5mo ago

Trump tariffs terrify board game designers

arstechnica.com

13 comments

*tarify
(Sorry, couldn't resist)
Isn't this, at least partly, a design issue? Game designers create their games without concern about the economical side of the problem. They create astounding little bits and pieces to make the game desirable but a lot of this could be simplified without sacrificing the mechanics. The dice are a prime example...
It's a lot like what happened in the video games and the rift that appeared between AAA games and indie developers.
A lot of the games I possess are beautiful but have a ludicrous amount of accessory stuff. Eventually it gets lost and replaced by coins and painted pieces of wood without making them worse.
I suspect that until now all these tidbits were a great way to justify the high price of the games.
- There are many people for whom the nice bits and pieces enhance their enjoyment of the game. I'm certainly one of them. I know others who take it a step further and will buy games just because they're pretty / cute / whatever. It's not a design issue, it's appealing to a larger market.
- No, and they should be designing their game to be exactly the way they want, with no consideration for psycho governments whatsoever.
That stinks...
Scyte is 90€ but if I printed it all at home (printer+3d printer) it would probably be 20€. A rough version of it, sure, but 20€.
Make it serial in a factory.
- Quite a few publishers have written about their costs and how the tariffs impact them. The actual cost of a $90 game is something like $15, and the rest is labor, distribution costs, and profit. I personally think the distribution costs are way too high and could stand to drop a lot, but I don't know the details well enough to comment. Regardless, there's no reasonable way to drop the manufacturing costs significantly.

13 comments