Note: I’m writing this a month in advance, but I doubt the Trump Trade Wars have gotten any better by the time this is published, so…
Let’s face it: Everything sucks, especially in the Tabletop Roleplaying scene. It doesn’t matter if you are a big publishing house, or a small indie developer, Trump’s trade wars with, well, everyone else, have made doing business very difficult. Paper is more expensive. Ink is more expensive. Printing is more expensive. Shipping is a nightmare. And even though books are currently exempt from the ridiculously-high tariffs placed on China, if your game includes dice, game master screens, or other such doodads, you are – as the Bard once said – “Well and Truly Screwed”.
Unfortunately, as an American, this is to some degree my fault. No, I didn’t vote for Trump, and certainly don’t support him at all, but we Americans got the world into this mess, and we have to get us out of it. Our Bad™. We’ll figure this out eventually, if we aren’t all shipped off to El Salvador before then.
Anyway, what is there to do about this particular problem? How are TTRPG creators to continue their businesses, when shipping and especially printing books is basically becoming far too expensive? Well, I think we might just have to go all-digital in America, at least for a while. Here’s what I have in mind:
Basically, TTRPG creators both great and small outside of the US continue to do business as usual. But when it comes to selling their products in America, they only offer codes to redeem at DriveThru RPG for a PDF version of the book. Maybe if the buyer really wants a print version, they can get a code for a Print-on-Demand copy. Regardless, since both of these options are available via a US-based company, with US printing involved, there should be only minor price increases for the paper and ink being used.
Now then, what about US-based creators and companies, wanting to sell their games internationally? Well, the same likely might apply. I don’t know if there are Print-on-Demand services outside of the US, but there certainly are printers in general. Maybe they can team up with an international distributor like Modiphius or Free League to handle those sales? Anything to get around the International Stupid Tax on Basically Everything our President has caused.
But what about Brick-&-Mortar stores? What are they to do to survive these tariffs here in the US? Raising prices to offset the tariffs seems to be the primary solution, but then the games becomes far too expensive for the average person to buy, especially if they can just get it digitally or POD through DTRPG. Well, I really don’t have an answer to this. Stores that focus primarily on board games, as my Friendly Local Game Store does, are basically screwed from the get-go. Even those that focus on TTRPG books alone also carry dice, miniatures, and other products to keep people coming back to buy more stuff… and that won’t work for long, considering the China tariffs.
What I’m saying is that traditional FLGS were barely hanging on before, and this will probably kill most of them outright. With nearly four more years of Trump yet to go, at a minimum, I doubt all but the biggest, most popular FLGS will survive the rest of the year, let alone until January 2029.
So let’s focus instead on saving the industry, at the very least, and that means international creators focusing on digital products for US distribution. If there are folks – like me – who will want to import your printed book, rather than go with a PDF only or a POD copy, let us eat the extra costs. Add the tariffs as a special line-item on our order, so we can clearly see why a normally $50 book is costing us $125 or more.
I’ll pay it. I won’t like it, and I’ll curse our President’s name the whole time, but I’ll pay it.
And for those who won’t pay those prices, go the DTRPG route, and see how that flies. One way or another, game creators both great and small are being unfairly squeezed in these trade wars, and if survival means going digital and POD, then I suggest that is the way to go, at least for now.
If I’m not dumped in a concentration camp before Trump and his cronies are removed from office, and everything can start going back to something resembling normal, I’ll be standing by to start buying those beautiful printed TTRPG books in earnest once more.
