Board games, like many other industries, took a serious hit in 2025 thanks to Trump's aggressive tariff policies. The uncertain costs of manufacture and shipping caused delays, extreme price fluctuations, and even company shutdowns. It was a rough year to crowdfund a board game, but many tabletop titles survived. Some even thrived, despite the pressure. I spoke to one publisher that made its debut when Trump's tariff terror was at its peak.
Glasshouse Games is the brainchild of trio Sean Fosse, Logan Fitz, and Michael Maldonado. Fosse, who also works in film and TV production with Maldonado, tells me the team united through "serendipity" and a love of the best board games. "One day we started spitballing ideas, and suddenly, we had a prototype", he says. So far, so origin story.
Since "neither of us have started a business before", Maldonado suggested bringing Fitz into the fold. Fitz works on supply chains and operations for the Lego Group, and Fosse says "he's absolutely pivotal to our success". "We're a little scatterbrained, but he keeps us on track."
The team's debut title is Whisker Wars, a card battler for up to four players where you pit cute yet cutthroat creatures against each other in a battle for the crown. Morale is a crucial resource in Whisker Wars, and you score victory points by crushing your enemy's spirit.
The Kickstarter campaign began funding on May 13, 2025. Ahead of the launch, Glasshouse Games was facing a morale battle of its own. Trump had announced his tariff hikes on countries with which the US had a high trade deficit in early April. By April 10, the tariff on imports from China (where most of the world's leading publishers manufacture their board games) had climbed to 145%.
With Whisker Wars' campaign just a month away, Fitz says the tariff news "was a huge concern for us". Glasshouse had already pushed the Kickstarter launch date twice in order to do more marketing and, as Fosse puts it, "build momentum". The desired hype levels had been reached, but Glasshouse faced a choice: stall again to avoid sky-high tariffs and risk losing that momentum, or take the risk and launch anyway.
It was a fraught decision. "We had long discussions about whether to keep going", Fitz tells me. "How would we navigate such high import costs on our first game? What if the Kickstarter wasn't successful, and we couldn't cover it?" "It changed all the math we'd been relying on", he says. Fitz adds that Glasshouse's mentors, including major Chinese game manufacturer Panda, advised the trio to be wary of launching their campaign amid tariff turmoil.
Regardless, morale was high at Glasshouse. "We knew our metrics, and we had really good momentum", Fitz tells me. "In each discussion we had, we kept coming back to the idea that if we don't do this now, we risk losing interest in the campaign". "We took the stance of, 'hey, we've got one shot'", Fosse adds. "We thought, if all the big ships are staying put, could a little ship brave the storm and get a lot of attention?"
On May 12, the day before Whisker Wars' launch, Trump announced a 90-day agreement with China that would lower the tariffs to 30%. Tariffs have remained at similar levels since, as the US Supreme Court began pushing back on the legality of Trump's tariffs in early 2026.
Fitz tells me Glasshouse had contingency plans in case things had turned sour for Whisker Wars. Thankfully, there was no need. The campaign raised $150,000 - 10 times its original goal. While there were still lessons for the first-timers to learn during manufacturing, shipping costs were manageable when the time to invest came.
Glasshouse believes part of its success is due to Whisker Wars' size. "Mike and I had originally pitched a heavy, kitchen sink game, but we decided to do ourselves a favor and put that on the shelf", Fosse says. "Let's do something a little simpler, a little lighter, so when we're navigating our first run of manufacturing, the learning curve is as light on us as possible." "We were doing that whether tariffs were high or not, but it ended up in our favor, because it was significantly lower risk", he adds.
That being said, Glasshouse is avoiding complex games in case of future instability. "Maybe this isn't the right climate to launch a heavier game", Fosse says. "We have awesome plans, but until things stabilize, we're probably going to keep to lighter, faster games."
Glasshouse also credits two other factors for its success: marketing and mentoring. "We brought a large community to the Kickstarter platform", Fitz says, "and that was the result of a lot of pre-launch marketing - which we only knew how to do because we were going to conventions". There, he says "we were asking questions, learning from people who had gone before us, and we picked up a few mentors".
Glasshouse's founders heap huge praise onto the community spirit of Kickstarter and the wider board game industry. "With the tariffs, the Kickstarter community was really supportive of plan Bs and plan Cs", Fitz tells me. "As a publisher, we were worried about backlash against possibilities like additional fees." "But the Kickstarter space is so community driven that people were like 'we get it'." "Everyone is here to lift each other up", Fitz adds, "which is something very unique and powerful about this industry".
While generous friends and family helped get Glasshouse Games' dreams off the ground, it needed Kickstarter to send its debut title into orbit. This is an increasingly common relationship in the world of board game publication, even for established companies.
At the height of the US-China trade war, Stonemaier Games' Jamey Stegmaier even reflected that tariff hikes would make retail releases far riskier endeavors. This, he theorized, would make the industry more reliant on crowdfunding than ever.
"I don't think a platform like Kickstarter is ever not gonna be an option", Fosse says. However, the Glasshouse Games team isn't sure that's such a bad thing.
"In the tabletop industry, we have this whole corner of Kickstarter where we can get together to see what's coming out, what's new, and what's fresh", Fitz tells me. "It's really nice in that aspect." "It's become more of a social group slash marketing tool that is available to anyone", he adds, "which is the great part about it."
"I do think there's something to be said about big publishers that still use Kickstarter, primarily as a marketing tool, but I can't really speak negatively about something that brings the community together in one place." "For indie creators like us, where it's hard to get any sort of capital prior to releasing a game, I think Kickstarter and other crowdfunding sites are a necessity."
As of March, Whisker Wars has reached the final checks stage of manufacturing. Despite the "terrifying" moments created by tariffs, Glasshouse found its corner of the crowdfunding space, and the team are already eager to grow bigger and better.
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