Month: December 2024

Note: this article was updated on 16 December 2024 to reflect clear guidance that digital products are included.

EU Regulation 2023/988 on General Product Safety (henceforth, “the GPSR”) came into force on 13 December 2024. It’s a pretty big deal for anyone selling stuff in the EU – including, especially, if you’re in non-EU countries like the UK and USA – and it’s important for small creators to know how it works. This is hindered by the fact that the promised guidance hasn’t come out. Luckily the UK government has produced some guidance, but it’s fairly general and doesn’t tell you everything you need to know. The EU Blue Book is very handy if you want to delve into detail or understand definitions. This article collates the key points as I understand them, and explains how they apply in a TTRPG publishing context. Other industries might find it useful too, but if so that’s lucky rather than deliberate.

Obligatory caveat: I am not a lawyer or an EU law expert, even if I’ve started to feel like one over the last week’s research. This is not legal advice. You should look into this yourself. I am not responsible if you get something wrong in relation to GPSR after reading this article.

The GPSR is a set of legal requirements, intended to protect consumers from unsafe products, applying to all products placed on the EU market from the date the regulation came into force. It covers almost any physical product you might sell, as well as digital products. The only exceptions are some things that have their own dedicated regulations that take priority, like animal products (there’s a full list in that gov.uk guidance). The key question for most TTRPG producers is “does it cover books” and the answer is yes. It also covers card games, and basically anything else that might be a TTRPG, again with the possible exception of digital-only products.

The GPSR’s basic requirement is not to put products on the EU market that aren’t safe. But underpinning that requirement are a bunch of other things you have to do to demonstrate that your product is safe, and which TTRPG publishers aren’t used to having to do. These are the main focus of this article.

The GPSR is not new – there has been a regulation by that name since at least 2005 – but this marks a significant update which introduces some important new requirements.

Do I really need to do anything?

Legally, of course the answer is yes. Practically, it comes down to two things: whether you can get your product through customs and whether any retail distribution partners will accept your product.

As I understand it, customs are likely to be focusing on goods from places like China. It’s pretty unlikely that stuff from the UK or USA (the bulk of the non-EU TTRPG publishing sector I would think) will see much enforcement activity. But one doesn’t like to take risks. If customs stop your product and it doesn’t meet the relevant requirements then at best it’s going to slow you down, at worst there could be a fine. A consultant I spoke to suggested the fine could be 100-150 Euros (in theory the cap is way higher but you’re unlikely to hit that cap for a TTRPG). I’d rather not have my product delayed or pay even a relatively small fine if I can easily avoid it.

On the retail side, retailers and distributors have a legal responsibility to make sure their products follow GPSR. That means that the likes of Amazon, who sell into the EU, will want to make sure their products follow GPSR, and likely won’t take your product unless you can prove it’s compliant. So unless your entire business is selling direct to customers, you’ll want to comply.

Hobbyists

The GPSR only applies to products that are “placed on the [EU] market” (article 5), and according to the EU Blue Book (section 2.2) this means commercial products. The blue book goes on to say “Commercial activity is understood as providing goods in a business related context […] In principle, occasional supplies by charities or hobbyists should not be considered as taking place in a business related context.”

This is obviously very important since a lot of TTRPG creators are hobbyists. My reading of this is that hobbyists are exempt from GPSR, with the caveat that it’s very much an open question what counts as a hobbyist, and all the arguments about customs in the previous section still apply. Nevertheless if you’re making a few dozen copies of a zine more for fun than for money, there’s an argument here that you are not legally required to do anything in respect of GPSR.

What the GPSR requires for TTRPGs

As mentioned above the main requirement is that your product should be safe, but in support of that, as far as I can tell there are three key requirements from GPSR:

• Produce and keep on file safety documentation including a declaration of compliance.
• Have an EU-based representative who can deal with enforcement authorities if they come knocking (assuming you aren’t EU-based yourself that is).
• Mark your product with certain GPSR-mandated information.

There are some other things that you might need to do in theory, but which in practice don’t require you to actually do anything. You need to ensure your product is safe – an obvious point, these are safety regulations. But the definition of safe is “under normal or reasonably foreseeable conditions of use, including the actual duration of use, does not present any risk or only the minimum risks compatible with the product’s use.” If your product is, like 95% of TTRPGs, a book, it is going to meet that definition, for adults at least. It’s not like you’re making an electric chainsaw or something. Also, you need to comply with product recalls. Again, not likely to be a problem. Needless to say, if your game does include a potentially dangerous item then that changes.

So the three bullets above are in practice what you need to do. Let’s look at them in more detail.

Documentation

The most complicated thing that is needed is a risk assessment. As mentioned above, most (maybe even all) TTRPGs are pretty well automatically safe, but you need to do a risk assessment anyway. I understand that there will be some harmonised standards in 2025. Until then, you’re stuck with common sense and careful thought. I haven’t yet thought through in detail what this might cover, but for books it is likely to feel like a statement of the bleeding obvious: product has no moving parts, no potentially dangerous energy source, no chemical components. It’s hard to think of anything dangerous about a book when used correctly, unless the ink is made of poison. You might want to check with your printer how they are managing GPSR compliance – they may have some off-the-shelf risk assessments of their own you can just take a copy of.

Everything else is pretty simple, though it is confusingly referred to as the “technical file” which is probably because they’re imagining your product is a machine or similar. For TTRPGs it isn’t actually terribly technical. Here is a list taken from a UK government-sponsored seminar on GPSR – with commentary from me in italics:

• Manufacturer name, address, contact details – the publisher is the manufacturer, not the printer.
• Responsible Person name, address, contacts (EU) – this is the EU-based representative, see next section
• Brief description of product – I would think “250-page A5 hardcover book” would be a sufficient level of detail
• Identification of product (E.g. an ISBN or batch number) – as it says, ISBN is appropriate, but if you have multiple printings you need to be able to distinguish them, I believe. The ISBN number and “Second printing” would be sufficient, for example.
• Name, address, contacts of ALL facilities involved in design and production – for most products that is just the printer.
• Name, address, contacts of notified body involved in assessing conformity of products – for most (all?) TTRPG products that will not apply, as you won’t be using a notified body.
• Statement of Conformity assessment procedure followed – this is your risk assessment.
• EU Declaration of Conformity – this is where you sign to say the product has been assessed as safe and complies with GPSR requirements.
• Label and instructions of use of product – this only applies where a product cannot be safely used as intended without it – not a consideration for most (all?) TTRPGs
• Relevant regulations to which the product complies – not applicable to most TTRPGs
• Technical standards to which the product complies – not applicable to most TTRPGs
• List of parts – not applicable to most TTRPGs – but will apply to e.g. card games
• List of results – not applicable to most TTRPGs

As you can see, apart from the risk assessment, these are simple requirements to meet. Furthermore, if you use the same printer for multiple products, you can copy almost all of it over from one product to the next – just make sure nothing important has changed and you have up-to-date information from them.

Documentation needs to be retained for 10 years. Although not specified I assume this is from the point that the product is sold i.e. the duration that it is on the market plus 10 years.

EU-based representative

If you are EU-based, you can ignore this bit. Otherwise, there must be someone somewhere in the process who is responsible for liaising with enforcement authorities (GPSR article 16). This “responsible person” needs to keep on file the documentation referred to above, and their details must be marked on the product (this could include a sticker) when it is sold or, if that isn’t practical, on the packaging or an accompanying slip.

The responsible person can be a manufacturer (if you’re working with an EU-based printer that might be relevant), an importer (so e.g. a distributor), a fulfilment service or, if none of these apply, you will need to procure an authorised representative.

An authorised representative is a person specifically mandated to be your EU-based representative. There are already quite a few people offering their services for varying prices – cheapest for micro-businesses appears to be in the region of £250 per year. I met with a consultant who advised me that, if I have any EU contacts at all, I should consider asking them to do this for me, in order to avoid paying these costs for doing what a friendly EU contact described as “close to NOTHING”.

The authorised representative’s role needs to cover these things (taken from the UK govt-sponsored seminar I attended):

• Authority to liaise with market surveillance authorities
• Responsibility to notify manufacturer of any product issues when known
• Responsibility to cooperate with market surveillance authorities to eliminate safety risks
• Closely follow and comply with manufacturer’s written mandate
• Provide market surveillance authorities with written mandate upon request

The authorised representative needs a written mandate. The aforementioned seminar advised this should include:

• Name of parties to agreement
• Purpose of agreement: AR is in EU, company needs to export to EU, AR is willing to represent company in EU, role of AR to liaise with authorities, company has created technical file for products and validated data
• General terms: AR is independent of company, liability of both parties, governing law
• AR status: appointment, list of directives covered, list of excluded directives
• List of AR duties: storage, confidentiality, defective product claims, legal requirements, request for information, informing, immediate notification of product incidents, collating complaint information, cooperation in case of product risk, inspection by authorities, forward copies
• List of company obligations: product recalls and advisory notices, compliance with applicable directives, EC Declaration of Conformity, technical documentation, information/assistance, use of AR’s name, technical file, insurance policy
• Additionally: Fees, Address to be used, Requests, Changes, Duration of agreement, Termination, Signature fields

One note to this: since documentation needs to be kept for 10 years, it seems to me that the authorised rep needs to also keep them for that length of time – otherwise you could sell the product, and subsequently there’s a product recall, and the authorised representative won’t be able to do their job. So it follows that the mandate must specify this requirement – and, since you would probably like to be able to switch to a different authorised rep in future, that should include retaining documentation for products after that as well.

Product markings

Article 19 of GPSR says that you need to include this information on the product:

• a batch or serial number or any other identifying element so that the consumer can identify it in an “easily visible and legible way”;
• the name, physical address and email address of the manufacturer and (if different) the EU-based representative; and
• where a product cannot be safely used as intended without it, clear instructions and safety information or warnings “in language consumers can easily understand”.

The batch or serial number is straightforward; as mentioned above it can just be the ISBN plus something to identify what printing it is, if there has been more than one. Your address is presumably straightforward and may already be on your products. The EU-based representative is trickier, because you may not wish to permanently print something on a product not knowing if you might one day switch to a new provider. I would suggest checking the terms of any contract with an authorised representative, and consider putting their details on a sticker or insert, or on the packaging, any of which I understand are acceptable.

The part that people seem most worried about is “in language consumers can easily understand” because it is taken to mean “must be translated into all the languages of the EU”. However, the instructions are the only part of this which would have to be provided in multiple languages. “Manufactured by” and “represented by” are considered to be widely understood, so you don’t need to translate them. Furthermore, safety instructions are clearly not required for a book’s safe use, nor I would suggest for any card game or even board game, as long as it doesn’t include anything like an electric chainsaw or similar. I would think for most (all?) ttrpgs, no instructions would be required, and therefore no translation would be required.

If you do need include an element in your product that requires safety instructions then you will need to consider this requirement further. I wonder if there is an argument that any product that is primarily English text is therefore aimed at English speakers and so it can be assumed that associated safety information in English will be “easily understood”. But that is speculation on my part – if you think you need safety instructions then you need to look into this in more detail.

Enforcement authorities

Cooperation with enforcement authorities is hopefully not something you’ll have to worry about but obviously if they contact you, you need to cooperate. This includes provided translated versions of the documentation shown above. I am told Deepl is very good for translating this sort of relatively technical documentation (warning: AI-based), or there’s good old Google translate (warning: probably also AI based I’m guessing).

Digital products

Thanks to a Q&A released by the European Commission, it is clear that digital products are included.

Side note: the Q&A isn’t on the main page for the GPSR regulations, nor is it easy to find by searching. I was pointed to the Q&A by a passerby on Bluesky. It would be super helpful if the EU (and government generally) could be a bit better at communicating this stuff.

It would be simple enough to ensure digital products are safe – the risks must be considered even lower than for books. I asked my consultant what risks I might consider in my risk assessment and she mentioned cyber security risks (which would be mitigated by using a reputable software to produce the product, for example). I also note that the regulation mentions “mental and social wellbeing” as factors in health, so it’s possible that is a consideration too – though of course remembering you’re entitled to consider the risk under reasonable conditions of normal use, and do not need to reduce the risk to zero.

As with other products, the authorised representative is the potential sticking point. There are plenty of people who are selling digital stuff on itchio, for example, who likely don’t make enough money to hire an authorised rep and might not have the contacts to find one for free. To those people I would offer one thought: as noted above, the regulation only applies to products supplied commercially – so if your level of activity could be regarded as nothing more than a hobbyist (tough to assess) then you might not be covered.

One other remark about TTRPG digital products. Unlike physical products they don’t go through customs, and they aren’t sold through EU retailers. So the arguments I made earlier on about the practical reasons why you need to comply are not applicable. Of course I would never suggest anybody break the law.

If you are selling physical products then you’re already having to comply on the physical side and complying with the digital side of things is pretty easy.

Toys and other things

GPSR applies to all products, but there are specific rules that apply to toys (the toy directive and associated CE mark). I have not covered these here. If your product is marketed at children under the age of 14, you should look into that. Just saying “this product is for people aged 15 and up” does not necessarily mean it doesn’t count as a toy – roughly speaking if it walks like a toy, quacks like a toy or is marketed at children, then it may just be a toy.

As mentioned above there are other rules for specific products. If for instance you were to include a small electronic device in with your game, you would fall foul of various types of dedicated regulations. This is pretty unusual for TTRPGs, but it does come up (ask me how I know).

Existing products

Legally, already-manufactured products that were on sale to EU customers before 13 December 2024 appear to be exempt. (In other words, if the product either first went on sale to EU customers after that date or completed the manufacturing process after that date, it’s not exempt.) A product, here, means an individual object – so if you do a reprint, that’s a new product. With that said, there is some uncertainty over this because of some ambiguous language in the EU Blue Book – it seems that products from outside the EU may be treated differently, although this isn’t clear. I discuss this further in my earlier article on GPSR.

Practically though, you may wish your pre-2024 products to comply with GPSR anyway. Otherwise, you are at risk of a customs officer holding up your shipments because they couldn’t confirm your product was exempt. If you meet the above requirements for new products, it will be very easy to do the same for existing ones, and will avoid the risk of this happening.

Conclusion

All of this is what we in the business refer to as a massive pain in the bum. I wish EU legislation were easier to understand, and better communicated, and that there weren’t loads of people trying to make money out of it. But once you look at the detail, it isn’t that hard to comply. The biggest issue is the authorised representative, because that can be very expensive for the smaller publishers, and all I can say about that is, solidarity friends.

Once again, this is just me writing down my own conclusions from my research – it isn’t legal advice, I am not a lawyer, please try and research your own obligations. And bear in mind this is (as you’ll have gathered) based on the assumption that you’re producing a TTRPG-type product, probably a book, and not an electric chainsaw.