Board game companies sue Trump administration over unconstitutional tariffs
Board game companies Stonemaier Games, XYZ Game Labs, Spielcraft Games, Rookie Mage, and Tinkerhouse Games are suing the Trump administration over its tariffs, which President Donald Trump set at 145% for most products manufactured in China. Nearly 70% of board games are made in China, making the China tariff an “existential” threat to the American board game industry.
In the lawsuit, filed today by Pacific Legal Foundation, the board game companies say the tariffs are an unconstitutional abuse of executive power.
“The president also does not have inherent constitutional authority to impose tariffs—a power that the Constitution grants to Congress,” the complaint argues.
The tariffs have sparked panic across American industries: A Maryland clothing company, Wyoming art studio, an llinois cryogenic processing company, and several other businesses have also joined PLF’s lawsuit, and a Florida-based paper company, a New York wine-importer, and even the state of California are suing in separate lawsuits.
But tariffs deal a particularly hard blow to the $2.9 billion American board game industry. Publishers, including Stonemaier president Jamey Stegmaier, say there simply isn’t a way to manufacture their games in the United States.
“The types of components in many modern hobby games aren’t made at scale in the U.S.,” Jamey wrote in a blog post. “Even the components that can be made here—printed components—aren’t made using the quality or variety as they are in China.”
One of Stonemaier’s most popular games is Wingspan, a card-based game in which players collect birds. It’s award-winning and beloved—Slate calls it “the best board game of the decade”—in large part due to the detail and care put into its parts. “[T]he game is absolutely gorgeous,” Ars Technica raves in a review.
Colorful player boards, a stack of 170 cards with unique (and beautiful) illustrations, pastel plastic eggs so pretty you wish you could eat them, custom wooden dice that nest in an adorable birdfeeder-style dice tower—the game is almost aggressively lovely.
These lovely components need to be specially manufactured—and since 2012, when Jamey cofounded the company as a college student in St. Louis, Stonemaier has worked with a company in China to manufacture its games.
Stonemaier will now be hit with dramatically increased production costs—as will other game companies.
Exactly how high are the tariff costs? Jamey surveyed other game publishers. The 74 companies who responded to his survey have already paid a total of $206,000 in tariffs—and if the tariffs remain at 145%, these companies are due to pay over $11 million.
“There is no math that makes it work,” Jamey writes in a blog post. “There is no silver lining.”
Other publishers have been explaining to customers that it’s impossible to switch to U.S. manufacturing right now. “[T]he infrastructure to support full-scale boardgame production—specialty dice making, die-cutting, custom plastic and wood components—doesn’t meaningfully exist here yet,” Meredith Placko, CEO of Steve Jackson Games, writes in a blog post. “I’ve gotten quotes. I’ve talked to factories. Even when the willingness is there, the equipment, labor, and timelines simply aren’t.”
On his blog, Loren Coleman, CEO of Catalyst Game Labs, addresses whether tariffs could incentivize someone to invest strongly in American game manufacturing. “Maybe. Although it’s likely that person would need millions of dollars, years of preparation (by which time the tariffs may be rescinded and the entire project a waste of time and resources) and they would likely have to import all the big machines from outside the country anyway (hello tariffs!).”
Where does that leave the future of board games? Ars Technica predicts the tariffs will force gamers to stop buying new games. “Or games might decline in quality to keep costs lower.” BoardGameWire says the tariffs could cause a “great collapse” of the American board game industry.
That’s a gut punch for the millions of game enthusiasts in the United States, the stores that sell to them, and game publishers like Stonemaier.
On Reddit’s r/boardgames, a 5.4 million-member community, commenters are urging each other to buy games now, before it’s too late. When news broke that Stonemaier was challenging the tariffs in court, over eight thousand members upvoted the post and hundreds posted hopeful comments.
“I just wanted to say good luck,” one commenter wrote. “We’re all counting on you.”
The lawsuit is Princess Awesome & Stonemaier Games v. Customs. You can read the full complaint here.
