provide an excuse to go out in the streets again and reconnect with those around us - to build communities. Even if the industry may be bleeding out, even if AI corrodes the internet, even if half of the world is in tatters, something good may still come out of it if we manage to get together again behind a board. At least that’s a sliver of hope that I’m willing to cling to and contribute to.

This is also what is founding our offering: board games that are built to last, to expand at will, to PnP, and to play with very minimal components. More importantly, games that try to talk about the world and not just evade us from it. It’s a long shot, I know. But doing something is always better than doing nothing. Wish us luck, folks.