Ahmed AlSharif, Chief Technology Officer at Sandsoft, on how the effects of the United States’ ongoing trade wars will impact the games industry


A


s ongoing issues around international trade continue to rumble, many industries are bracing themselves for the inevitable impact


tariffs will have. The games industry is especially in a precarious position, caught in the invisible crossfire of an unpredictable global trade war exacerbated by the institutional problems — such as layoffs, rising development costs and player apathy — that have dogged the sector for the past few years. These recent tariffs on gaming consoles, GPUs, and physical media are driving up costs, and the effects are fundamentally reshaping how games are made, sold, and played.


THE TARIFF PROBLEM When the RTX 50 series price spiked, most attributed the hike to supply chain issues. While these were no doubt at play, we cannot ignore the impact that tariffs have — and will continue to have - on


32 | MCV/DEVELOP April/May 2025


hardware. These extra fees are status effects you can’t shake. Increased prices don’t just make things more expensive to import, they ripple outward and warp everything downstream including manufacturing, pricing, and even consumer behaviour. This belief isn’t merely speculation; the Consumer


Technology Association has estimated that the current tariffs could add $7 billion in extra costs for gamers buying consoles in the US alone. This estimate isn’t a surprise — physical products such as game discs or consoles are produced and imported into most Western markets, especially North America. Ultimately, this means that hardware manufacturers need to recoup these additional costs, and the easiest way to achieve this is by passing on the price rise to the end consumer. When it comes to physical games, publishers have two likely responses: they either increase prices across


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54