ESA Says Trump Tariffs Will Have a 'Detrimental Impact on the Video Game Industry' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 03 April 2025 / 2,829 Views
The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) speaking with GameFile said the newly announced Trump tariffs will "have a real and detrimental impact on the video game industry."
ESA senior vice president Aubrey Quinn stated video game hardware is likely to take a hit as they are made in countries with bigger tariffs that are set to be implemented. Parts for consoles are also sourced from multiple countries.
“Any one product that a consumer would buy is likely to be subject to many of the tariffs announced, all compounded on top of one another," said Quinn.
"I think what we heard yesterday is not the end of the story, not for the United States, not for other countries."
Quinn concluded, "I think every company, every industry, the video game industry included, needs to think about what’s best for consumers, best for business, and best for employees. Supply chains are complicated and, certainly, supply chains don’t change overnight. Everything that is considered or decided can’t be a quick turnaround and can’t be a knee-jerk reaction to any particular announcement."
The ESA was founded in 1994 as the Interactive Digital Software Association and was renamed in 2003. It is the trade association of the video game industry in the US.
ESA members include the big three in gaming, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony, as well as the majority of third-party publishers. This includes Capcom, Electronic Arts, Konami, Bandai, Square Enix, Take-Two, Ubisoft, Warner Bros. Epic Games, and more.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Bluesky.
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Well. The USA wanted and voted for it sadly.
Self-fulfilling stupidity.
Most of our votes don't count because of Gerrymandering and a winner-take-all electoral college. Only people living in seven states get to have their votes counted for president.
And now they're trying to annex Canada. I'm honestly terrified for my future thanks to the Divided States of Moronica.
Trump had a mandate and sold it.
...He not only had more electoral college votes, but also had more votes than Harris.
And if I recall, congress is also majority republican.
Which harkens back to the point that the USA voted for this.
Correct me if I am wrong on any of these points, I don't pretend to be an expert on American politics as it tends to be pretty unimportant for me as an individual.
Not sure if they have Gerrymandering in Australia. Basically there's a lot of voter suppression going on in the USA and it has been for the better part of three decades. Long story short you can have 60% of a state's population vote democrat, yet thanks to gerrymandering 60% of the representatives that "win" are republicans. When you live in a gerrymandered district and a state that is solidly one color there's no point in voting. Your vote might as well go directly into the trash can. In the 2020 Texas election all that was needed to turn Texas solid blue was 10% or less of registered democrats that didn't vote to have turned up and voted. And yet they didn't. Why? Because they have no faith in the system. Because voting stations are too far away and lines are too long. Because even if they managed to turn Texas blue it wouldn't matter thanks to the filibuster in the senate stopping most good bills. Because political bribery is legal in America and all it takes for a democrat rep to vote against their own party is a giant bag of cash.
TL/DR: USA elections are rigged in subtle complex ways that make it possible for MAGA to win.
Everyone has to vote in Australia, thus there is no need to worry about encouraging voter turnout.
However... We don't manipulate voting boundaries as a general principle unless several triggers are met:
1) Population growth/change to equalize areas. - Number of voters in each area stays about the same.
2) Geography.
3) Public consultation. - Public can reject the changes.
4) Safe Seats. - Areas will often be redrawn if a political party holds a seat for to long a period, which locks out opponents, we saw this happen here in 2016, which then allowed for a change of state government.
We have a lot of processes in place to prevent Gerrymandering thankfully and voters can reject and approve changes if necessary.
Thankyou for understanding. My country needs a lot of work. It seems hopeless right now. We need fair elections.
The American political system ties votes at every level to arbitrarily-defined blocs of land. Within these crayon-drawn pieces of land, the winning candidate takes everything, even if it’s a plurality.
A state with ten congressional districts where all of the districts are split 34% Republican, 33% Democratic, and 33% third parties, would be represented in Congress by ten Republicans, zero Democrats, and zero third parties. This is also why third parties are a non-starter in the U.S.
Furthermore, it takes 67 out of 100 Senators to vote to remove the President from office. There is no such thing as “no confidence” in the U.S.
The system of govt the founders set up worked pretty well for over 2 centuries. But yeah it is very far from perfect and as right wing extremism, corruption, propaganda, and authoritarianism continues to rise and take over, those cracks that didn't matter too much before have become fissuring time bombs destroying everything the founders were trying to set up to protect the system and create a somewhat fair and just govt.
US needs some serious election reform. No system of govt is close to perfect, and the founders made some mistakes, but even what they tried to do well is simply falling apart now because I don't think they imagined half the country, at every level, working against the entire system.
Also even doing obvious steps like getting rid of the Electoral College and figuring out a way to stop gerrymandering and making an election system that allows third parties and takes away power from the two parties, you still have half a country that is brainwashed by extremist propaganda that is radicalizing itself further everything single year. Fixing the govt wouldn't fix the right wing cultural disease, though it might slow down how quickly that disease attacks the nation and the world.
The system of government the founders set up lasted for 72 years before the country was ripped in half by one of the bloodiest civil wars in history. That civil war didn't just happen out of nowhere, either. The North and South had been at each others' throats for several decades before Fort Sumter. There was low-grade guerrilla warfare going on in the decade leading up to the war. Texas and California were the sparks that made the conflict inevitable.
Evangelical grievance politics are a drug that's going to cost Americans big time, once the high wears off and they realize that their house is trashed and smells like burnt cat urine, while their "dealers" have carted off everything of value.
Summed up by a character in the Three Stooges episode "You Nazty Spy"; A dictator? Why, he makes love to beautiful women, drinks champagne, enjoys life and never works. He makes speeches to the people promising them plenty, gives them nothing and takes everything. That's a dictator.
Not a fan of the tariffs, but let's not act like the video games industry hasnt been pushing for increased prices for years now. Just look at Nintendo. Those prices are WITHOUT taking these tariffs into account. Greed is gonna be the real reason we see video games and consoles go up.
The truth is hardware will bare the tariff brunt, software should be fine since if it's anything like Australia where the southern hemispheres largest disc manufacturing plant while owned by Sony prints discs for a wide range of clients, that covers Oceania and a large part of Southeast Asia , so I'm sure that the in regard to the US disc manufacturing the vast majority is locally manufactured.
The interesting part is how digital sales are interpreted by the US admin.
America only has itself to blame for this.
Trump is the biggest advertisment for condoms since Hitler...then again the entire Trump family should have never been born
Yay, everything is more expensive. Is America great yet?
No. Retirees still have too much in their 401Ks. When the dow drops another 2000 points we'll be great.
Look I know it's frustrating but if we don't raise money through tariffs, how are we going to fund tax cuts for billionaires?
Musk must be starving with the way Tesla is getting hollowed out. He only has the GDP of Hungary for his net worth instead of the GDP of Czechia. Poor mistreated oligarch.
Hey at least they got to own the libs right?
But how many cats have been eaten by Hatiians lately? Answer me that library. [Obvious sarcasm]
Donald Trump here , The reason you won't find any numbers on Haitians eating cats is because I have fixed it by way of a cat tariff, it also demonstrates why I'm the greatest protector America has ever had by pointing out that one tariff has stopped illegal migration created a new industry employing millions and saved our wildlife .
For those wanting to know how this all works, by having stopped Haitians eating our pets by putting tariffs on pet cat consumption Haitian illegals are no longer lured here by our cheap pets stopping their illegal migration created millions of jobs and trillions of dollars by creating a new feral cat meat industry that will employ our cherished blue collar workers and lastly saving all that wildlife from feral cats will along with those newly employed blue collar friends being able to afford buying more bullets see a hunting renaissance that will employ gazillions and save our firearms makers.
It's Americans who voted for an idiot in charge so let them enjoy their new 'low priced economy' lol. Switch 2 and games are priced perfectly ok in the UK and even better in Japan. You can also import games from other regions for lower prices such as Hong Kong.
This shouldnt impact other countries, only the USA. Everywhere else should be a lot cheaper
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