Our Approach to the Tariffs
As everyone knows, the ongoing Tariff Situation is affecting companies across the entire board game industry. Japanime Games is not immune to these tariffs, and today we wanted to take the time to share our approach to handling these tariffs, direct from the mouth of our President, Eric Price. - To our Japanime Games Fans - I have been in China for the last several weeks, visiting with many factories to learn more about their processes, sustainability efforts, and how they are handling the tariffs. I decided to make this trip a few months ago because of the fact that I was working with a few new factories for Japanime Games projects, and I wanted hands on experience to discuss projects in process. As many of you are aware, tariffs on Chinese made goods went up across the board by 10% on February 4th. When this happened, I thought, well, we can absorb that. This is frustrating, but we can absorb those costs. Then, on March 4th, it went up to a staggering 20% tariff across the board. This... not so easy. At this point, I was actively considering what we can do to reduce costs and implement changes to compensate for these additional taxes being imposed on American businesses. This is very pressing topic for all in the game industry, but I realize that not all Americans understand tariffs, and what the implications are here. The Trump administration has, in essence, enacted massive taxes onto businesses that source any goods from outside of the United States. This has been propagandized as “taxing China”, but the real truth is that this is taxing Americans. Instituting these massive tariffs on American businesses has not been done with any kind of structure or roll out. 50 years ago, about 25% of Americans were employed in manufacturing jobs. Now, that number is only 10%. We, as a nation, have relied on overseas manufacturing more and more, throughout my lifetime, and for good or for bad, this attempt at an instant reversal on policy and manufacturing is very damaging to both our American businesses and our entire economy. I arrived in China in mid-March, and well… things changed even more while I was there. Last week the tariff rate jumped to 54%, and now (on the day that I wrote this, and was flying back home to America!), up to 104%. By the time that I landed back in the states, the tariff rate had gone up to 125% (look what can happen on an 11 hour flight!), and of course… up to 145% the very next day. You know how they jokingly say “Nobody could have guessed this!” when people complain about the tariffs having been enacted, because "Trump is simply doing what he said he would do when he came into office"? Well, truly, nobody did expect this kind of escalation. There were extreme talks of 35% tariffs before he came back into office, which I really thought was an overblown exaggeration. I was expecting 10-20%. ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY FIVE PERCENT was not on my bingo card. Real world math: When tariffs are at 145%, this means if our production cost was $100,000 with the factory, that means when we ship the goods to the USA and they arrive at the port, we then must pay an ADDITIONAL $145,000 to the US government so we can have the goods enter the country. So instead of a total $100,000 production cost, it becomes a total of $254,000 cost. This doesn’t include the freight forwarding fees or fulfillment fees. To be very clear, China does not pay these tariff fees. We, the businesses, do. Boardgames have been duty free for a very long time, and there was not any additional fees for when our products entered the country. Now that the Trump administration has decided to place a blanket tariff on all Chinese goods, this is greatly affecting our industry. Can it get worse than 145%? Well, sure, it’s hard to know how far Trump is willing to take this… but it feels to me that it is likely to go back in the other direction, soon enough. This feels like extreme posturing for ‘negotiations’, as it has elevated to such a high level so quickly. I do hope it turns around soon, to a more realistic and manageable collaboration. In response to these tariffs, we have decided at Japanime that we must raise our prices in the near future to compensate for these huge increases in production expenses. We have not decided as of yet whether this will be in the form of a tariff surcharge, or if we will be raising the retail prices directly, but this will go into effect at the end of April. This gives a little time for our distribution and retail partners to order products before pricing goes up (and also fans of our games and accessories), and it also gives us a chance to see if things bounce back to a more reasonable tariff before we increase prices. If the tariff situation returns to a more manageable situation soon, we will reevaluate the need for price increases. As always, we appreciate your support. I have no concerns that we will weather this setback, but we do need to be smart about it. For those interested in reading more about how the tariff trade war is affecting others in our industry, my friend W. Eric Martin recently wrote this piece on BGG: https://boardgamegeek.com/blog/1/blogpost/172898/tariff-talk-from-publishers-on-costs-sales-convent Additionally, this article in the Washington Times quotes GAMA, the Game Manufacturer’s Association – Of which I am also on the board of directors https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/apr/8/american-board-game-industry-fears-devastation-trumps-tariffs/ Thank you for your understanding, friends. We will get through this, and we will keep enjoying anime, and keep enjoying games. Eric Price President, Japanime Games What Does It Mean to Raise Prices? Raising prices is not something that we want to do. We know that this price increase will affect everyone from the distributors to the retailers to the consumers - but in light of the increase we are being forced to pay to bring new games (and re-prints of old games) to the US we have to do something to make up these costs. However, as we stated above, even though the prices on some of our new releases will be higher than what we advertised, backers will not be charged the difference. These prices will only affect games going forward in retail. These price increases will be as minimal as possible, and if the tariff situation changes between now and when these prices go into effect, we will have time to reverse or change them if needed. We are in no way attempting to take advantage of this situation. We will only raise prices by the minimum amount possible. But what this does mean is that some of our new releases and up-coming products like Black Clover: Star Festival and Oshi Push: The Vtuber Trading Card game will most likely be increasing. As with anyone in the board game industry currently trying to navigate these increased costs of business, we are keeping an eye on the evolving situation. The last thing we want to do is raise our prices or delay any game releases. Please keep an eye on our e-mails and social posts as we bring you the most up-to-date information we can.
