Free Trade

Eric Boehm | 10.31.2025 12:00 PM

Price Johnson isn't a fan of games of chance.

Unfortunately, his gaming business is now caught in a high-stakes contest where the outcome feels entirely out of his hands.

Cephalofair Games, where Johnson works as COO, prides itself on making games that limit randomness and reward players for making strategic decisions and planning ahead. The company's most successful game, the award-winning Gloomhaven, is a dungeon-crawling adventure that, unlike most, doesn't rely on dice to determine outcomes.

"We've eliminated a lot of the luck elements that exist in games like Dungeons and Dragons and in other role-playing games," he says. "In our games, strategy is everything."

Now, it won't be tumbling dice, but the nine justices at the U.S. Supreme Court who will determine the fate of Cephalofair Games—and many other American businesses—when they hear a case next week challenging the legality of tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump. That's not exactly like risking it all on one roll, but you can forgive Johnson for feeling like it is. The outcome of the case will set the conditions for the future of U.S. trade policy: stability or chaos.

"If the Supreme Court decides one person, the president, is allowed to flip the switch on tariffs overnight, every day, any day they want, that is going to create such a volatile and unstable and untrustworthy market," Johnson predicts. "We can't build a business........

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