Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Stormonu wrote:
If my memory serves me correctly, there was an enconomic impact just a few years ago with rising Chinese wages/modernization making pre-painted miniatures more expensive.

While the RPG sector still has some pre-painted miniatures nowadays, they aren't as pervasive and cheap as they were back when Wizkids was doing likes of MageKnight and D&D was putting out their own pre-painted minis.

We'll see some effect on the cost on the boardgame, book and boardgame mini front. Not sure GW will be affected much, but I suspect they will hike their prices all the same.

From the article in the OP.

Toys are under 9503.00.00. “Toys, including riding toys o/than bicycles, puzzles, reduced scale models.”

the majority of GW's product is actually not made in china. The terrian kits that are "produced in china designed in the UK", could arguably still fall under Scale models. Making them exempt if I understand correctly

The problem is for companies that make boxed game sets in china. Because they could be considered boardgames.

Board games and dice are included under the subheading: 9504.90.60. “Chess, checkers, backgammon, darts and o/table and parlor games played on boards of a special design and parts thereof; poker chips and dice.”

A boxed wargame were you have a mat like some current wargame starter sets, could fall under this definition.

It used to be the case in the UK that while imported books did not attract duty, games did. So, how does a customs officer determine if something like the D & D box contains books or is a game? Well, games have dice, don't they? Pick up the box and shake it; if it rattles it's a game. So the trick then became to pack the box sufficiently tightly so that nothing rattled. Or sell the dice separately.

The problem that killed me regarding China was the free shipping they get. They are still claiming the subsidy for being a developing nation and every other country has to pay.




Even if I can match the price they still win because my shipping keeps increasing while they get a massive subsidy. And the twist of the knife is that my customers are paying higher and higher shipping costs to subsidize my competitors.

Tariffs are already being levied on my own products. I bulk ship orders to the UK and the import duties are around 40%. (VAT and tariff combined) GW ships to the US and how much do they have to pay?

So a lot of these trade agreements combine to simply make US manufacturing too costly.

This new trade war is simply an attempt to balance the playing field. Those gaining a benefit from the imbalance are going to squeal, as expected. But those getting screwed under the current deal are hoping for a glimmer of hope.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
It used to be the case in the UK that while imported books did not attract duty, games did. So, how does a customs officer determine if something like the D & D box contains books or is a game? Well, games have dice, don't they? Pick up the box and shake it; if it rattles it's a game. So the trick then became to pack the box sufficiently tightly so that nothing rattled. Or sell the dice separately.

Well funny enough a US CBP had sort of a ruling for a DND module in 1991 [HQ 089971]

and basically when a product fits two similar codes they do the same thing we do with general vs specific vs FAQ.

a DND module book alone is still concerned a game in chapter 95

edit derp i read that wrong.

but i believe general vs specific still applies.

the entire boxed product is designed to be a game. so it is a game.

I think the US model is, “When in doubt, tax it”. (Double)

However, even if GW products got a pass on items like Blackstone Fortress, I don’t believe that GW would pass the opportunity to hike prices “just in case” or to spread around the cost for items that do get hit.

Besides games, would the new tariff affect books coming from China, such as Codexes? I believe for GW all those are printed in China.

 John Prins wrote:
It may prompt companies to do casting locally - this could drag on for a long time. There are still plastic casting companies in the USA, after all.

They don't know how to produce game items, and they have no capacity even if they did.

 Stormonu wrote:


Besides games, would the new tariff affect books coming from China, such as Codexes? I believe for GW all those are printed in China.

Yes all those books even though imported from china to England then to the USA would still be considered originating for China. better get whatever books you want now and or go electronical.

 Ghool wrote:
A developing country proves to be the most inexpensive route to getting products made. And there are only so many developing countries left where it's possible for manufacturing and a dense enough population to support that sector with cheap workers.

That is why China is shifting production to Vietnam, and preparing to further shift to LatAm and Africa. What do you think Belt & Road is?

Interesting article on Trump if you invest in stocks: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trumps-low-threshold-for-stock-market-pain-200231127.html

 skrulnik wrote:

 Ghool wrote:
The gaming bubble is close to bursting as it is.
Rising prices by a margin of 25% or more is the needle to the balloon. If anyone thinks that companies will just absorb that cost by reducing output, layoffs or other means is deluded.

Rising costs are always passed onto the consumer, and as stated above, it won't stop companies from jacking prices anyways. As always, it'll be the customer that will absorb the cost.

Also with Asmodee taking over FFG and CMON, we no longer have the individuals who have been driving a large portion of the board and skirmish game growth in control.
Now we are at the whims of a distributor, not the creative peoples.

Is Asmodee in talks to be taking over CMON?

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
http://www.tabletopwire.com/toys-board-games-and-dice-included-in-proposed-tariffs/

Well we've dodged the collective bullet until now, but it looks like there may be a fairly major price increase (especially for board gamers) coming soon

Toys, board games and dice are on the list of Chinese imports that President Trump has proposed for additional tariffs of up to 25%. The list was released today by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Trump proposed the tariffs after trade negotiations with China fell through on Friday.

Board games and dice are included under the subheading: 9504.90.60. “Chess, checkers, backgammon, darts and o/table and parlor games played on boards of a special design and parts thereof; poker chips and dice.”

Toys are under 9503.00.00. “Toys, including riding toys o/than bicycles, puzzles, reduced scale models.”

Public hearings on the proposal will start June 17. During this time companies and individuals can provide input on tariff levels to be imposed. Requests to exclude specific subheading will also be taken. The tariffs could be implemented any time after June 24.

this could be really bad news for KS companies who haven't left sufficient margin to pay the extra taxes, and if they do come in i'd expect some projects to outright fail, and others ask for extra cash.



(It might also lead to more pack and ship direct from China, but I don't know enough about US law to know if that would avoid the problem?, I have the feeling individuals have a pretty high personal allowance compared to the UK/EU, but if so why aren't more companies using this option already?)

Toys are under 9503.00.00. “Toys, including riding toys o/than bicycles, puzzles, reduced scale models.”

Suddenly I feel better about not funding

But wouldn't the grav stug be a reduce scale model, and therefore not considered a toy?

 Sqorgar wrote:
Globalization was a mistake, and relying on China for cheap labor was not sustainable as China becomes more of a world leader. However, a sudden, significant price increase could be a shock that destroys the industry. While I'd like more companies to move away from China and focus on local manufacturing, the change needs to happen more gradually.

Counterexample: I used to work for one of the UK’s larger universities, and the most competitive print quotations invariably came from Germany, where wages are high and regulations exacting. ‘Globalisation’ is much more about specialisation and the economics of scale than it is about a race to the bottom in standards and remuneration.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
But wouldn't the grav stug be a reduce scale model, and therefore not considered a toy?

It says ‘including reduced scale models’.

Davor wrote:
I can't feel sorry for the companies. After all if you can't build in your own country, you deserve what you get then.

After all, you are robbing fellow country man/woman of work.

Oh well, such is life. Use to GW prices, so no big deal. Been doing it for years with high priced games.

TFW people bitch and moan about GW prices because they are slightly (and, you know...not always...) more expensive per model than competitors who produce in china, and then get surprised when all the chinese produced goods are only at the price point they are because they have essentially no labor costs.

 ImAGeek wrote:

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
But wouldn't the grav stug be a reduce scale model, and therefore not considered a toy?

It says ‘including reduced scale models’.

Oh, I see. I misread it when I scanned it quickly, and though it was toys other than those listed. But the "other than" just applies to bicycles.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
But wouldn't the grav stug be a reduce scale model, and therefore not considered a toy?

It says ‘including reduced scale models’.

Oh, I see. I misread it when I scanned it quickly, and though it was toys other than those listed. But the "other than" just applies to bicycles.

So he would need to include a bicycle with the model

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Malika2 wrote:

Hmmm..i think we're entering a political debate here...

This is a manufacturing debate. Using cheap third world labor keeps costs down, but only temporarily. Remember when we used to get all our cheap electronics made in Japan? And then South Korea? And then China? India is probably next. As these countries improve their conditions, they become more expensive, and we just move our factories to the next country. I don't think this is sustainable over a long period of time, as the true costs of goods are hidden out of sight, in pollution, poor working conditions, waste, and exploitation. That true cost can not be hidden forever, and within our lifetime, the entire manufacturing industry will almost certainly collapse because of it.

I read somewhere that just one of those massive shipping vessels puts out the same amount of pollution as all the cars in America. There's no way we'll allow that to go on forever, and the new ships that must be built will be expensive and the price of transpacific shipping will skyrocket. Even if China doesn't crash, something else will. The entire manufacturing pipeline is built on borrowed time.

At some point, the board game and miniature industry is going to crash due to manufacturing concerns. Probably very soon. These tariffs could potentially hasten the inevitable, but I think moving manufacturing to something more sustainable is a necessary step.

More jobs have been lost to automation than to outsourcing. Some businesses are bringing factories back to the US, because it's cheaper to get products to customers when you have a near fully automated factory and no import costs.

Technology is consuming these jobs and soon many others as well. Pointing the finger at globalism won't save anyone's jobs. In fact globalism is what opened new markets for products that we produce.

Simple fact is we humans tend to fall into the trap of having to label things good or bad; globalisation just is. It has good elements (raising living standards and investment in developing countries) and bad elements (companies exploiting low wages and poor safety regulations).

People also fall into the old Luddite trap that mechanisation (now automation) is wholly bad, because it removes traditional jobs; at societal level it is generally good, because it tends to create not just new jobs, but entire new industries that no-one could have predicted before. It just sucks at a personal level for individuals who lose their traditional jobs, which is where you need government support for re-education and social welfare to support people through the transition.

 Jadenim wrote:
Simple fact is we humans tend to fall into the trap of having to label things good or bad; globalisation just is. It has good elements (raising living standards and investment in developing countries) and bad elements (companies exploiting low wages and poor safety regulations).

People also fall into the old Luddite trap that mechanisation (now automation) is wholly bad, because it removes traditional jobs; at societal level it is generally good, because it tends to create not just new jobs, but entire new industries that no-one could have predicted before. It just sucks at a personal level for individuals who lose their traditional jobs, which is where you need government support for re-education and social welfare to support people through the transition.

Yea I won't sit here and defend the facets of globalization. It's far too complex.

Automation IS great if society recognizes that a basic income will be required, because a lot of people will NOT have jobs. AI is better at being a doctor - it never forgets and has instant access to all other recorded outcomes. It's better at driving vehicles. Better at remembering your coffee. It never gets tired or injured like humans.

The goal of automation is to reduce the number of humans needed and therefore there will never be another booming sector that employs enough people to make a difference.

I doubt that. There are a lot of jobs where a person can accomplish ten times as much or more as they could have before there were computers. And yet there are still plenty of jobs.

Does anybody know what happened when humans started farming? What happened to all of the meat hunters and vegetable-gatherers? Didn't all of their hunter-gatherer jobs become obsolete?

What about the industrial revolution? Didn't it destroy the cottage industries? Didn't the blacksmiths and tailors become obsolete?

It's like we've never had technological upheaval before.

Albino Squirrel wrote:I doubt that. There are a lot of jobs where a person can accomplish ten times as much or more as they could have before there were computers. And yet there are still plenty of jobs.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Does anybody know what happened when humans started farming? What happened to all of the meat hunters and vegetable-gatherers? Didn't all of their hunter-gatherer jobs become obsolete?

What about the industrial revolution? Didn't it destroy the cottage industries? Didn't the blacksmiths and tailors become obsolete?

It's like we've never had technological upheaval before.

Of course there will still be jobs. Automation doesn't really destroy jobs, at least not quickly. What it does do is raise the skill barrier required for jobs- the new jobs created are higher skill than those lost.

What this means is that more and more people are being left behind at the bottom of society, and at some point this will encompass a very large chunk of society without some changes to humans themselves. There are people alive today who are considered to have a learning disability (IQ below 70 in medical parlance- not talking about things like dyslexia here) that cannot function in modern society without a large degree of help, that were valuable members of their local society 300 years ago, where they chopped logs for the village or something. These people simply don't have the toolset to be able to cope with modern life without significant support, and generally struggle to hold down modern jobs. The issue is that this is now beginning to include people above that threshold, who were previously considered to be able to function independently. That is not going to get better as modern jobs become ever more advanced.

Automation raises skill level, those who can't keep up will be left behind.

Luckily we're also making smarter people. Or, at least ones better adapted to modern life than to chopping wood all day.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Luckily we're also making smarter people. Or, at least ones better adapted to modern life than to chopping wood all day.

Are we?

We are educating people better, but everyone has a limit they can reach. For some people it is sadly a lot lower. Society needs to plan for the minimum requirement for labour increasing, because it is anyway.

Seems that way: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/03/smarter

Some people in this thread have suggested we are facing a catastrophe because we are going to run out of unskilled laborers. You are suggesting we will run out of unskilled jobs for all our unskilled laborers. I think we'll probably be fine. But I suppose this is wandering way off topic.

From Reddit: "I am a licensed Customs Broker in the US. I literally deal with these tariffs ALL day long. People sit here and complain that "Well a 25% price increase is going to kill businesses".

Here is some news for you to get a better perspective on this situation: So let's say a game publisher has a game with an MSRP of $60.00. The actual cost they declare to Customs is around $8-$11, on average. The rest of the cost goes to paying for things like ocean freight charges (which are non-dutiable and thus, the tariffs do not impact), and warehousing and trucking and profit and labor costs and other local charges, none of which are dutiable and thus the tariffs do not affect. That means, on a game that has an import cost of $8.00, the tariff adds $2 to the price of importation of that copy of the game. $2 to a $60 game is a total increase of 3.33%. That sort of cost can be absorbed with barely any notice to the consumer.

And if you think I making things up, these tariffs have been in place for virtually everything from China since September. How many things have you noticed huge cost hikes on? Anything that jumped 25%? Any small businesses that were thriving prior to Sep 4 that are now out of business? Most people here seem to think of this like a VAT, or a Value Added Tax, which is a flat tax added at the time of sales tax, which means you are taxed on all the freight and trucking and warehousing and whatever charges. That is not how tariffs work. So that $95 copy of Gloomhaven, were it imported from China after these tariffs, would (assuming the cost was fully passed on) cost about $98-100. Again, not a 25% cost increase. And the reality of this is that the additional tariffs they take in from China and a few other countries help offset the ridiculous runaway spending that Congress does so that it offsets some of the money we end up borrowing from China to pay for their nonsense."

https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/boej7d/toys_board_games_dice_included_in_proposed/enhgp0r/
https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/bphyo3/board_games_are_about_to_be_hit_with_a_25_tariff/

But GW will still use it as a means to raise prices though,as if they need another excuse.

Fisher investment article on Trump's tweets (refers to tariffs). : https://www.fisherinvestments.com/en-us/marketminder/some-perspective-on-trumps-trade-tweeting

One of my Kickstarters just posted a "we'll let you know how the tariff thing works out" message. The point about tariffs being imposed on declared value not retail is a good one, though many things are closer to the margin so a 25% bump hits harder. Gloomhaven isn't the same as a bazillion bones figures I imagine.
On the subject of automation - it just moves jobs more in the direction of art, creativity, etc. That is good for the wargaming community. It will be a long time before AI can paint your figures, write fluff, organize games, etc. As more jobs are taken over by tech, your chancing of getting paid to wargame increase! Look how many commission painters there are these days.