By Harvey Randall
Skip to main content
PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES
Search PC Gamer
View Profile
Movies & TV
Gaming Industry
PC Gaming Show
Newsletter Signup
Community Guidelines
Affiliate Links
Meet the team
About PC Gamer
PC Gamer Magazine Subscription
Why subscribe?
Subscribe to the world’s #1 PC gaming mag
Try a single issue or save on a subscription
Issues delivered straight to your door or device
From£35.99View
Essential Hardware
PC Gaming Show
Dune: Awakening
Recommended reading
Gaming Industry
Udon, publisher of Street Fighter, Mega Man, Elden Ring, and other videogame comics and art books, is the latest to cut ties with bankrupt distributor Diamond Comics
Gaming Industry
Board game publishers lament the devastating impact of new US tariffs on the tabletop industry: ‘There is no silver lining. It is a lose-lose-lose situation for everyone involved’
Popular board game publisher CMON—creator of Zombicide and Marvel United—is putting all future projects on hold and laying off creatives as tariffs continue to wreak havoc on the industry
Gaming Industry
D&D’s Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins un-retire, change teams to Critical Role’s Darrington Press after a combined 46 years at Wizards of the Coast, leaving jaws dropped
Gloomhaven: Second Edition on hold due to Trump tariffs causing a ‘ripple effect’ on the board game industry, says publisher: ‘Our products are no longer retail viable’
Games Workshop hits the panic button, temporarily shuts down Warhammer site after scalpers descend upon it with ‘abominable intelligence’ and bots
The creators of Wingspan are ‘suing the president’ to try and save board game publishers from tariff annihilation
Gaming Industry
Bankrupt supplier with unsold TTRPG and D&D books files to move its inventory without paying publishers—which is ‘a giant pain’ if you’re anyone but Hasbro
Harvey Randall
3 July 2025
“It’s a giant pain in the ass and blows our annual budget to sh*t.”
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Wizards of the Coast – Art by Tyler Jacobson)
A wave has rolled through the physical print media section of the TTRPG industry—one that was already on the way out, though chaotic tariffs from the US certainly haven’t helped matters. Diamond Comic Distributors filing for bankruptcy is one of those ripples.
Diamond is a US-based distributor that served a few big-name clients—DC Comics and Marvel to name just a couple, though DC cut ties back in 2020, and Marvel wasn’t far behind—but it also sells books for D&D and Pathfinder 2e. Or, well, ‘sold’, because it filed for bankruptcy back in January.
Recently, it’s put forward a motion (via Wargamer) to enable “sale or other disposition of consigned inventory”. In non-legal speak, this means Diamond wants to sell all of its current inventory at whatever price works to pay off its debts—while the publishers that handed it those books wouldn’t see a dime.
Related Articles
Udon, publisher of Street Fighter, Mega Man, Elden Ring, and other videogame comics and art books, is the latest to cut ties with bankrupt distributor Diamond Comics
Board game publishers lament the devastating impact of new US tariffs on the tabletop industry: ‘There is no silver lining. It is a lose-lose-lose situation for everyone involved’
Popular board game publisher CMON—creator of Zombicide and Marvel United—is putting all future projects on hold and laying off creatives as tariffs continue to wreak havoc on the industry
This is business as usual. When a company with significant inventory goes bankrupt, such as a retailer, its first obligation is to pay its creditors. It does this by liquidating whatever it has—selling it off at whatever prices it needs to. The wrinkle is that, per the motion, Diamond wants to “seek to sell or otherwise dispose of the consigned inventory free and clear of the interests, if any, of the consignors.”
The “consignors” are the people who sent Diamond stock—ie, the publishers whose books it was supposed to sell. Anyone who trusted Diamond to move their product would simply see potential profits vanish into thin air.
Wizards of the Coast, owned by Hasbro, will likely be just fine—well, the amount of fine that it was previously—but anyone who isn’t the TTRPG giant is going to be having a hard time. In a video posted to their YouTube channel, Stephen Glicker of Roll for Combat explains: “I spoke to my attorney, he looked it over, and his exact quote to me was ‘It’s not as bad as you think it is, it’s much worse’.”
Glicker then went on to tell Wargamer that Diamond has “$120,000 worth of our product in their warehouse”. Oof. In a thread on the Pathfinder 2e subreddit, Mark Seifter (who helped build out PF2e’s monsters before heading onto Roll for Initiative as its director of game design) elaborates: “We’re going to be OK because the significant majority of our books weren’t with Diamond,” but still, it’s “obviously painful.”
The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.
Even Pathfinder 2e’s Paizo, who you’d think would be big enough to take this on the chin, is still going to be rubbing its jaw afterwards. The company’s CCO Erik Mona replies: “We’ll be ok, but it’s a giant pain in the ass and blows our annual budget to shit.” No minced words here.
Mind, while this is all very cutthroat, it’s not as if Diamond is raking in the cash and laughing—it has creditors to pay, even if this whole debacle is very much on its shoulders. A summary by Publishersweekly reports its debts to be in the millions.
Per ICv2, there’ll be a chance for consignment vendors like Roll for Initiative to air their grievances on July 21—for example, Diamond might not have fair dibs on anything shipped to it by consignors after the bankruptcy filing.
Otherwise, this whole thing feels like another death knell for the physical TTRPG book industry, which has been slowly, but surely, going the way of the dodo for some time now. Companies like Paizo have been making bank via official integrations with Foundry, and virtual tabletops seem to be the way of the future. Unless you’re Hasbro, in which case you already found a way to mess that up.
2025 games: This year’s upcoming releases
Best PC games: Our all-time favorites
Free PC games: Freebie fest
Best FPS games: Finest gunplay
Best RPGs: Grand adventures
Best co-op games: Better together
Wizards of the Coast
Dungeons & Dragons
Harvey Randall
Social Links Navigation
Staff Writer
Harvey’s history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he’s since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G’raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He’ll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don’t ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
Udon, publisher of Street Fighter, Mega Man, Elden Ring, and other videogame comics and art books, is the latest to cut ties with bankrupt distributor Diamond Comics
Board game publishers lament the devastating impact of new US tariffs on the tabletop industry: ‘There is no silver lining. It is a lose-lose-lose situation for everyone involved’
Popular board game publisher CMON—creator of Zombicide and Marvel United—is putting all future projects on hold and laying off creatives as tariffs continue to wreak havoc on the industry
D&D’s Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins un-retire, change teams to Critical Role’s Darrington Press after a combined 46 years at Wizards of the Coast, leaving jaws dropped
Gloomhaven: Second Edition on hold due to Trump tariffs causing a ‘ripple effect’ on the board game industry, says publisher: ‘Our products are no longer retail viable’
Games Workshop hits the panic button, temporarily shuts down Warhammer site after scalpers descend upon it with ‘abominable intelligence’ and bots
Latest in Gaming Industry
Blizzard ends new content development for Warcraft Rumble and lays off staff: Former employee says ‘most’ of the team has been let go
Phil Spencer retirement rumor is made up, says Microsoft
French court finds 3 former Ubisoft executives guilty of workplace harassment
The Elder Scrolls Online director Matt Firor, who helped launch ZeniMax Online Studios in 2007, is leaving the company
Microsoft cancels the Perfect Dark reboot that blew us away last year, closes developer The Initiative
A new MMO in development at Elder Scrolls Online studio ZeniMax has been cancelled as Microsoft puts thousands more people out of work
Latest in News
The Arctic P12 Pro has earned my vote as the best replacement for ageing radiator fans; here’s why
This B860 motherboard is what I’d pair with a Core Ultra 265K to make a powerful pairing for about $500
2023’s true GOTY has had its name and assets jacked by ‘some kind of crypto scam,’ while bootlickers assure the dev it’s actually great publicity
This designer has created a Frankenstein’s monster by strapping two Nintendo Joy-Cons onto the Framework 12 and they’re letting you do the same too
The Legion Go S SteamOS is completing the Steam Deck’s mission to make handheld PC gaming genuinely convenient
X’s latest terrible idea allows AI chatbots to propose community notes—you’ll likely start seeing them in your feed later this month
HARDWARE BUYING GUIDES
LATEST GAME REVIEWS
Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads
Best graphics card for laptops in 2025: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop
Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most
Best 14-inch gaming laptop in 2025: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands
Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested
Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4 review
Razer Joro & Basilisk Mobile review
Glorious Model O Eternal review
LaCie Rugged Pro 5 SSD review
Seagate Ultra Compact review
PC Gamer is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.
Contact Future’s experts
Terms and conditions
Privacy policy
Cookies policy
Advertise with us
Accessibility Statement
Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury,
BA1 1UA. All rights reserved. England and Wales company registration number 2008885.
Please login or signup to comment
Please wait…