Books pricing themselves out of reach?

So does anyone else get the feeling that the books and market is slowly pricing itself out of casual reach?

I'm not saying by ANY stretch that the books are too expensive for what you get. AE at $50 bones is a fair deal. World's Largest Dungeon for $100 bones is a good deal.

That doesn't mean that it's still not expensive.

Unlike say most fiction though, outside of E-Bay, you'll never see these books go on sale. I just picked up the Jester in hardcover for less than I can buy it in paperback for example. Heck, even expensive coffee table books which run for $19.95 to $29.95 are half the price they first came out at.

Am I just nuts?

Of course it doesn't help that I don't understand the way things work at all. I mean, one of the old Necromancer adventuers went for like $12.95 at 96 pages a few years ago. The reprint, due to limited demand and what not, would be like $25 bones. And most 96 page books are around that price. Not the publishers fault I imagine but outside of printing the books in Canada, I think we may get a little bit of a backlash of books not because people don't like or want the books, but simply can't afford 'em.

Opinions?

They will be sold for whatever price people will be willing to pay. If fewer books get sold becuase of the higher prices, then the prices will be lowered.

I imagine the boooks you are looking at are being marketed towards middle-class families with dependable jobs and plenty of disposable income.

If people can't afford new books, there are plenty of second-hand stores around that sell books for a fraction of what they cost new.

There are also libraries.

$30 is my cutoff.

and even then i still go for discount if at all possible. via second hand stores, coupons, amazon, overstock, etc...

i ain't paying real money for something to complete my collection and sit on a shelf.

If there's anything I can't get "gifted" through my various contacts, my cutoff is around $40. If I still think I must have it, I look for a discount reseller on Ebay. I've only been burned once doing that from someone on Ebay who charged me about $70 for the World's Largest Dungeon and then didn't ship it for two months. I did get it eventually and all is well now.

It just means people are going to have to limit their purchases to what they really want. Beyond that, BAMM.com, buy.com, and amazon are still viable options, and even wal-mart.com for the truly discount-starved.

This same conversation has come up before, and I think the rule will still be "whatever the market will bear."

If the more expensive books are must haves, I imagine people will buy them but then just not buy as mnany other titles. I have a budget of what I'm willing to spend on gaming bookks a month. If there is a single awsome book that takes up my whole monthly budget, I'm willing to do that. And while there are some expensive books out there most still seem to hover around the 30 buck range.

WotC, IIRC, switched to hard covers exclusively b/c they found that they could make more money off them (I dunno if that was due to increased units sold or increased cover price; maybe both) so the market seems to be willing to bear the burden so far.

I do think, however, that going the all-hardcover route only fosters the growth of pdf scans as someone who might have been willing to pay $25 for a softcover wouldn't be willing to pay $35+ for a hardcover (and no, I'm not trying to turn this thread into a discussion of the pros and cons of scanning).

I know I've become more selective in the books I buy. In the past, I would have bought pretty much every generic D&D book that came out, plus books for whatever specific campaign world I'm running (e.g. Ravenloft, Dragonlance, etc.). Now I don't. I've specifically singled out the Races of X books as something I'm not willing to pay $40+ (CA) for. I might take a look at a scanned version of it, but I'm not going to buy it.

I really do think there is a place for softcover books. But it might be that WotC isn't the one to publish such books (which is a shame since I am rarely interested in buying books from other d20 companies).

I know I've become more selective in the books I buy. In the past, I would have bought pretty much every generic D&D book that came out, plus books for whatever specific campaign world I'm running (e.g. Ravenloft, Dragonlance, etc.). Now I don't. I've specifically singled out the Races of X books as something I'm not willing to pay $40+ (CA) for. I might take a look at a scanned version of it, but I'm not going to buy it.

Click to expand...

Word.
First, I think that books, for the most part, are slowly pricing themselves out of reach. I've had to seriously limit my intake of what RPG's/supplements I've bought. I initally collected the "Bablyon 5" line, but the price, coupled with the quick rate of release, has forced me to stop buying. I never got into the "Conan" line because of the price, as well. (THough I may get the pocket players handbook.)

There are excections, of course. I'm pretty well pleased with the Midnight line: the price-point for most supplements is $15, which is a boon in this day and age, and you get an equal amount of "fluff" and "crunch". Addtionally, I'l buy most anything from the "Buffy", "Exalted" and "Lone Wolf" lines, as well as a select few others.

That said, my "cut-off" is $50 for a hardcover, $30-35 for a softcover. (Of course I take different things into account: I look at the page count, whether it's color or B+W, whether it's gonna be actively useful to me, whether I "collect" the line, etc.) There are exepctions: I've bought WLD, and I intend to buy Paizo's "Shackled City" book, as well as a few others.

As far as some books go, I don't mind the $50 price tag. My FLGS has a favored customer program that offer an extra 5% off all items that also extends to the 10% automatic discount on all new books that everyone gets. Plus, the online retailers and gaming shops I order from all offer a discount off retail price. Sure, it's still a lot of money, but the amount of book coming out that I feel like I just HAVE to have is lessening as companies pace their releases more and more. (March being an exceptions with 4 books released this month that came out and then I picked up 2 from my "marginal" buy list.) Plus, those bigger books, like AE, are crammed with information, so I know I'm getting a lot of bang for my buck.

Plus, I see a little bit of a trend among some publishers putting out more expensive, 400+ page tomes. WLD, AE, IKCG, IKWG, and the upcoming WLC and Mongoose's HUGE monster tome (here's hoping they do a better job than they did with Ultimate Monsters) are all big books. If the content is worth it, I'll pay the higher price. Where I get a bit cheesed are smaller books with $30 - $35 price tags. $30 for a 120-200 page book of B&W art is just too much...too bad I still buy the book if it's got content that I want.

Kane

The price of books is relative.... if you think RPG books are expensive, then consider the cost of textbooks if you are going to college or university. The price of text books is postively obscene in comparison.

Which is why the price of RPG books doesn't get me worked up. Now the price of textbooks....that is good for elevating one's blood pressure.