Tariffs, Gaming and a Sales Pitch.

Hello, you exceptionally exceptional Patreon People!

I hope all of you are having the time of your life, that your crush is about to text you and that all the lottery tickets you buy this week contain all the correct numbers (yes, every single one of them).

The Mario Odyssey video is out and I’m quite happy with how the video turned out!

The idea was to do something similar to the Perspective channel, but to have the central thread that ties everything together to be a challenge run.

I think that’s a really promising format for the Gaming channel and something I want to return to in the future!

Speaking about the future!

I need your help.

You see, in roughly a month we all get our hands onto the Switch 2. 

Once this happens I plan to do critiques of all the big new and shiny Nintendo releases.

So the upcoming videos after the Switch 2 release will be about Mario Kart and Donkey Kong and we’ll probably also take a look at the new Metroid once it hits the shelves.

But … I can’t quite critique Mario Kart World as of right now, because as it turns out that game isn’t out for another month.

Which means we got a bit of down time on the channel.

Down time we got to find a good use for.

And this is where all you wonderful gentle people come back in.

Imagine for a second that this place here isn’t a patreon page, but that we are a global multinational company and that we are currently in the middle of a conference room.

The air conditioner is turned up way too much, there are tiny glass bottles filled with sparkling water in front of us and we are holding a pen that has our company logo printed on it.

Speaking of which!

Let’s call the company Ceave Inc. 

Let’s say we make our money by selling videos.

And let’s say our mission statement is: “If it’s no fuzzy it’s garbage.”

Here’s the deal.

I’m more in an executive role here at Ceave Inc.

Producing videos, coming up with terrible puns, showing the trolls in the comments the way out and making sure that the correct type of sacrificial animal is slaughtered during the right moonphase to keep the algorithm happy.

You on the other hand are part of the strategic board. 

You are calling the shots.

The thing is the following.

There are three videos that I think would make for great products going forward with our company, but I find myself unable to decide which one of the three would be best to produce next.

Since there is only time for one new video before the Switch 2 releases we have to make a strategic decision here.

And who better to make a strategic decision, than the strategic decisions board!

And thus I spent all day and night preparing three pitches for the three potential upcoming videos.

In the hopes that all of you can do one of those board votes to settle this little mess!

So the first thing that we are going to do in this little update is to take a quick look at three pitches for three potential videos and then have a vote for which to produce next.

Afterwards we will quickly chat about tariffs and their impact on the video game industry, since we are all gathered anyway!

Awesome, so let’s turn on the corporate music (I love this song, it has so much character, it really lets you feel our mission statement) and let me pitch you three potential videos.

- Pitch 1: Skyward Sword

So here’s how the typical Skyward Sword Retrospective goes!

We start by chatting about the motion controls (they work surprisingly well, but still not good enough), we then complain a bit about Fi (she talks way too much and it destroys the pacing), we complement the dungeon design (some of the best dungeons Nintendo ever made), talk about the game being too linear (it is too linear) and finish the entire adventure with a quick complainening that the game overstays its welcome a bit (which it does).

And don’t get me wrong, retrospectives like this are great!

But none of those things are actually the things that we are going to waffle about should you wonderful people greenlight the Skyward Sword video!

The thing that I actually want to do with the Skyward Sword video is something completely different.

What I want to do is historical revisionism.

Our video about Skyward Sword is going to rewrite the entire history of the Wii, the entire history of Nintendo and while we are at it we are also going to rewrite the entire perception of the video game market as a whole that our customers have so far.

We are basically going to convince our viewers that the Wii is actually one of Nintendo’s biggest failures and that Nintendo never released a successful home console.

How are we going to do this?

Well, we can’t give the entire war plan away in a simple pitch can we? 

But let’s just say Skyward Sword plays a central role, Link’s Crossbow Training is an important arrow in our quiver and fidget spinners might come around to deliver the final blow.

That being said, we probably still complain a bit about Fi waffling too much because I don’t think I am physically able to shut up about Fi not shutting up.

Since Skyward Sword sold a bit over 4 million copies, 3 million views within the first week on YouTube is a realistic minimum view numbers target that we can expect to pull with almost certainty.

Which already brings us to:

- Pitch 2: Donkey Kong 64

In 1998 a little gem of a game was released.

A game called Banjo Kazooie.

And Banjo Kazooie is probably one of the most beloved games of all time.

It is this almost flawless, tightly designed 3D platforming adventure featuring varied stages, joyful movement, charming characters and an unrivaled feeling of adventure. 

Fast forward two years.

In 2000 another really interesting game was released.

A game called Banjo Tooie, the sequel to Banjo Kazooie.

And Tooie is a very different game to its prequel.

The worlds got much larger and confusing to navigate, the collectibles much more difficult to find, the entire humor and charm of the prequel transformed into something prodane and suddenly the game features long first person shooter sections.

In only two years Rare - the developers of both games - completely changed their style.

Which raises the question, what had happened in between 1998 and 2000 that caused Rare to change so drastically?

And the answer is, that in between 1998 and 2000 another year had happened.

1999.

And in 1999 Rare had released another 3D platformer.

A 3D platformer called Donkey Kong 64.

And Donkey Kong 64 is a really interesting game.

It is pretty much a transitional game that acts as a bridge between two era’s of Rare.

The game still features a lot of the charm that made Kazooie so great but it also already is infused with the overambition and profanity that the later Rare games on the N64 are known for.

It is a completely bonkers game in general.

It features way too many collectibles, some of the most broken speedrun tricks in all of gaming, the entire thing is so overly ambitious that it almost falls apart from a technical point of view, the worlds are so huge that I still haven’t managed to memorize some of them two decades later, the final boss fight is randomly blocked behind two insanely hard arcade mini games, some of the boss fights are so difficult that little 10 year old ceave was stuck at them until he was twelve - but most interestingly of all: It is the game that gave us most of the tropes that we nowadays associate with Donkey Kong.

It is the game that really defined Donkey Kong.

And since Nintendo is about to reset the Donkey Kong brand it is probably a good time to take a look at how the brand came to be.

The brand that Nintendo feels the need to reset.

And while we are at it we might as well investigate the question of what had happened to Rare in the fateful year of 1999.

That’s the second pitch.

Since Donkey Kong 64 is a generation defining game a realistic sales target for the video would be roughly 8 million views.

Hooray!
One more pitch to go!

- Pitch 3: Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree

Let’s travel back in time.

Roughly two thousand years.

And let’s talk about a national security thread for a second.

You see, about two millennia ago the poor Roman authorities were confronted with quite a quarrel.

A new jewish sect has slowly been forming below the eyes of the authorities.
A dangerous sect, practicing in the sewers and catacombs.
A sect that practiced cannibalism.
A sect whose members engaged in all forms of perverted sexual activities.
A sect whose members ate semen and drank menstruation blood.
A sect trying to undermine the order of the ancient world.
A sect whose members called themselves: Christians.

You see, Christianity as we know it today is not necessarily Christianity as it was practiced 2000 years ago.

As the religion emerged a lot of interesting problems and possible misunderstandings were happening alongside.

The emergence of religious or moral systems is always a bit of a messy process.

But why do I bring this up while pitching the board, an Elden Ring DLC video?

Well, because this very thing is what the Elden Ring DLC is about.

Shadow of the Erdtree is about how moral systems arise - in stark contrast to Elden Ring’s base game, which raised the question of what happens when moral systems collapse.

If we want to understand the thematic motifs of Shadow of the Erdtree we actually have to take a look at how religion evolved.

We have to ask where and how christianity came to be and under which circumstances it developed.

We have to discuss weird theological questions, that sound utterly insane to the modern ear but that people were willing to die over in the past and we have to explore the uncomfortable question of what actually precedes our religions.

Where did Christianity and Judaism get their ideas from?

Once we finish this encouraging journey into the depths of humanity's historic unconscious we will be able to find some parallels to the setting of Shadow of the Erdtree.

We will not only be able to answer the question of why the final boss is who he is, but we will also get a better understanding of how Miyazaki approaches his world creation.

Finally we will learn whose character Miyazaki modelled to be his own version of Christ.

A character with a lot of horns.

That’s the third and final video pitch that R&D at Ceave Inc. came up with.

Elden Ring itself sold about 30 million copies, but that does not give us a realistic view- expectation number, since we also have to factor in that the DLC  sold tons of copies as well.

So 40 million views would be a realistic corporate viewing estimate!

Awesome.

So here we have it, three pitches for three potential new video products.

With this it is time for all you wonderful people who are part of the official Ceave Inc. Patreon Board to vote.

While voting make sure to keep our mission statement in mind and don’t forget to factor in how your choice is going to affect the asian markets!

Finally, if your video of choice does not end up being greenlit - don’t be sad! 

The next time there is a bit of downtime I’ll pitch a couple of additional new video products to all of you and the chances are high that your favorite product will make a return. 

Awesome!

Now to the technical analysis of how tariffs are going to impact the video game market.

If you want to take a five minute break before discussing this issue just let me know!

No one?
Excellent!

So by now most of you probably know what a tariff is but for the one lucky person that somehow managed to avoid the whole discussion, let me break the bad news to you.

A tariff is a tax that we pay when we import a physical product from one country into another country.

So if we were to import a physical cartridge of a video game from the EU into the US we would have to pay 10% taxes for doing so (as of 5.8.2025 14:48 CEST).

In reality the person importing the game isn’t you but the retailer that you buy it from and thus this retailer will pay the tax.

But they probably also won’t pay it alone but the amount ends up being shared between the game developer (who will probably globally raises prices a bit to offset the loss), the retailer (who will probably raise the prices of it’s entire assortment slightly to offset the loss) and us (we just pay it), but that’s not important for our little thought experiment.

What is important is that someone somewhere currently has to pay 10% of the product's price if they import a product into the US.

So why do I bring this up?
Well, here’s the thing.

If you just download the very same game, then no tariffs apply.
The US import tariffs that are currently in place do only affect physical goods.
As tariffs usually do.

It is really easy to levy tariffs on imported physical goods.
Because a physical good enters a country at some point physically.

It comes from somewhere, it goes somewhere and when it crosses the border, that is the event that triggers the tax.

But digital goods …

Well, digital goods are a bit messy aren’t they?

They kind of don’t exist until we hit a download button and only then they magically manifest in front of us.

Pretty cool actually!

As long as we don’t want to put tariffs onto them!

But as soon as we want to put tariffs on digital goods we find ourselves in a nightmare because …
… well because of globalization and stuff.

If a car company imports a part from the EU then the tariff applies the second this part crosses the border.
But what if Rockstar is developing GTA in Scotland (which they are).
Do people now have to pay tariffs for GTA when they download it in the US, even though Rockstar (Take Two) is a company that is publicly traded on the Nasdaq?
What if a company hires artists from India for a game that is produced in the US?
What if the parent company is in Norway but the entire game is developed by a substudio in the states?

And things get even crazier if we talk about other forms of media.

Where did G.R.R.M write A Game of Thrones?
How many pages were written abroad?

Where did Bruce Springsteen record the songs for his latest album?
How do we apply tariffs to a song that was written in Italy by an American artist, who recorded the song in Canada and that people in the US are now listening to on Spotify (a Swedish company currently sitting in Luxembourg that is traded on the New York stock exchange).

And while we are at it, what tariffs do apply to the live recording of this very song performed in the Sydney opera house?

To put it short, tariffs on digital goods are a bit of a headache which is why governments usually nope out of them as soon as they give them an honest thought.

And that’s the reason I bring this up.

Games (and honestly most media) currently co-exist in a physical and a digital form.
But the current US tariffs only tax one version of an identical product … which in the long run ...

Well, the current implementation of US tariffs is likely to kill off physical media in its entirety, as a probably unintended side consequence.

You know, selling physical games is already quite a headache for game publishers.

The cards have to be bought, we have to print the game onto it, we have to ship them all around the globe to hundreds of thousands of retailers.

Those retailers want a cut, so do the filthy shipping companies and now the US government also wants a tenth of the worth of our game.

And all of this can be avoided if we just sell the game exclusively digitally.

Since it currently looks as if at least the 10% tariff rate is here to stay (as of 5.8.2025 15:18 CEST), this means that companies are heavily incentivized to sell all their games digitally.

Which in the long run is probably a death sentence to physical media.

I don’t think that this is an intended consequence of the current US policy, but it is a very real one.

So let’s finish this post with an open letter to the current US administration informing them of the problem!

Dear US administration.

First, I get it. 

Americans love domestic video games (like Avowed and Starfield) and want to be protected from dangerous foreign video games (like games from Japan, or South Korea).

I applaud you for finally taking this seriously!

But it pains me to say that I have reason to believe that the current policy of tariffs for physical video games in the amount of 10% in place (as of 5.8.2025 18:01 CEST) is unlikely to achieve its goal.

Tariffs in its current implementation are unlikely to sway US consumers to consume more domestically produced video games and are likely to instead just flood the market with cheap digital substandard games from Japan.

To prevent the total collapse of physical media in the gaming industry I’d kindly urge you to make a universal exemption from tariffs for goods that exist in physical and in digital form at the same time.

Because if such an exemption should not be put into policy, then the current US administration ends up taxing physical media exclusively, while giving digital media a gigantic tax benefit.

Something that I am not entirely sure was planned.

In eternal love, 
yours forever,
Ceave
Senior Executive Manager Ceave Inc.

Awesome!

So that was the good news of the week.
Now to the tedious part!

The votening!

Don’t forget to vote for whichever video you want to see next.

I’ll leave the voting open until I actually start to work on the video, which will probably be on monday!

Finally, as always - a huge and gigantic, world trade reestablishing thank you to all of you wonderful people.

You guys are really making a difference here - a huge <3 for that!

Tariffs, Gaming and a Sales Pitch. (YouTube)