prices getting a little nuts?

[Cergorach]

Let's be crude, Publishers determine the prices of their products, Customers have very little input. Crying to the publisher won't help much, voting with your wallet is a more effecient.

If you as a customer think that your willingness to stay away from great products because your not content with the pricing of these products has any effect on D20/OGL sales of such products, i would say go for it! But sales speak for themselves, big color books sell (i'm happy!).

I think it's a good thing that only a small group of publishers will be available at most FLGs, i think it will a bigger group than most people suspect (Green Ronin will be among them for sure). Why would you ask, because the overall quality of products needs to be raised (writing, editing, art, printing, etc.), a lot of these large tomes are already very good, i just wish everything was as good as BotR for example (B&W by the way). I for sure as hell don't need more smaller products, that only fragments the market, i'm sure that FLGs owners aren't happy either with more smaller products then a few big ones (both for storage, accounting, and sales).

There will always be gamers that would rather smoke $50 worth of weed in a day then spending $50 on a book that'll stay in the bookcase for a very long time (always available to browse through)...

 

[vraad]

To be honest, I am seeing the FLGS as the biggest looser here. Customers are saying that they won't pay the high prices and aren't buying the books. Game producers are saying that the books are still selling well. Why? Because gamers still want to see the books on the shelves and when they don't buy those books, the gamestore is the one who has to eat that loss. I know of three game stores in the two cities I spend most of my time in. They have all said that they can't afford to keep stocking all these really expensive books and then having to sell them on ebay for very very little to no profit. If this continues, you're going to start to see the worst thing that could possibly happen to this industry, you're going to see game stores start to close. Yes game stores sell other products, but card games don't cost as much up front as RPGs for the stores and they also tend to move more product too.

don't forget the middle-man in all of this.

later

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

There will always be gamers that would rather smoke $50 worth of weed in a day...

Man, that's a lot of weed.

Wait, are we talking 1980's weed or 2002 weed?

Wulf

 

[jgbrowning]

To be honest, I am seeing the FLGS as the biggest looser here. Customers are saying that they won't pay the high prices and aren't buying the books. Game producers are saying that the books are still selling well. Why? Because gamers still want to see the books on the shelves and when they don't buy those books, the gamestore is the one who has to eat that loss. I know of three game stores in the two cities I spend most of my time in. They have all said that they can't afford to keep stocking all these really expensive books and then having to sell them on ebay for very very little to no profit. If this continues, you're going to start to see the worst thing that could possibly happen to this industry, you're going to see game stores start to close. Yes game stores sell other products, but card games don't cost as much up front as RPGs for the stores and they also tend to move more product too.

don't forget the middle-man in all of this.

later

One of the major chain gamestores ('bout 5 stores in the metroplex) in my area seems to already be reducing it's RPG coverage, at least at the store I go to.

They used to have 5 shelves of RPGs, now they have 4. Used the extra space for more minis.

joe b.

 

[Mystic Eye]

To be honest, I am seeing the FLGS as the biggest looser here. Customers are saying that they won't pay the high prices and aren't buying the books. Game producers are saying that the books are still selling well. Why? Because gamers still want to see the books on the shelves and when they don't buy those books, the gamestore is the one who has to eat that loss. I know of three game stores in the two cities I spend most of my time in. They have all said that they can't afford to keep stocking all these really expensive books and then having to sell them on ebay for very very little to no profit. If this continues, you're going to start to see the worst thing that could possibly happen to this industry, you're going to see game stores start to close. Yes game stores sell other products, but card games don't cost as much up front as RPGs for the stores and they also tend to move more product too.

don't forget the middle-man in all of this.

later

No one forgets the retailer, trust me, we keep trying to figure out how to get closer to the retailer, but as far as "gamers saying they won't pay the high prices" who are these gamers? Cergorach said speak with your wallet. Well, consumers do speak with their wallets and the message is "we will pay for bigger, nicer books" if any of the statistics are true.
I also hear time and time again that retailers prefer the larger books becuase A) they sell better and B) they get more money for their shelf space.
If you look through this thread, while people are complaining, they keep saying the same message. We bought the $50 dollar book so can't buy the $20 book. What is the message there? To me, it is to create larger books with the best production values you can put into them that makes sense for the topic.

Also, If the worst thing that can happen is hobby retailers closing, that has been going on for a long, long time. We are already in our worst possible situation then. See, like many publishers, retailers are often made up of hobby enthusiasts as well. They do not know about retail, could not even tell you what a POS system is, and have never managed a budget beyond their checkbook. They open a game store and then wonder why they are not rolling in the cash. I am not saying the retailers here are amongst those but there are plenty of them with good hearts and bad or no business plans.
The only way we can help the retailer is by putting out the best possible product and sell it at a price that we, the publisher can stay in business while marketing our products as best as budgets will allow.

 

[Desdichado]

...could not even tell you what a POS system is...

Hey, I think you just described my car!

 

[vraad]

Mystic Eye,

Ok, ok, I see what you're saying, but how old are the statistics you're talking about here? Where do they come from? If you are looking at how many books a publisher is selling and those stats are comeing from 6 months ago, we many have a small issue. But if you are finding stats on how many books FLGSs actually sell and those stats are from within the last 3 months, then I'd say you've got me. The thing is that game stores have to buy the product to put on the shelves so the sales publishers make are terribly skewed. Game stores have hundres/thousands (depending on the title we are talking about) of copies of these books on their shelves. How do you know if they are really moving or not? And I may be wrong (and please correct me if I am) but the $50 books have really only started showing up in force for the last 3 months. So sales figures to show that players will buy these high $ books need to be very current before I'll believe they are selling all that well and you need to get them from the game stores themselves.

I also understand what you're saying about the owners of game stores not knowing what they are getting into. And in my example of three stores I have to admit that one of those does fall into that category. however the other two know enough about business to know how to sell product and to know that if something is not selling, you stop stocking the shelves with it. One store that has been open for more than 10 years is cutting back a fair amount. The other has been in business for about a year and are turning a profit, but they are being forced to switch to a "special order" phiosophy because they've been bitten on too many high $ products (mongoose's harbacks, dragonlance, farscape) In both cases the owners have been told by enough of their customers that the price has influenced them that they are now going to change their buying practices to match the buyer's lack of interest in big items. Publisher's won't see the effects of this for another few months when they finally don't sell as many copies to the FLGSs.

Anyway, that's my thoughts.

 

[Psion]

If you look through this thread, while people are complaining, they keep saying the same message. We bought the $50 dollar book so can't buy the $20 book. What is the message there? To me, it is to create larger books with the best production values you can put into them that makes sense for the topic.

I would hope that they would not only add the best production values, but the best content.

They do not know about retail, could not even tell you what a POS system is,

I could tell you what a POS system is, but I usually save that kind of diatribe for RPGnet.

Oh, you mean point of sale...

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

I don't see a huge increase in cost... Everything seemed more expensive back then in 80's than now... then again I make allot more too. I do the fallowing to get the most out of my dollar:

By in bulk
By where it’s the cheapest…

Of course it’s much easier to do when you don’t have a local store you feel obligated to support.

 

[NLP]

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...

I think my whole point is: Do you have 75 $25.00 or less d20 books sitting on your shelf because your customers are buying $40.00-$50.00 books and thus do not have enough extra cash to buy the cheaper books? Because that is what I am faced with every month. By the time I buy B5 and some miniatures my $75.00 a month gaming budget is shot. And it doesn't matter how many cool $25.00 books come in after that because I do not have the cash to buy them. And by the time the month comes around and I can spend another $75.00 30 more books have come out, some of which that I want I know will cost $40.00-$50.00. For every $50.00 book I buy there are two $25.00 books I am not buying.

As a gamer, I would much rather purchase a B&W copy of B5 for $10.00-$15.00 less and used the saved cash to buy an additional book then to blow my entire wad on one book and have all the other publishers lose money because I am not buying their products. Because I would probably love to have at least half of those 75 books which are sitting on your shelves getting dusty.

I also think these higher priced books, while you love them because of the greater profit to your store, are going to be the downfall of the FLGS. Because I am to the point where I will buy a $35.00+ book online for a 20-30% discount rather than pay you full price. And as books keep getting more and more expensive your customers are going to turn away and seek cheaper purchasing alternatives. So while the chicken looks plump for you now, because of the increased profit, a year from now you are going to see that it was mostly just feathers, because you are not going to get the sales.