Welcome home.
This is Audio EXP for April 19th, and the episode title is “Tariffs, Lovecraft and other demons”.
[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #283]
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Keith DEdinburgh won the RPG Publisher Spotlight this month.
The interview is up, and we briefly talk about tips for publishers who want to get involved with Chaosium’s community content program, the Miskatonic Repository.
Keith told me that there are ambassadors in the organisation who can help with essential questions. For example, not every unspeakable horror in the mythos was created by Lovecraft, so some are protected by copyright. The ambassadors can help you steer safely through those dangerous legal waters.
There wasn’t a podcast last week as I was at Scotland’s oldest tabletop gaming convention. That’s Edinburgh University’s Conpusion, though the connection to Edinburgh Uni is pretty slender these days.
I played a game of Call of Cthulhu and got eaten by a god, a game of Wraithlands which manages to be a dark Celtic folkstory and slightly surreal at the same time, a D&D game and a game of Ben Newbon’s Cybertopia GM’d by Ben himself. I rather liked the system by which a good dice roll can turn a thing your character was struggling with, essentially as a persistent disadvantage, around and become a strength.
Now, apologies for not reminding listeners in advance that we would be skipping a week. The truth is, up until the last minute, there was a chance you’d get a last-minute upgrade with a guest host. Sadly, that fell through.
So, let’s check out the big news since we last spoke and there’s been plenty!
It’s bad news for many, though. Darrell Louder, creative director at Greater Than Games, broke the news that the whole company had been closed. His entire team have lost their jobs.
Flat River Games, who bought Greater Than a few years back, later updated their website to say that Greater Than Games would keep selling games but had ‘downsized staff’ or some other less than empathic wording.
What’s the problem? The tariffs that are forcing people in the United States to pay twice as much as they used to for many imports from China.
Sadly, it looks this will just be the first of a few. Cephalofair Games, who make Gloomhaven, have over $1.2 million worth of games stuck in China.
Japanime Games and Arcane Wonders are both on record with similar problems. It’s not just that the USA don’t yet have the factories to make these games but that these current games were made in China this year and are on the wrong side of the tariff line at the wrong time.
Apple airlifed 600 tons of iPhones to India, with India’s help, to beat the tariff but games companies could not.
As it happens, I do know of European logistics companies now looking to import from China to Europe and them from Europe to America. I want to get permission that they’re public with this news before naming them, though.
Americans have to pay an extra 100% on most imports from China but only 10% extra from imports from the UK so you can see how this could work.
Buckle up. Here comes a fight. A while back we reported that the big American logistics company Diamond Comic Distributors had filed for bankruptcy protection, had a stalking horse bid already and was looking for buyers.
It looked like good news as Alliance Entertainment seemed to win the auction. However, Diamond filed paperwork to sell itself to Universal Distribution, their original stalking horse.
Now, the accountants and lawyers are debating over who will put the best bid in, but it’s gone legal. Isn’t it odd that a company with such financial challenges would be being fought?
Sometimes, news comes in the form of trends, though companies and people get the same idea at the same time.
Speaking of which, following the news that Chris Perkins would leave Wizards of the Coast and Dungeons and Dragons we have the news that game director Jeremy Crawford is leaving too. It’s on his terms.
Wizards say that their roadmap for D&D is intact but surely represents a guard change.
Okay, some good news.
Atlas Games has been granted $100K. It’s for their Replay Workshop, a company that recycles waste plastic like gaming sprus into new gaming material.
The money has even come from local US government and a chunk of it has gone into a machine that eats waste plastic, melts it down and turns it back into plastic ready to be made into something. Congrats to John and Michelle Nephew.
Mongoose has had an interesting few weeks, but the good news is that they’ve secured all the rights to Dark Conspiracy. Would you believe it in this roleplaying game of the near cyberpunk future, but governments are up to no good.
I think this is good news unless you’re one of the unlucky would-be attendees, but London’s Dragonmeet expo created a free-to-attend event called Call to Adventure. It was all about getting people into tabletop gaming, especially kids. It’s sold all the tickets it is allowed to and the organisers have been asking news outlets like Geek Native to get the word out. So, there you have it, Londoners, if you had planned to rock up to Kensington Town Hall next week and see if you can get in, please don’t. Check the website first.
It’s certainly good news that this handful of brave volunteers have been so successful and interest in the hobby is high.
There are some freebies to mention this week as well.
Firstly, Two Little Mice are growing the cinematic fun of Outgunned into the superhero genre and the Outgunned Superhero quickstart is out.
There’s two high profile freebies from Modiphius.
Firstly, there’s the quickstart for Space: 1999. That’s a UK classic sci-fi in which a team is blasted off into space. It’s more adult than camp.
The second is the quickstart for Heroes of Might and Magic, which is another old name back again.
Lastly, in bundles, there’s one from Green Ronin’s 3rd era on the Bundle of Holding and another from Game Machinery’s somewhat adult Defiant.
In Defiant, you’re a powerful supernatural creature and are from the very start of the game. Rather than take part in the apocalypse, you saved your corner of the world and now find yourself in a game of courtly and high-stakes romance, politics and brinksmanship with others who made the same call as you.
On that note, keep safe, do as a demon says and see you next time.
