I don’t have a lot of detail as not much is out there but a board game podcaster posted Flat River Group was shuttering GtG @giantbrain.co.uk on Bluesky
Darell Louder also posted this on Facebook:
The company is almost entirely dependent on China for manufacturing their products, which is no longer a viable business model. I was wondering whether we’d see some official comment about where things were headed.
So is most of the board game industry. Given the uncertainty with the current President this just seems shortsighted. Hopefully more details come out.
Dammit, I had worried about this ever since I heard about the tariffs, but… what a stupid development. Everything about this political situation is stupid. What even is this timeline.
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well, it’s been nice knowing you all 
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Well, I think most everyone who even wants to talk to me has me already friended on Discord anyways, but in case the forum goes down and anyone still wants to chat I’m the username you’d expect.
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I am crushed. This is the best community I’ve ever been a part of. I always wanted to join the Letters Page discord server but now I can’t. Is anyone considering creating a fan server?
The Realm of Discord (as in that is the server name) already exists and is fan-run, so it’s not going anywhere. And the LP server will still exist though who knows what’s going to happen with the Patreon part of it.
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The official announcement, in case anyone missed it. 
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I’ve seen several people speculating that if FRG is closing down GTG this abruptly and with very little warning or solid plans already set to go for things like the crowdfunding and podcast, they might have already been looking for an excuse.
It’s certainly a slap in the face considering how trusting GTG was when the buyout first happened.
Update: While looking for how people were reacting to the situation, I came across people who work for FRG themselves also talking about being let go. Seems this wasn’t just GTG being downsized.
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What a sad result stemming directly from an extremely dumb policy. And it sounds like the GTG team got very little warning. 
I hope those laid off had some reasonable severance, and I hope they are able to get back on their feet. (And maybe, eventually, that GTG gets back on its feet, too. But I suspect the whole industry is about to go through a lot of unnecessary pain, and there won’t be an opportunity for a return to operations in some time.)
I also hope that GTG (and FRG?) have trade groups and associations that they can take their story to, and then advocate to elected officials and the public. Getting these stories out is what changes minds, which could eventually lead to the policy and political change that needs to happen.
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The overarching industry seems to be starting to rally around GTG, at least. I heard that the head of Leder Games was in the Spirit Island server offering to help any way he could.
And the story is already making its rounds among gaming stores, gaming groups, and ICv2. The Penny Arcade folks also reacted to it. And even people who aren’t big GTG fans specifically are having “oh geez if even Spirit Island isn’t enough to keep a company open, what chance do the rest of us have?” reactions.
So in short, if it gives you hope, the news is definitely making the rounds. And while I’d be a little surprised if GTG’s fanbase ever had very many Trump supporters to begin with considering the company’s ideals and the themes in many of the products… the people I’ve seen reacting to this definitely aren’t happy with him right now, that’s for sure. And it’s a lot of people.
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I wonder if a gofundme is in order.
This is an absolutely rough one. I knew that the tariffs were going to start killing things, but I sure didn’t expect Flat River to jump the gun quite so hard or quite so fast and it sure seems like no one else at GtG expected it either. I’m still going to hope for this to turn around somehow, but right now it definitely feels more like mourning.
As for the podcast - I would guess it got shuttered because Trevor was one of the people who got laid off, so there’s no one to edit and produce the thing. It definitely doesn’t sound like it was primarily a C&A decision based on that post.
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I guess what worries me about this is: They get $1600/month from the Patreon. That’s enough to give Trevor something for his time right now, and then start working on a long-term solution to fit production within the Patreon level of funds (Ads? Reducing the schedule? Monetizing it on YouTube?) And I find it hard to believe we wouldn’t be totally willing to, as El Nate says, do a GoFundMe type thing for temporary shortfalls until that gets ironed out.
FRG instead halting podcast production in a way that is clearly not making Adam happy (so decent chance Christopher’s not happy either) is just… odd. Like this obviously isn’t simply C&A’s choice to not record until the financials shake out. (And I doubt it’s Trevor’s choice either if it’s tariffs Adam is snarking about.)
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Absolutely. What you’re proposing is something I would do.
But FRG is a distributor primarily. I would be deeply unsurprised if their leadership doesn’t really get how much the Sentinels community is at the root of their success, and thus sees the podcast as just being marketing for the products. And if there aren’t going to be products for a while, you pause your marketing.
edit Actually, this makes me wonder whether C&A’s reluctance to do episodes for parts of the setting that don’t have products coming out was less about them, and at least partially about directives or compromises with FRG. It’s definitely starting to look like FRG had more control than we thought.
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Flat River Group is doing a lot more than shuttering GTG. All their imports and future products are on hold.
This quote in that post from the co-owner of Pandasaurus gets to the heart of the matter:
…The games will lose money overall, but the production cost is already been spent, so it’s about maximizing cash flow so that’s what we will do.
Everybody is probably playing really defensively right now. The worst off have to be the new Kickstarters who are waiting for boats and now suddenly have to pay a cost at customs that exceeds the production value of the games. I bet this breaks a lot of startup small businesses and a lot of crowdfunding campaigns go unfulfilled even with everything produced. More established companies have more resources, but still, nobody has margins in their cash on hand to absorb the import fees. I’m sure that FRG execs had a hard conversation about the upcoming release schedules from each imprint, when revenue comes in, and when costs are incurred. If they’re about to pay import taxes on things in route, and they retain any ability to make some profit from sales, they’re probably just playing a maximization game to survive.
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