{"id":1168790,"date":"2026-02-12T07:29:03","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T07:29:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/E4qEzL6hbMDhgcSrSfJmBJ"},"modified":"2026-02-12T07:29:03","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T07:29:03","slug":"major-japanese-studios-and-publishers-were-having-a-great-time-in-2025-right-up-until-the-weekend-because-of-the-you-guessed-it-insultingly-dumb-us-tariffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/major-japanese-studios-and-publishers-were-having-a-great-time-in-2025-right-up-until-the-weekend-because-of-the-you-guessed-it-insultingly-dumb-us-tariffs\/","title":{"rendered":"Major Japanese studios and publishers were having a great time in 2025, right up until the weekend because of the (you guessed it) ‘insultingly dumb’ US tariffs"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In an industry already tanking a bunch of hits, full of layoffs and studio closures, the Japanese games industry seemed to be an exception in 2025\u2014as noted by an analyst last month, five out of eight major publishers and studios<\/a> hit all-time share price highs at the start of this year, with their only real issue being a lack <\/em>of staff.<\/p>\n

Well, the tariffs imposed by the United States<\/a> have begun to put a stop to all that, it seems. Last week, the Trump administration imposed “reciprocal” tariffs across the globe. Japan is set to endure a 24% tariff that’ll go into effect April 9\u2014which has naturally created a huge dent in the stock market.<\/p>\n

As pointed out by Japanese industry analyst Dr. Serkan Toto of KantanGames<\/a> on X, many of those same eight companies have endured huge stock market losses<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“It’s Monday 10 am in Japan, where Japanese game stocks currently react to these insultingly dumb tariffs like so,” Toto writes<\/a>. Over the course of the day, VGC247<\/a> proceeded to keep track of said stocks until the market closed. Here were the final numbers for April 7:<\/p>\n