Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University. This week, Thorne rues the tariff rollback that doesn’t affect games, and the sales on the big new Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon releases.
It appears the growing concern in the country about the affordability of products by the average American finally got the President’s attention. Just as Joe Biden had said the economy was doing fine under his administration while inflation raised the price of most goods, Trump has said the economy is doing well, his tariffs had no effect on prices and that, anyway, prices were going down. However, he seems to have paid attention to the cacophony of voices saying that no, prices are going up and people are finding it harder to afford basic necessities, let along things like comics and games. Ergo President Trump issued an executive order November 14 announced the rollback of tariffs on about 200 food items which he had imposed, also by executive order, last September. Needless to say, we are still waiting on the Supreme Court to decide whether all of the tariffs and the power under which he claimed to have imposed them is constitutional or not (see “Tariffs Now and A Quick Revisit to Accessories“).
This illustrates the problem the game (and comic books) industry has with working to engender sympathy regarding the effect tariffs have on both. We sell luxury items. Small luxury items, true, but still luxury items. Despite what some of our customers may think (and I have had cases of customers trying to decide whether to buy Magic cards or pay a bill), nobody needs the products we sell. I have pointed out to my staff and customers that we have a store full of items nobody needs. No-one is going to pass a bill establishing a game or comic allowance for people below a certain level of income. That would be just silly. We offer an entertainment experience, and we compete against hundreds of other entertainment experiences every day. Yes, there is no rational reason for putting a tariff on tabletop games in the name of “national security,” but people in the President’s party in Congress won’t push back against them unless they hear from a number of members of the entertainment industries (and yes, games and comics are part of the entertainment industry). I do get updates from various organizations detailing the lobbying efforts they are undertaking to get Congress and the President to roll back tariffs. If you want to take action, calling your Representative or Senator is likely the most proactive thing you can do as their offices do keep track of comments they receive from their constituents.
On a “not having to feel like our business is under assault all the time” note, Magic: The Gathering: Universes Beyond – Avatar: The Last Airbender and Pokémon TCG: Phantasmal Flames both released this past week, and sales here certainly approached, but did not exceed, Magic: The Gathering: Universes Beyond – Final Fantasy and Pokémon TCG: Mega Evolution with our second-best sales day of the year so far. Our Pokémon collectors were far more interested in the assorted boxed sets than they were in booster packs of Phantasmal Flames themselves. I guess that is to be expected given most of our customers collect rather than play Pokémon. And, sigh, we are already getting inquiries regarding Magic: The Gathering Universes Beyond: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Comments? Tariff Tales? Send them to castleperilousgames@gmail.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
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