Today, he employs more than 40 people and says he’s been growing 20% every year. His catalog has close to 400 items in it, including more than 80 box organizers. Made from three-ply birch, they range in price from $16 to $125. Some gamers don’t stop there. Why settle for a cardboard chit with a sheaf of wheat printed on it when you can have a cast-resin token representing your fictional crops? Chad and Marlene Ingham, owners of Top Shelf Gamer in Raleigh, North Carolina, understand.
They make tokens for any good or item used in games—foodstuffs, trade goods, farm animals, buildings—as well as metal coins to replace cardboard or paper money. All can be had in 10-packs for a few dollars, or packaged in custom sets. Upgrading all the trade goods and animals for the game Caverna, for instance, will run you about $150—twice the game’s retail price.
“We’ve sold almost a million individual tokens in the past two years,” said Chad Ingham. “It’s a good market to be in.”
The tokens that Top Shelf Gamer sells, like many of the games they’re used in, are made in China—which means the U.S. trade war looms over their operations.
Jamey Stegmaier is the president of Stonemaier Games in St. Louis, the maker of Scythe. The game is ranked in the top 10 on BoardGameGeek.com. It’s also made in China.
Stegmaier said it costs $18 to manufacture the game and $2 to ship it from China. He estimated that tariffs will increase his manufacturing costs by $4.50 per game. While the game retails for $90, it’s sold to distributors and retailers at a discount.
“We might decrease the discount U.S. and Canadian distributors get, though, and perhaps try to ship more [games] directly to Canada to avoid the U.S. altogether,” he said, noting that the games he sells in Canada are initially shipped to his U.S. warehouse. But that won’t be the end of the repercussions.
“If the tariffs happen, I think they’ll impact every level of the industry. Publishers will print fewer games, distributors will buy fewer games, retailers will sell fewer games,” Stegmaier said. He added that it’s unlikely new domestic game and accessory manufacturers will spring up, since “there are simply too many custom components in tabletop games that aren’t made at scale in the U.S.”
But not everyone in the industry relies on China.
Wyrmwood, a custom game accessory maker, is located in a former mill in Taunton, Massachusetts. Douglas Costello co-founded the company in 2012 with his brother and a friend. That first year, they made about $2,900 selling deck boxes to hold game cards. Last year, they raked in $4 million.