prices getting a little nuts?

[Crothian]

EDIT: I'd also like to say, there is pretty heavy ENworld involvement in Grim Tales, from art, to design, to playtesting... Lots of folks from around here will be credited in the book. Should I "dual stat" their names with their ENworld logins?

/hijack

Wulf

I think that would be really cool of you, as there are many people I don't know what their real names are.

 

[jgbrowning]

I think that would be really cool of you, as there are many people I don't know what their real names are.

Yep. I have to agree with Bob.

uh... Bill....?

Oh, yah, Chris!



joe b.

 

[Desdichado]

I am curious to see what you think; you strike me as a hard-to-please kind of guy, Dyal.

LOL, do I really? I'd say, rather, I know what I like, so things that fall outside of that known commodity have to work extra hard to "surprise and delight" me, to use a phrase from my industry. However, this book sounds like it's literally right up my alley, so I'm expecting to be pleased. The good reports I've heard of your stuff in general also goes a long way.

 

[spacecrime.com]

Gamers are not and endless well of money. For every expensive book released by one company it means another company is forced to lose a sale. Eventually all those second and third tier publishers are going to suffer from those lost sales, and then they will be gone.

Yep. For the first time in its history, the RPG industry is a competitive market. Which means that any publisher who can't put out a book that's so good, so pretty, and so well-marketed that it is well-nigh irresistable is in for a world of hurting.

I think this is a good thing. I think in the next two years you're going to see the quality of RPGs shoot up like a rocket, because the only way you're going to be able to succeed in this market is going to be by making something truly outstanding. And I think companies should set their pricing high with the express purpose of soaking up as much of each gamer's discretionary income as possible.

Let the best products win.

Someone needs to be producing books for the non-millionaire gamers and college kids who do not have a $200.00 a month to spend on expensive books.

I suspect there are probably about 3 millionaires in gaming: Vin Diesel, Peter Adkison, and some guy none of us have ever heard of. Most millionaires play with yachts, Ferraris, and other toys that actually are expensive.

Your hyperbole aside, I'm all for impulse-buy products. The problem so far has been that just about every RPG has been an impulse-buy product; until recently, the high end of the market has been well within the "what the hell, it's only twenty bucks" range. We're finally getting something that vaguely resembles a premium product in the RPG field, which means we can probably start thinking about how to build super-premium products and impulse-buy products. If we can get all three price tiers going, I suspect it's going to become a lot easier to make a decent living within the industry.

I'll leave you with one last thought. The easiest way in the world to compete is by cutting price. If you're putting out about the same product as everybody else, you can get more sales by putting out cheaper. If prices have gotten so high that customers are screaming for relief, then somebody -- probably several somebodies -- is almost certain to address the need for "good stuff cheaper".

Where are those somebodies? If games are too expensive, then where are the budget games and cheap knockoffs?

Surely somebody is ready to leap into the market ready to slash costs and prices and make a big deal about how you get more cheaper with their games. Who's that somebody?

Anybody?

 

[NLP]

I suspect there are probably about 3 millionaires in gaming: Vin Diesel, Peter Adkison, and some guy none of us have ever heard of. Most millionaires play with yachts, Ferraris, and other toys that actually are expensive.

I suspect you know very little about Millionaires. A million dollars at 5% interest is $50,000.00 per year in interest income. That is the money a non-working millionaire gets to live on over the course of a year; and that is about the average household income. I work with many millionaires and none of them own yachts or Ferraris. Don't confuse television/movie/music/sports millionaires with the other 98% of the millionaires in the country.

I budget $75.00 a month for my gaming hobby. I would rather see that spent on 3-4 books than on 1.5-2 books. YMMV.

 

[spacecrime.com]

I suspect you know very little about Millionaires.
(snip)
I work with many millionaires...

Cool. Then enlighten me on how many of those millionaires play roleplaying games. (Because if there's a whole bunch of them, maybe I should be looking into selling them more expensive games.)

I budget $75.00 a month for my gaming hobby. I would rather see that spent on 3-4 books than on 1.5-2 books.

That's also cool.

On my shelves, as of 2 minutes ago, there were 75 different D20 titles costing $25 or less. 7 of them have arrived in the last two weeks, and just flipping through them I'd say they look pretty neat. I've got a book about the planes, a book about running empires, a book about beholders, a book about inns...

It sounds like you're getting what you want. I want nice spiffy $50+ books to sell and to enjoy for myself. Is it possible that we can both get what we want?

cheers,

 

[Ghostwind]

The problem with the whole 'prices are getting too high' argument is that gamers tend to compare everything to the core books when they were first released at $19.99. I cannot begin to say how many times I've heard, "Well, if the core books were hardcover and only cost $20, then there is no reason why this 96 page softcover can't be cheaper than that." In a nutshell, most gamers do not (nor have a desire to) understand the economics of publishing and what it really costs the publisher to produce that book. In a nutshell, other publishers cannot price a book at $19.99 and expect to make money at all. It's that simple. Given the current decline in the market, anything less than $24.99 will likely lose money.

Certain ramifications of the d20 open gaming license are starting to come to light, especially in recent months. Over the past three years we've seen countless publishers enter the RPG market with their own d20 book(s). As gamers have already noted, this has resulted in a very diverse amount of material (and I'm not even addressing pdfs). So much material, in fact, that retailers do not even attempt to stock it all because they cannot afford to and their clientele does not purchase it all. So what's the result of this? d20 publishers are seeing HUGE drops in sales and especially in reorders. Publishers used to sell 3000 units of a particular title and are now seeing those numbers around 500 (or if they are really lucky, 1000).

What does this mean? You are going to start seeing publishers fall by the waysides. Only those with successful sales and a substantial cash base are going to last for any length of time unless gamers quit complaining and start buying more. They also need to get their local retailer to only stock their favorite publishers rather than everything under the sun. Unless gamers really want to go back to the days when there was one publisher for D&D, they need to make a direct effort to purchase more of their favorite publishers' goods. If sales trends continue at the current rate of decline, I'd bet a whole paycheck that you won't see companies like Bastion, Mystic Eye, Necromancer, Privateer, Paradigm, Living Imagination, or possibly even Green Ronin or Fantasy Flight producing d20 material on a consistent basis a year from now.

The prices have to go up if these companies want to survive, but the sales also have to increase or it won't make one bit of difference. Gamers will be left with few choices regardless of what they want, plain and simple...

 

[Vigilance]

I chose to buy M&M for $33.00 and Freedom City for another $33.00. And because of that money spent I did not spend the $20.00 on Vigilance: Absolute Power. So who suffered from that in the long run, me or you?

Ok- here's total honesty for you.

I am the loser in that scenario, because I got a % for Vigilance, and it broke even.

I havent seen a dime from that endeavor.

If the game was more expensive, it likely would have sold about the same amount, but have been more profitable.

*That* conundrum is what this whole discussion really boils down to. Even if you lose a few sales by making a book more expensive, its more profitable.

Chuck

 

[gariig]

Some mentioned that slashing prices and selling on that is a good idea. Unfortunately the truth is it doesn't work on that. Historically anyone who has Marketed on price alone usually won't sell enough to break even and go out of business, this is the one thing Marketing 101 will drill into you. Now is not always true there are some who make it (Wal-Mart being the biggest example).

What D20 publishers need to do is pick a price point they think is correct and make the consumer want them, either by prestige of the author(ala Monte Cook or Gagy Gygax), the company (Wizards of the Coast), or license (Star Wars, SG-1, etc.). If a company doesn't push my buttons to buy it, I won't. If I'm buying it because it is "cheap" it is probably so below cost it won't turn a profit. As Vigilance said, sell it for $5 more and lose a couple of sales but you'll make a whole bunch more..that's business folks!

Gariig

 

[isidorus]

I finally had time to read the whole thread, and it is very interesting to say the least. For d20 products in the past two years I have bought 2 books higher then 30.00 dollars and neither were impluse buys. One was traveller d20 and the other forgotten realms. Everything else was between 20-30 dollars.

For non-d20 I have bought 3 hard to get books and one Novel and I had to order online to get my hands on them because nobody around me carried and that was first 3 books for Lejendary Adventure by Gary Gygax; all 3 were 24.95 with black and white art.

So I am a impluse buyer and nothing I bought only 2 books which cost over 30 dollars and 30 dollars is big chuck of what I have left in one weeks check, after I paid everything else. If regular books reach 40 dollars or more I be buying less and less, just because I cannot afford it right now.

I think they if it is a outstanding book aka Traveller with alot of usuable info, 45 to 50 dollars is fair, but it would have to be outstanding in my eyes. An maybe that is the problem every gamer has differnet thoughts and thresholds on how much is to much.

Of course right now I have been laid on and off from my job for a year now and I do union work. So my impluse buys have to be researched before I buy since money is way tight. So has the ecomony here in the Us had a impact on the number of sales and/or profit?

I think the publishers need to make money to live and write more quality stuff and bring it to us. Even though if I had the money to start I would try to do it myself, so I am writing for enjoyment and home world. Now if I could find a good free pdf maker

The only other question is Wotc does not up there prices or stays the same how does this affect6 3rd party publishers.