Combo Breaker FGC Event “Severely Impacted” by Tariffs, According to Event Organizer

The gaming world has been turned upside-down in recent days thanks to US president Donald Trump’s tariffs on dozens of countries around the world. Nintendo was forced to delay preorders of the upcoming Switch 2 console in both the US and Canada, while Razer removed its entire line of gaming laptops from direct sale in the US. Now we can add “annual conventions” to the list, as the event director of one prominent fighting game tournament has weighed on how the event could be affected moving forward.

Rick “TheHadou” Thiher–who acts as both general manager of Evo and the event director for Combo Breaker in Illinois–took to BlueSky to comment on the tariffs, saying that “of all the ways [Combo Breaker] could bleed out over the years, mortally injured by tariffs is an absurd surprise.” In response to a reply on that post, Thiher expanded on how these tariffs have wreaked havoc on the event.

“The event has discussed at length that our sustainability is rooted in an annual merchandise line,” Thiher said in the reply. “Merchandise coming in right now has 49%-104% markups. There’s no sales potential in shirts with an MSRP of $90 USD, so the line is likely burned expenses. Very bad reality to be in.”

No official changes to Combo Breaker 2025–which is currently scheduled to run May 23-25 in Schaumburg, Illinois–have been announced as of this writing. Similarly, the Evo team has not yet commented on Evo 2025, which will be held August 1-3 in the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The Entertainment Software Association has spoken out against the tariffs, saying that they will have a “real and detrimental impact” on the gaming industry as a whole. The ESA advises concerned citizens to reach out to the members of their legislature, so that government officials can “hear that their constituents are concerned.”