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By Chris Zinsli
There’s a global shipping crisis going on, and virtually every board game publisher is grappling with the consequences of it. The situation is especially rough for small, indie publishers.
Here’s the quick version of how we got here: Overwhelming demand for goods is stretching the limits of the global supply chain. Widespread production issues and shortages of shipping containers are gumming up the works, and the situation came to a head this month after a major port in China closed due to a Covid outbreak.
“It's like a bottleneck in traffic during rush hour,” said Clay Ross of Capstone Games.
To get a sense of exactly how this is affecting the tabletop gaming industry, we surveyed a range of publishers about the impact they’re seeing on their current projects. We heard from 36 companies with game products that are currently being shipped from a manufacturer.
A cost in time...
The most immediate effect for publishers is that their games are taking longer to get from manufacturers to end markets. In our survey, 32 of the 36 publishers, or 89%, said they’re experiencing delays. They cited lags of 2 to 4 weeks up to 5 to 6 weeks.
“There were a few weeks delay getting onto a ship from Shanghai to east coast USA, and then once booked in we got bumped off the ship only to face unknown more days or weeks of delays,” said Kim Brebach of Good Games Publishing.
Companies that rely on China-based manufacturing seem to be the hardest-hit. Some publishers who manufacture in Europe said they’ve avoided significant delays.
...and in money.
Publishers say high demand and short supply is leading shipping companies to jack up their rates. Nearly everyone in our survey—34 of the 36 respondents, or 94%—said they’re facing higher costs for shipping.
So how big an increase are we talking about? Well, it varies from company to company, but it’s significant.
“Our partners have to pay 3 or even 4 times more to get the games delivered to them,” said Julia Klokova of Hobby World.
Our survey bears out those numbers. Among the publishers who provided specific figures, the median was a threefold-to-fourfold cost increase. But that’s just what’s average. For some, it’s much worse. One publisher said their shipping costs are up ninefold from before the pandemic.
Cynthia Tuck of Mayday Games summed up publishers’ sentiment: “The increase is OUTRAGEOUS.”
What to do?
The bottom line for publishers? Many say they’ll have to raise their own prices in response, passing at least some of the additional costs on to customers.
“The shipping price increases being seen in the industry right now are ‘margin eliminating’-level events,” said Chad Elkins of 25th Century Games. “With no end in sight to shipping and raw material price increases, consumers are simply going to see price increases in the store. It's unavoidable.”
“We've had to increase the MSRP of some products so that they are viable, and we have been refusing some localization opportunities due to the uncertainty and overkill prices for freight,” said one publisher who wished to remain anonymous. “It's absolutely crazy.”
Other companies are hoping to ride out the current situation.
“I'm delaying my next product release largely because of the shipping costs,” said Brian Henk of Pull the Pin Games. “I'm lining it up so I freight ship in December in hopes that prices will lower after the holiday rush.”
But no one knows when—or even if—shipping rates will return to their earlier, lower levels. For some publishers, especially new ones, that’s an existential problem. I Will Never Grow Up Games said “the quoted prices of sea freight have removed the viability of manufacturing new games at this time for our business.”
Worst-case scenario: “If this keeps up, many smaller publishers will be out of business,” said Aron West of Elzra Corp. “There simply isn't enough margin in this business to absorb increases like this.”
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