Thanks for hopping onto our page regarding Tariffs. Below is our first hand experience with Tariffs as a small business. MOCO Games is our game publishing company launching Starleap.

We also own and operate a logistics company, helping other board game companies freight, store, and ship out their products. We are directly affected by the tariffs with both businesses.

We take a very objective approach, it doesn’t matter what political party you stand for, tariffs currently affect all US businesses with a trickle affect around the globe. In this day and age, the world operates globally and is reliant on many other countries for material resources and manufacturing capabilities.

Tariffs are a direct tax placed onto the importer of record (the company, us the publisher, who’s bringing in goods from China (where the factory our product is produced). The only effect this has against China is a slow down of business request from companies relying on China to produce products. However, China provides goods for majority of the world and so they will adapt and shift to supplying for other countries as needed.

With tariffs in effect, it directly affects us. To break down the math, an example of Starleap production cost is $10 per game. With a 145% tariff in effect, MOCO Games is required to pay the US Customs & Border Protection department (government) an additional $14.50. This brings our total cost of goods (COGs) to $24.50. The exact product that should cost us to manufacture $10 is now over double the cost and with normal consumer purchasing behaviors, no one will be willing to pay the standard markup of 5x on a product. Meaning at $10 COGs, a general retail price would be set at $50. But at $24.50 the price would be $122.5. No consumer would be purchasing a singular board game for that price.

When you begin to multiply that at scale (our production runs for Sabobatage are typically 25,000 at a time. With our COGs being at $5, this is $125,000 for a small business which is a lot of money. With the tariff in effect, that’s an additional $7.25 per unit, costing an additional $181,250 = bringing a total of $306,250. The cost of a simple card game normally priced at $25-$27 would become $62.50 at the standard MSRP multiplier that businesses operate on. Small businesses like us already operate on a fairly thin margin, so additional cash is not readily available to absorb additional costs.

You can now see how this affects us. Now with our business, we normally cover shipping, meaning free US shipping for 1 purchase of Sabobatage. Most board game companies do charge for shipping for their games, and with our shipping costs for Starleap, this helps cover the additional cost. While we ourselves don’t like to pay for shipping as a normal consumer, this is a standard cost most consumers are familiar with.

At the very least for this heavy of a game, Starleap being a very big box, this would normally cost $18-$22 by other fulfillment companies. Luckily, because we built our own shipping company, we have better rates and are able to offer our domestic shipping for much lower, making it more palatable to our backers.

Starleap has been in development for over a year, with a lot of time and resources – we were placed in a position to launch as scheduled and weather the storm. A continued delay of launch would also affect us with the amount of money invested into R&D, payroll, prototypes, marketing, content creators and more. Had we delayed further, then the internal team would be affected (layoffs). We’re doing our best to retain the team as majority of them have been working under MOCO Games for the last 4 years and are considered family. It’s no easy decision and having to weigh the pros and cons for all aspects during this time.

I hope this provides some more clarity on how tariffs work and how it affects us as a small business. We appreciate your time consideration and support! Reach out to us if you have any questions.(We will not be responding to any inquiries looking to debate political stances).