Courtesy of Jamey Stegmaier
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jamey Stegmaier, the 44-year-old cofounder, lead designer, and president of Stonemaier Games based in St Louis, Missouri. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
Like everyone else, we found out about the latest tariffs on television.
My company, Stonemaier Games, pays tariffs to the US government for the games we manufacture in China and import to the US. I thought we could work with it when the 20% tariff was applied in March, but then the last month happened, and that changed everything.
We learned we would be hit with an initial 34% tariff on top of an existing 20% one. Then it kept rising to 145%. I was surprised not just by the initial jump but by how much it continued to increase day by day.
American companies, including us, could lose a lot of money or go out of business within a few months.
We work with a Chinese company called Panda Game Manufacturing
I started Stonemaier Games 13 years ago, launching my first title, Viticulture, on Kickstarter while it was still just a hobby. Since then, my team of eight US-based employees has published 20 different modern strategy games, including Wingspan, our best-known title.
My team focuses on the entire creative and commercial process: We design games, handle logistics, and take care of sales and marketing — everything except actual manufacturing.
That happens in China, with Panda. China has entire industries built around custom game components, such as wooden tokens, custom dice, and specialty molds. The US doesn’t, and those components are expensive to make here.
Once games are made, about 65% are shipped to the US, and the rest largely go to Europe, Canada, and Australia.
We’re the ones paying the tariffs — not China or our customers
We had already started a large print run of 250,000 games before the tariffs were introduced, none of which have sold to customers yet. Some are earmarked for distributors, but distributors pay us after goods are delivered. That’s part of what made this so difficult — we’d already invested heavily.
So far, we’ve only paid around $5,000 in tariffs on a small shipment that left China in early February, right when the initial 20% tariff hit.
If we passed along the full 145% tariff to customers, a popular game like Wingspan, which sells for $65, would suddenly cost close to $200. No one would buy it.
This week, we’re starting to ship out that big 250,000-unit run, which will take about three weeks. If things go poorly, we could be hit with 145% tariffs when those goods arrive in June. We’ll take the current shipments and cover the freight costs, but I’m already thinking about the holiday print run.
If the temporary truce holds — which slashes China’s tariffs on the US from 125% to 10% and the US’s tariffs on China from 145% to 30% — we’ll “only” pay 30%. That’s still painful, but manageable compared to the alternative.
We’ve been trying to stall by seeing how long we can delay shipments, hold them in China, or temporarily route them through Canada. There’s no loophole — tariffs are based on the country of origin, not where the goods enter. Even if we store something in Canada, we still pay when it crosses into the US.
Most of our customers have been supportive
People are particularly sympathetic to how these changes are affecting small businesses. I’ve been outspoken in the media and joined a lawsuit against the tariffs with a dozen other companies.
Some customers who support the president have taken issue with things I’ve said, like how I will not stand idly while my livelihood and thousands of other small business owners’ livelihoods are treated like pawns in a political game.
On the various blog posts I’ve written, especially the “We’re Suing the President” post, there were a number of inflammatory comments, including some saying that they’ll never buy another Stonemaier game again. It’s been surprising to me to see such a wide range of reactions.
Right now, we’re just trying to move forward
I’ve looked into onshoring our manufacturing. We do sell most of our games in the US, so on paper it makes sense, but the US just doesn’t have the infrastructure or expertise for this kind of manufacturing at scale.
The creative question I’ve been asking myself is: Could we design games around what we can manufacture in the US? That’s interesting from a design perspective — but also creatively limiting.
The 90-day truce period on tariffs ends in August. There’s still so much uncertainty, which will likely lead to a more modest holiday run than usual.
I’d like to see Congress step up
I want to see Congress take ownership of the process. I’d also ask for a grace period for businesses like mine, which made decisions before the tariffs were announced. That would show good faith.
If the tariffs don’t get pulled back, people will have significantly less money to spend on things that bring them joy, like games. Any publisher without cash reserves is in trouble, especially if they have games in production in China. I think local retailers will suffer the most.
There’s no math that makes it work. There’s no silver lining. It’s a lose-lose-lose situation for everyone involved.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
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