In March, Apple delayed its upgraded Siri, saying that “it’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver” the promised features. At WWDC this week, Apple’s SVP of software Craig Federighi and SVP of worldwide marketing Greg Joswiak shared more details about the decision to delay in an interview with The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern.

As part of its initial Apple Intelligence announcements at WWDC 2024, Apple said that the improved Siri would have awareness of your personal context and the ability to take actions for you in apps. While Apple was showing real software at that show, Siri “didn’t converge in the way, quality-wise, that we needed it to,” Federighi said. Apple wanted it to be “really, really reliable. And we weren’t able to achieve the reliability in the time we thought.”

“Look, we don’t want to disappoint customers,” Joswiak said. “We never do. But it would’ve been more disappointing to ship something that didn’t hit our quality standard, that had an error rate that we felt was unacceptable. So we made what we thought was the best decision. I’d make it again.”

Stern asked why Apple, with all of its resources, couldn’t make it work. “When it comes to automating capabilities on devices in a reliable way, no one’s doing it really well right now,” Federighi said. “We wanted to be the first. We wanted to do it best.” While the company had “very promising early results and working initial versions,” the team came to feel that “this just doesn’t work reliably enough to be an Apple product,” he said.

At WWDC, Federighi also spoke to YouTuber iJustine, and both Federighi and Joswiak were interviewed by Tom’s Guide’s Mark Spoonauer and TechRadar’s Lance Ulanoff. In Apple’s March statement, it said that anticipated rolling out the Siri upgrades “in the coming year,” which, to Spoonauer, Joswiak clarified to mean 2026.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, in a blog post published Tuesday, says an average ChatGPT query uses about 0.000085 gallons of water, or “roughly one fifteenth of a teaspoon.” He made the claim as part of a broader post on his predictions about how AI will change the world. 

“People are often curious about how much energy a ChatGPT query uses; the average query uses about 0.34 watt-hours, about what an oven would use in a little over one second, or a high-efficiency lightbulb would use in a couple of minutes,” he says. He also argues that “the cost of intelligence should eventually converge to near the cost of electricity.” OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on how Altman came to those figures.

AI companies have come under scrutiny for energy costs of their technology. This year, for example, researchers forecast that AI could consume more power than Bitcoin mining by the end of the year. In an article last year, The Washington Post worked with researchers to determine that a 100-word email “generated by an AI chatbot using GPT-4” required “a little more than 1 bottle.” The publication also found that water usage can depend on where a datacenter is located.

Psychonauts developer Double Fine just announced a new game — and you’ll be able to play it soon. Keeper, a game where you play as a walking lighthouse with a seabird as a buddy, is launching on October 17th, 2025 on Xbox and PC.

Here’s a description from an Xbox Wire post about what you can expect from the game:

It has stood alone for countless years, but now the Lighthouse finds companionship in a curious and spirited seabird, who encounters the Lighthouse while seeking refuge from a creeping malevolent presence spreading throughout the isle. The Lighthouse discovers that its bright beam of light is able to affect the flora and fauna, and even seems to ward off the withering tendrils spreading throughout the world around it.  

Meanwhile the bird proves to be a useful and dextrous ally, able to interact with strange and ancient mechanisms. Together, these two unlikely friends set off together on an epic adventure, an odyssey of mystifying metamorphosis, and a journey that will take them into realms beyond understanding. 

The art in the trailer is absolutely gorgeous, and it looks like the world will be a beautiful one to explore. The game will be a “story told without words” and is a “strange, otherworldly tale,” according to the post. I’m looking forward to it.

Google announced a new SynthID Detector tool at Google I/O that lets you check if content has been made with the assistance of Google’s AI tools.

In a blog post, Google DeepMind’s Pushmeet Kohli describes SynthID Detector as “a verification portal” that can “quickly and efficiently identify AI-generated content made with Google AI.” It’s also able to “highlight which parts of the content are more likely to have been watermarked with SynthID.”

SynthID watermarks are applied to AI-generated images, text, audio, and videos, including content generated by Google’s Gemini, Imagen, Lyria, and Veo models, Kohli says.

Here’s how the tool works, according to Kohli:

When you upload an image, audio track, video or piece of text created using Google’s AI tools, the portal will scan the media for a SynthID watermark. If a watermark is detected, the portal will highlight specific portions of the content most likely to be watermarked.

For audio, the portal pinpoints specific segments where a SynthID watermark is detected, and for images, it indicates areas where a watermark is most likely.

Google is starting to roll out the tool to “early testers,” Kohli says in the post. 

“Following the initial testing phase, the portal will gradually be rolled out to users who sign up to the waitlist to gain access to the SynthID Detector,” Kohli tells The Verge. “We will take learnings from this cohort of professionals and work to implement content transparency more broadly.”

I’m on the waitlist, but I haven’t tested the tool myself, so I can’t vouch for how well it might work. And will people actually use it when it’s widely available? I hope so, but we’ll have to wait and see.

GameStop will have additional Switch 2 stock available in-store and online when the console launches next month, according to a post on X.

In-store launch events will begin at 3PM local time on June 4th, according to the company. Pickups start on June 5th at 12AM EST / June 4th at 9PM PST.

Online orders will also begin on June 5th at 12AM EST/ June 4th at 9PM PST, spokesperson Nicolle Robles tells The Verge.

GameStop opened up its preorders on April 24th, and like with other retailers, the online preorders started poorly. Within a couple hours, the company confirmed that online preorders sold out, but many people, including The Verge’s Ash Parrish, had luck preordering in-store.

Best Buy said this week that “most” stores will have extra Switch 2 consoles available in-store at launch, too. The Verge has contacted Walmart and Target to see if they can share their plans for launch day availability.

And if you requested the chance to buy a console through Nintendo’s direct sales, check your email; invitations started going out on May 8th, and I got my own invite on Wednesday.

Update, May 16th: GameStop confirmed when online orders will begin.

Activision is starting to wind down Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile just over a year after its global launch. The game “has not met our expectations with mobile-first players like it has with PC and console audiences,” according to a post on X. The company will be pulling the game from the App Store and Google Play after Sunday, May 18th.

Players who have installed the game before Monday, May 19th will “still have access to the game with continued cross-progression of shared inventories using existing content, and servers with matchmaking for online play,” Activision says.

However, there will be no new seasonal content or gameplay updates, social features across platforms will not be available, and you won’t be able to buy content with real-world currency, Activision says on a support page. Activision will not be offering refunds for previously purchased content or for unspent COD Points.

Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile launched worldwide on March 21st, 2024, and it shared progression with Call of Duty: Warzone on console and PC. But it apparently wasn’t as successful as Activision and Microsoft, which became a huge force in mobile gaming as a result of the acquisition, would have liked.

Nintendo announced last month that it would be updating a handful of Switch games to run better on the Switch 2, and now some details about the planned improvements are available on its website. The improvements vary per game, but they include things like optimizing visuals for the Switch 2’s larger screen, better frame rates, HDR support, and GameShare support.

The full list of games getting free updates is below, and you can see the specific updates on Nintendo’s website. The updates will all be available on June 5th, the same day the Switch 2 launches:

• ARMS
• Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain
• Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
• Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics
• Game Builder Garage
• New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe
• Pokémon Scarlet
• Pokémon Violet
• Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury
• Super Mario Odyssey
• The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
• The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

These updates aren’t quite as big as the paid Nintendo Switch 2 Edition upgrades for games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Party Jamboree. But if you’re looking to revisit some older Switch games on the Switch 2, even the smaller improvements could feel welcome — especially for games like Pokémon Scarlet and Violet and the Link’s Awakening remake that sometimes struggled on the original Switch hardware.

More than 25 years after the first Tony Hawk's Pro Skater put skateboarding games on the map, developers are still finding new ways to explore skating in video games, especially in 2025. Skateboarding fans are about to have some promising new games to play, with Activision's Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 remake releasing in July and EA is set to launch its online-only, free-to-play Skate revival this year.

In 2022, my colleague Andrew Webster wrote that we're in a golden age for skateboarding games, and things haven't really slowed down. So what is it that makes skateboarding so good for video games, and allows so many different expressions of the sport from different studios?

"I think skateboarding is one of those things that's just always cool," THPS 3 + 4 game director Kurt Tillmanns tells The Verge. "It's an evergreen fantasy, in both real life and games. Being a skateboarder is a sign of what and who is cool." He says "there's a reason that we're all in awe of what these people can do." Part of what makes skateboarding cool is the music, fashion, and art, and video games let people experience that skateboarding culture, too, Tillmanns says.

Also, "it's safer," jokes Andrew …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Google is set to pay $1.375 billion to settle claims of data privacy violations brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, according to a press release.

Texas filed two lawsuits in 2022 against Google for “unlawfully tracking and collecting users’ private data regarding geolocation, incognito searches, and biometric data,” the release says. Before now, no single state has “attained a settlement against Google for similar data-privacy violations greater than $93 million.”

“This settles a raft of old claims, many of which have already been resolved elsewhere, concerning product policies we have long since changed,” Google spokesperson José Castañeda tells The Verge. “We are pleased to put them behind us, and we will continue to build robust privacy controls into our services.”

In 2022, Google agreed to pay $391.5 million to 40 states over allegations of location tracking without user consent. Last year, Meta agreed to a $1.4 billion settlement with Texas over facial recognition and photo tags.

Netflix is removing the last two shows listed on its Interactive Specials page: Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend, reports What’s on Netflix. The two specials will be pulled on May 12th, 2025, according to the publication, so if you want to watch them, you’ll want to catch them soon.

Bandersnatch wasn’t Netflix’s first interactive special, but it was arguably the platform’s most famous. It was a dark, choose-your-own-adventure-style movie, and after it launched, Reddit detectives immediately went to work to decode the many choices throughout the film. (Though it didn’t work on every device that could play Netflix.)

As of late, however, Netflix has been moving in a different direction with its interactive experiences, focusing more on its mobile games library (which has a Black Mirror-themed game) and testing cloud-streamed games over TVs. The new design for Netflix on TVs was even created in part to help people better find games they might like.

The removals perhaps shouldn’t be surprising following Netflix’s decision late last year to pull all but four of its interactive specials from its catalog. “The technology served its purpose, but is now limiting as we focus on technological efforts in other areas,” spokesperson Chrissy Kelleher told me ahead of those removals.

The other two interactive shows that stuck around were Ranveer vs. Wild with Bear Grylls and You vs. Wild. What’s on Netflix says they were removed in January of this year, but I’m seeing non-interactive versions of the show available to watch.

Netflix spokesperson Jessica Braslow declined to comment.

Playasia, a popular retailer for buying video games, toys, and more from Asia, says that it “does not expect” the Trump administration’s planned import rule changes on Chinese-made goods to apply to “game-related orders” because “those orders will not include Chinese-manufactured goods.”

On May 2nd, the Trump administration is planning to end the de minimis exemption that allows imports under $800 to enter the US duty-free and is set to impose new tariffs on goods imported from China.

But “the most important piece of information for game collectors to know is that video games are not manufactured in China,” the company says in its post on X. “Video games are currently primarily manufactured in Japan, with few exceptions being manufactured in Southeast Asia.”

Playasia also says that “many other categories are very similar to video games in that the products are primarily produced outside of China, such as: game soundtracks, books, and movies.” But the company is planning to add a “country of origin” field to product pages in the “coming weeks.”

“Most products on sale at Playasia are not of Chinese-manufacturing origin,” Playasia says. But it will “clarify” the “situation regarding importing” after May 2nd.

Apple’s App Store review yet again let at least one unofficial mobile port of a hot new game slip through – this time, for Blue Prince. But shortly after we published this article, the port that we found disappeared from the App Store.

In a joint post on Monday, Blue Prince’s developer, Dogubomb, and its publisher, Raw Fury, said that they have “received reports of games claiming to be Blue Prince on iOS.” Currently, the game is only available on Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation.

Before it was removed, I easily found one iOS copy of the game just by searching Blue Prince on the App Store – it was the first search result. The icon looked like it would be the icon for a hypothetical mobile version of the game, the listing had screenshots that looked like they were indeed from Blue Prince, and the description for the game matched the description on Steam.

But on the iOS clone’s listing, the game’s seller was listed as “Samet Altinay,” and I can’t find any connection between this person and Blue Prince outside of this app. The copyright was also attributed to “DogBomb” — notice the missing “u.”

I purchased the now-removed, unofficial version of Blue Prince, which cost $9.99, and installed it on my iPhone 16 Pro to test it out. In a few minutes of playing, it appeared to be a barely modified version of the actual Blue Prince game, though with a few tweaks to make it better-suited for mobile, like a virtual joystick. I also quickly ran into a major bug: when I tried to walk through one of the doors from the Entrance Hall, I fell through the floor.

Apple didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. Before the listing was pulled, the unofficial mobile port was the #8 paid app in the Entertainment category on iOS. When I published the article, it only had one three-star review, with the writer saying they also hit a bug that caused them to fall through the floor.

If you, like me, bought this clone version of the game, you might want to try to get a refund. Apple has a support document about how to request a refund on its website.

Dogubomb and Raw Fury have not officially announced an iOS port of Blue Prince. “We have no news about other platforms at this time, but if that changes we will make an official announcement,” they said in their post. “While we investigate we would kindly ask that you do not purchase or download these apps.”

Apple has previously allowed copycats of games like Wordle and Palworld to appear on the App Store.

Update, April 28th: The Blue Prince iOS clone we found was removed from the App Store.

OpenAI is improving ChatGPT’s web search capabilities to make the AI chatbot a more useful tool for shopping.

People already use ChatGPT to do research around products, but before these updates, ChatGPT didn’t make it easy to understand up-to-date prices or see visual images of the results, Adam Fry, OpenAI’s ChatGPT search product lead, told The Verge in an interview. With this new update, a shopping query might pull up a more useful result that includes things like product cards with images, prices, and star ratings in an easy-to-read format.

The recommendations are organic — there are no ads and the results aren’t sponsored, according to Fry. However, OpenAI works with partners to ensure ChatGPT is showing up-to-date prices (though spokesperson Taya Christianson declined to share who the partners are when I asked).

Fry showed me how it all works in a demo in a web browser. With the query “best espresso machines under $200 that are great for making lattes and nice for small counter space,” ChatGPT pulled up three top picks with product cards and spelled out details about its picks in text under those cards.

If you click on a product card, a Google Shopping-like sidebar will pop up with more details on places you can buy the product and information pulled from user reviews across sites like Amazon, Best Buy, and Reddit. The cards can also show a button to “Ask about this,” and if you click it, you can ask ChatGPT a specific question about that product.

I asked Fry why the sidebar seemed similar to what you might see on Google. He said that while OpenAI wanted the experience to look like ChatGPT, the company knows that people like to see structured information that incorporates prices and images in a way that people are familiar with.

I also asked Fry what a shopping result for the Nintendo Switch 2 would look like, as I was curious how ChatGPT would handle a product that’s not actually out yet and is in high demand for preorders. The results weren’t as good.

While ChatGPT acknowledged that retailers have experienced “rapid sellouts,” it said that Nintendo’s own My Nintendo Store was one of those retailers — even though it hasn’t started sales yet. ChatGPT also pointed to some “third-party sellers and specialized retailers” apparently offering preorders, including a $710 listing on eBay and a platform I’ve never heard of and can’t find on Google called “Store Collectibles.” Perhaps those results were showed up because I was shown an in-development version of the tool, but it was a reminder that, like with other generative AI tools, you should definitely double-check what ChatGPT’s shopping results show you.

The shopping updates will start rolling out today to ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Free, and logged-out users, Christianson says.

OpenAI initially released its search engine within ChatGPT in October. According to Fry, OpenAI saw 1 billion web searches on ChatGPT in the last week.

OpenAI will also now let you message or call 1-800-CHATGPT from WhatsApp to get answers from ChatGPT, like you can if you call that same number from a phone. In addition, the company shared that search in ChatGPT has improved citations and trending searches and autocomplete.

Update, April 28th: Added a video from an X post and details about additional ChatGPT search updates.

Discord co-founder and CEO Jason Citron is stepping down and will be replaced by former Activision Blizzard and King exec Humam Sakhnini, according to a press release. Sakhnini takes over on April 28th. Citron will stay on the board of directors and serve as an advisor to the CEO.

“As we enter our next phase, I’ve been reflecting on how I can best contribute to Discord’s long-term success,” Citron says in a message shared with employees and posted to Discord’s website. “The job of a CEO is constantly evolving, and over the years I have continuously ‘hired myself out of a job.’ Usually that means delegating work and then taking on different leadership challenges. However, as I look at what is needed of Discord’s CEO over the next few years, I realize that it’s time for me to literally ‘hire myself out of a job.’”

When we interviewed Citron on the Decoder podcast last year, he said the company had grown to about 870 employees and over 200 million monthly active users.

Stanislav Vishnevskiy, Discord’s other co-founder, will remain at the company as chief technology officer.

“I look forward to working with Stan and Discord’s talented team to scale our business while staying true to the company’s core mission and the special connection it has with player communities,” Sakhnini says in a statement. “We’re still at the beginning of gaming’s impact on entertainment and culture, and Discord is perfectly positioned to play a central role in that future.”

The leadership shift is happening as Discord is reportedly exploring an IPO. In an interview with GamesBeat, Citron said that Discord didn’t have plans to announce about potentially going public, but noted that “as you can imagine, hiring someone like Humam is a step in that direction.”

OpenAI’s upgraded image generator in ChatGPT brought a surge of users to the AI service thanks to its ability to create Studio Ghibli-style images and really dull dolls, and now it’s coming to other apps. The company says the same “natively multimodal model” powering the image generator will be accessible in its API via “gpt-image-1,” according to a blog post, and some major names have already signed up to use it.

“The model’s versatility allows it to create images across diverse styles, faithfully follow custom guidelines, leverage world knowledge, and accurately render text – unlocking countless practical applications across multiple domains,” OpenAI says.

Companies like Adobe and Figma are already incorporating the model into their tools. Here’s how, per the blog post:

Adobe’s leading ecosystem of creative tools including its Firefly and Express apps will provide access to OpenAI’s image generation capabilities, giving creators the choice and flexibility to experiment with different aesthetic styles – something business professionals, consumers and creators all value when generating new creative ideas.

Figma is leveraging the latest model to bring advanced image generation and editing capabilities across its platform. Rolling out starting today, users can use ‘gpt-image-1’ in Figma Design to generate and edit images from simple prompt – adjusting styles, adding or removing objects, expanding backgrounds, and more. This new integration lets designers rapidly explore ideas and iterate visually, all in Figma.

OpenAI says that it’s also “continuing to work with developers and businesses to uncover more ways image generation in the API can serve their use cases,” including with Canva, GoDaddy, and Instacart.

The “gpt-image-1” model will initially be available via OpenAI’s Images API, and the company says support for the Responses API is “coming soon.”

Netflix is starting to test search that’s powered by OpenAI, according to Bloomberg.

The new search engine will let users “look for shows using far more specific terms, including the subscriber’s mood, for example, the company said,” per the report. This OpenAI-powered search will also allow users to make queries that “go well beyond genres or actors’ names.”

The feature, which is opt in, is already available for some users to try in Australia and New Zealand on iOS.

Netflix spokesperson MoMo Zhou confirmed to The Verge that Bloomberg’s story is accurate. Zhou says that the test will expand to the US “in the coming weeks and months” and that there aren’t currently plans for the feature outside of iOS.

“It’s early days for the feature and we’re really in a learn and listen phase for this beta,” Zhou says.

OpenAI didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

In an interview on the Decoder podcast last year, The Verge’s editor-in-chief, Nilay Patel, asked Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters about how the company was thinking about AI. Here was part of his response:

We have a long history of using machine learning and artificial intelligence in our recommender systems. We’ve been doing that for 20-some years. Again, we think that our job is to be proactive about understanding where there’s technical innovation. How do we use that both to serve creators, allow them to tell their stories in more compelling ways, and also then to serve our members better user experiences?

Baldur’s Gate 3’s Patch 8, which brings changes like 12 new subclasses, crossplay, and a photo mode, launches on April 15th, developer Larian Studios announced on Friday.

The patch, set to be the game’s last major update, was originally announced in November 2024, so it’s been a long time coming (though Larian has been stress testing it ahead of the official launch).

The 12 new subclasses mean that each of the game’s main classes — Bard, Barbarian, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Fighter, Monk, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock and Wizard — will be getting an additional subclass. You can see the full list of new subclasses in this November post from Larian.

With crossplay, you’ll be able to play multiplayer with your friends no matter what platform they’re on. And the game’s photo mode will offer features like different lens settings, scene settings, and even stickers.

Larian will also be hosting a Twitch stream about Patch 8 on April 16th at 9AM ET.

OpenAI filed a countersuit against Elon Musk on Wednesday, saying on X that “Elon’s nonstop actions against us are just bad-faith tactics to slow down OpenAI and seize control of the leading AI innovations for his personal benefit.”

In the lawsuit, OpenAI’s lawyers argue that “Musk’s continued attacks on OpenAI, culminating most recently in the fake takeover bid designed to disrupt OpenAI’s future, must cease. Musk should be enjoined from further unlawful and unfair action, and held responsible for the damage he has already caused.”

Musk, who was part of the initial founding team at OpenAI, initially sued last spring,  saying he wanted to force the company to “return to its mission to develop AGI for the benefit of humanity” instead of pursuing profits. (The Verge’s editor-in-chief, Nilay Patel, found Musk’s legal case against OpenAI “hilariously bad.”)

Musk dropped that lawsuit in June but sued OpenAI again in August. In December, OpenAI published a blog post with the headline “Elon Musk wanted an OpenAI for-profit,” with receipts. The case is scheduled to go to trial in the spring of 2026.

Earlier this year, Musk also offered $97.4 billion to buy OpenAI, saying in a statement that “it’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was.” OpenAI’s board of directors unanimously rejected the offer, which today’s filing called a “sham bid.” 

Disclosure: The Verge’s parent company, Vox Media, partners with OpenAI.

Meta is developing a version of Instagram for iPad, according to The Information. Currently, running Instagram on an iPad is just a blown-up version of the iPhone app, so an official Instagram app from Meta would be a very welcome change.

Why would Meta do this now, after ignoring Apple’s tablet for over a decade? According to The Information, the uncertain legal status of TikTok amid the divest-or-ban law and Trump’s tariffs might be the push required.

The company has publicly resisted building an iPad Instagram app before. In February 2022 (more than three years ago!) Instagram boss Adam Mosseri replied to a post from Marques Brownlee about Meta still not having an Instagram app for iPad to explain why.

“We get this one a lot,” Mosseri said. “It’s still just not a big enough group of people to be a priority. Hoping to get to it at some point, but right now we’re very heads down on other things.”

In 2023, Mosseri said something similar. “Not working on it right now,” he said. “I think it’s a good thing to do at some point. But we have only so many people working at Instagram, so we’ve got to pick the most important things to do to improve Instagram at any given moment. And right now, it’s not quite making the cut.”

Using the Instagram app in Stage Manager on supported iPads is a decent experience, and the web app has improved in recent years. But a native version that takes full advantage of the large display is long overdue.

Meta didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

The CEO of Steve Jackson Games, which makes board games and card games, says that the 54 percent tariff on goods imported from China that will go into effect on April 5th is a “seismic shift” for the board game industry and that “prices are going up.”

“At Steve Jackson Games, we are actively assessing what this means for our products, our pricing, and our future plans,” CEO Meredith Placko says in a post. “We do know that we can’t absorb this kind of cost increase without raising prices. We’ve done our best over the past few years to shield players and retailers from the full brunt of rising freight costs and other increases, but this new tax changes the equation entirely.”

In the post, Placko spells out an example of how the tariff could affect costs. “A product we might have manufactured in China for $3.00 last year could now cost $4.62 before we even ship it across the ocean,” she says. “Add freight, warehousing, fulfillment, and distribution margins, and that once-$25 game quickly becomes a $40 product. That’s not a luxury upcharge; it’s survival math.”

Placko adds that the company doesn’t manufacture in the US because the infrastructure “doesn’t meaningfully exist here yet.” She acknowledges that tariffs can be “an effective tool” when they are “part of a long-term strategy to bolster domestic manufacturing.” But she says that “there is no national plan in place to support manufacturing for the types of products we make.”

If you’re frustrated with the tariffs, Placko suggests writing to your elected officials. “Ask them how these new policies help American creators and small businesses,” she says. “Because right now, it feels like they don’t.”

The Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) has also issued a grim warning. “The latest imposition of a 54% tariff on products from China by the administration is dire news for the tabletop industry and the broader US economy,” GAMA said, according to Polygon. Card-grading company PSA has released a statement about the new tariffs, too, saying that the company has paused direct card grading submissions from outside the US.

In March, Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks told Yahoo Finance that “when you’re talking about tariffs in the neighborhood of 20 percent plus, that’s a cost that we can’t fully accommodate. It will have to be passed on.”