3rd Horseman of the Apocalypse: 4E Hits the Bargain Bin

[howandwhy99]

I sure hope the production / service design of D&DNext is significantly different from this.

This kind of thing is not healthy or survival sustaining for any hobby.

 

[Jhaelen]

4E has been in the bargain bin around here for a little while now.

Yup, here (i.e in Germany), too. This actually made me wonder: did some info leak out before the NY Times spoiled it with their announcement?

Actually, back when the German publisher ceased to renew its D&D license after releasing the three core books it was clear that the future of 4e didn't look bright in my country.

That's about the only thing of interest to me regarding 5e: Will a German publisher pick it up?
If not, it's going to be a stillbirth (at least regarding the German-speaking countries).

 

[Shemeska]

During the 3.5 to 4 change over I was able to score a number of books through Amazon at a steep discount (paid more for shipping than the books). Keep an eye out there as well.

I largely stopped buying WotC 3.5 material (excepting FCI and II, and Lords of Madness) for the last few years of 3.x, and then I pretty much completed my 3.x collection for a crazy low price in the first few month after 4e was announced (only to watch the price of those same books spike right after 4e actually was released).

 

[Melanos]

I live in Toronto. Which store is this? BMV?

 

[..]

I unfortunately only just bought the only 4E book I would ever want, the Eberron Campaign Guide.

Let me know if there's another 3E fire-sale

 

[fjw70]

I am surprised that 4e sold as well as it did. I really like it and buy all the hardcovers and adventures but most of the people I play with (close to 30 over the last 2.5 years) buy very few D&D books. Just about everyone just uses DDI (most don't even pay for it). I think the 4e player base is much larger than its customer base.

 

[Voadam]

During the 3.5 to 4 change over I was able to score a number of books through Amazon at a steep discount (paid more for shipping than the books). Keep an eye out there as well.

During the 4e announcement I got my brother six Eberron hardcover books for $4 each including S&H off amazon. I keep waiting for the super discounts to hit on the 4e ones.

Last year I got overstock copies of things like Draconomicon I & II, Manual of the Planes, Plane Below, and Eberron Campaign Guide, for about $8 each including shipping and handling off of Amazon.

I've been watching Amazon for the last couple of months for things like Beyond the Grave, Plane Above, and the FR books and none have been below about $13 each so far. The super discounts are not here right now.

 

[BobROE]

I live in Toronto. Which store is this? BMV?

I know I saw 4E stuff in the window of BMV by queen and john and was suprised to see them there. No idea what they were on sale for.

 

[Bokesliden]

The prices at Amazon UK have been cut by about 25 % on 4th ed stuff.

 

[Truename]

I'm not sure this means what everybody thinks it means. Most books have a short shelf-life. They're released, there's a surge of sales that drops off fairly quickly, then they're remaindered (put in the bargain bin to get rid of excess inventory). Books that aren't sold are returned to the publisher for a refund, or they're destroyed and their covers returned for a refund. And then that's it. The book isn't reprinted. It's done.

(See How Thor Power Hammered Publishing for an interesting article--no, really!--about the finances of the publishing industry and how tax laws encourage remaindering.)

So it doesn't make sense to say "4e has hit the bargain bins." Which 4e books have hit the bargain bins? Are they hardcovers that were released more than 6-12 months ago? If so, this isn't a surprise, and probably doesn't have anything to do with 5e at all.

Even "core" 4e books like PHB1 and DMG1 being remaindered doesn't mean anything, because those books have been replaced by the Essentials line.

Now, if we were seeing Essentials being remaindered, that would tell us something. But we might not ever see that, because Essentials books are paperbacks and they could just get destroyed instead.

Discounts on Amazon don't tell us much, either. The publisher gets 50% of the cover price and the retailer gets the other 50%. The retailer will often discount the cover price--cutting into their 50%--in order to sell more. The more popular the book, the more likely it is to be discounted, because the retailer knows people will comparison shop popular books, and the retailer wants to give the impression of having the best overall prices. So, ironically, a book with a nice 32% discount on Amazon (which is what Rules Compendium currently has on the US site) is probably selling pretty well. My book spikes up to 45% off at the beginning of every semester, because it's used as a college textbook and Amazon competes with college bookstores.

tl;dr: Remaindering older hardbacks is normal and doesn't tell us anything about the popularity of 4e or the significance of 5e.

(Note: I'm talking about mass-market bookstores, not hobby shops. Also, although I have some experience due to authoring a published technical book, I'm hardly an expert on the publishing industry and might have gotten some of this wrong.)