MN Board Game Businesses Bracing For Impact Of China Tariffs

On February 1st, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14195 which established a 10% tariff on all Chinese imports that went into effect on February 4th. Then on March 3rd, the administration increased those tariffs to 20%.

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The tariffs are already having an impact on business across the country and Minnesota board game businesses are no different. Twin Cities-based Sophisticated Cerberus Games' Jeremy Geenen says they will see the effects of the tariffs soon:

"We have a game being manufactured as we speak and so we're going to have a game coming in shortly that will have tariffs applied to it so we're actively planning for that right now."

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Geenen says they are exploring several options to deal with the tariffs from shipping less to the U.S. to optimize shipping container size, to increasing the Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) on the retail side. He says they are not going to increase prices on games already funded via crowdfunding platforms.

Image courtesy of Sophisticated Cerberus Game.

Sophisticated Cerberus's Jeremy Geenen, Ethan Janssen, and Matt Rayford joined Table Talk, WJON's bi-weekly show about board gaming, on Saturday to discuss the impact of the China tariffs on board games and chat about some of their upcoming projects.

Geenen says Sophisticated Cerberus doesn't want to have to increase the MSRP but board games have low margins through distribution as it is so they may have no other choice. He says shifting manufacturing out of China is not a good solution either:

"The infrastructure is not set up anywhere else, so you think about manufacturing board games in the U.S., there are a couple of manufactures here, mostly print n play, like smaller scale manufacturers, and it's significantly more expensive, so even with the costs of shipping from China and the tariffs, it's still cheaper to ship from China than to it is to manufacture in the U.S."

He continued that they don't have the margin to just absorb the 20% tariffs but it's still cheaper to make the games in China versus the United States. It was a fascinating discussion about how the tariffs are impacting the board game industry in general. Geenen says it is hard to say when consumers may see the increase because several factors come into play, but people will see price increases if the China tariffs are sustained.

Image courtesy of Sophisticated Cerberus Game.

We spent the second half of Table Talk discussing some new things coming up from Sophisticated Cerberus Games. The first item was the planned expansion for their game Stifling Dark that will be called Deathveil. Right now they hope to launch Deathveil in early 2026. Matt Rayford says Deathveil will feature a new map, two new adversaries, as well as another map option:

"The one we are building right now is an abandoned nuclear facility and it will have stuff like radiation and some other new mechanics that will be quite fun."

Sophisticated Cerberus Games

Rayford says they are also streamlining some of the core rules for Stifling Dark and introducing miniatures to the game. He says the minis will be available as an add-on package as part of the crowdfunding campaign for Deathveil.

Sophisticated Cerberus Games

We also talked about their most recent project Sprocketforge, which people can still pre-order on Sophisticated Cerberus's website, and another game they have in the works titled Darn Tootin'. You can catch Table Talk every other Saturday at 810 a.m. after the news, on AM1240/95.3FM WJON, for more great board gaming news and discussions.

Sophisticated Cerberus Games

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