Swag Hurts

Why devs make merchandise and what it costs them.

- Xalavier Nelson Jr

From the ‘feelies’ included in 90s adventure games, to the branded shirts on clearance at Hot Topic, merchandise (also known as ‘swag’) can sometimes feel as vital to gaming culture as the games themselves. With decades of iteration, it’s tempting to think that most of the issues associated with merchandise are now solved—making fiascos like the Fallout 76 duffel bag recall even more egregious. What I instead discovered is a process still riddled with potential money pits and failure points.

“For many years we ran our own merchandise shop and shipped out orders ourselves,” says Kevin Simmons of Asymmetric, developers of browser classic Kingdom of Loathing and recent indie hit West of Loathing. “If you add up the cost of the materials, salary of the person handling the orders, and all the shipping, we actually lost money! The merchandise was meant as fan-service, and we kept prices as low as we could manage—T-shirts were $15 including shipping within the US, for example.” They’ve since contracted merchandising to Topatoco, but tales of breaking glassware and other fulfilment nightmares are a surprisingly common tale during the shipping process.