D&D 5E Initial D&D Next Releases Showing Up on Barnes & Noble Website

N'raac · Mar 4, 2014

delericho said:
There's another cold, harsh reality that if the perceived value of an item isn't high enough to justify the price tag, a would-be customer won't buy. As the price tag increases, the percentage of the market to cross that "not worth it" threshold inevitably increases. This means there's a balancing act to be done - do you go for more sales at a lower margin, or fewer sales at a higher margin?

It is, of course, entirely possible that a product can reach a point where it cannot be viable - the cost to produce means that it cannot be sold to enough people at a high enough margin. (Actually, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that D&D is pretty much at that point where Hasbro are concerned.)

Agreed. "Labour of love" seems more and more the tagline for RPG products.

delericho said:
Indeed. My understanding is that Amazon can deliver most, if not all, RPG products to the end customer for a lower price that an FLGS must pay just to get the book in stock. Faced with that, it's a wonder that any have survived.

(And it's worse even than that, what with WotC having moved over to a subscription model with the DDI and Paizo having done the same with their many subscription offerings.)

Of course, the problems with brick-and-mortar stores aren't limited to the RPG business; the writing's probably on the wall for pretty much all of them.

Very true. I see a lot of "loyalty to the company", "loyalty to the store" and "loyalty to the hobby" arguments presented in this regard. WoTC is not required to sell at a price I find acceptable. Neither am I required to support WoTC over a company producing cheaper product (or product I prefer), my FLGS over a less costly online retailer or the hobby itself. But I don't expect WoTC to cater to my preferences, Amazon to start providing online access to "skim through the book" before I buy, or the hobby to continue on under the efforts of charitable souls donating their time, or providing it for less than its market value.

We lament the loss of the FLGS, the decline in the hobby, etc. Who's crying for all the video rental chains with the advent of low cost DVD's, online streaming and Netflix? In a free market economy, business lines, businesses and entire industries either learn to compete, or they perish.

SkidAce · Mar 4, 2014

Mistwell said:
I am really struggling to understand your perspective on this. It's nothing at all like spoiling the Academy Awards - which ARE A COMPETITION. You know, with the competitors all right there, in the room, waiting to hear if they won! If massive impact on their careers, on money, on what else will be made in the future, etc..

Why do you care who announces the date and initial price of the PHB? What could they have "planned" that would make this minor announcement somehow more "major" of an announcement? What on earth were you expecting that would be massively different from what you got?

There simply was nothing at stake here in who makes the announcement and how they made it. It was purely an information dump.

There was no competition here. There is nothing "spoiled" here. There was not "better" message being planned that would somehow make announcing a price and date for a book more "meaningful" than simply announcing the price and date of the book. It's just a friggen price and slightly more specific date of a book for goodness sake!

I am just not understanding why you think this was so major, and how you can go on for days on how important it is that WOTC didn't make this announcement but B&N did. Why do you care, and why is this like spoiling the Oscars for you when most of the rest of us are just talking about the information itself?

Because if Wizards had made the announcement, perhaps some of the vagueness and gaps in info would have been filled, like questions answered by the breadth and depth of their announcement, which were not gleaned via B&N?

JMO.

DMZ2112 · Mar 4, 2014

Campbell said:
This is not something that's in WotC's ability to fix.

Just so we're clear, I've never suggested that it is, nor that it should be.

As you note, if the onus is on anyone, it's on the FLGSes themselves, unfortunately, although lately Amazon hasn't been content to just leave small brick-and-mortar retailers alone, which begs the question of whether they could be less cutthroat. They're trying to get into the POS checkout business, which just /feels/ unethical to me. Now they can undercut their competitors' prices /and/ take a cut off their competitors' sales. I know it's just business, but that doesn't make it not gross.

pemerton said:
In other words, you can't really play 4e without the DMG. (Though @dracomilan apparently did!) In that respect it's like 1st ed AD&D.

Well, I can. It requires a lot of dungeon mastery, but it is possible -- the content in the D&D4 DMG isn't, strictly speaking, mandatory. Of course, I also started dungeon mastering AD&D1 with only a PHB and an MM, too.

That said, if the question is "is the D&D4 DMG more of a requirement than the Pathfinder GMG," then I have to concede that it absolutely is.

mach1.9pants said:
Apart from this sparse bit of info B&N list, why do we think the PHB is US $50? I think there is a lot of jumping the gun

Because it's a totally reasonable price point!

Umbran · Mar 4, 2014

SkidAce said:
Because if Wizards had made the announcement, perhaps some of the vagueness and gaps in info would have been filled, like questions answered by the breadth and depth of their announcement, which were not gleaned via B&N?

Let's be realistic. If Wizards had made the announcement, there'd be folks complaining about information that wasn't in it. If one is *looking* for holes and things to gripe about, one will find them in any announcement. And there are enough hyper-critical people about that the discussion would not be substantively different.

Mistwell · Mar 4, 2014

SkidAce said:
Because if Wizards had made the announcement, perhaps some of the vagueness and gaps in info would have been filled, like questions answered by the breadth and depth of their announcement, which were not gleaned via B&N?

JMO.

You know I have been thinking about what Jester Canuck said, and trying to see that perspective. And since you see that point as well, I guess that means I am missing something. So, here's my attempt to play devil's advocate, and try better to appreciate that this was more important than my instinct tell me it is.

So here is hypothetically what WOTC could have said, had they announced it:

Hypothetical WOTC Release Announcement said:
We're please to make several announcements today concerning the upcoming release of the next edition of D&D.

First, we're releasing the player's book to coincide with GenCon, in August of 2014. Our support for GenCon is well known, and we wanted people to be able to pick up the books there, start playing them and talking about the game at the world's greatest role playing game convention.

Second, you may note the name of the book is Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook. We considered some other names, but tradition won out. On the inside cover of the book you'll find in small print "5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons", but for the cover we're sticking with just the same name everyone's known and loved for 40 years.

I think you'll find, once the game is released, that this is not the only element that hums with the resonance of traditional dungeons and dragons. And wait until you see the artwork on the cover, which is by the fine artist John Smith. We think it will evoke both a sense of traditional D&D and a new day for the game simultaneously!

Finally, you'll note the price of this edition is listed at $49.95. We know that price is higher than prior editions of the game, and may be difficult to swallow for some. We came to this price point after a great deal of internal discussions and research. We think it's a fair price, based on the increased page count, and changes in the marketplace that have taken place in recent years with both printing costs and prices set elsewhere in the RPG market.

We're also planning to reach out to local brick and mortar games retailers to help them compete with the online discount shops. You'll still be able to buy Dungeons and Dragons at those online outlets at a substantial discount, and we expect many will do that. But if you buy the books at a local retail establishment, we hope to work with those establishments to offer you some extra service and content through our Encounters program, which will have a special release on the day of the Player's Handbook release. More on that when the time comes.

We've also established a better returns method for brick and mortar retailers. We expect the initial release to sell out, but in case a particular store is concerned about over-ordering, we're working with them to assure security for the unlikely event they get stuck with more inventory than they expect. We're also working with XYZ distributors to work with a network of stores to place bulk orders for the initial book releases at a steeper discount than individual stores can normally obtain. Retailers interested in that program can contact Bill Jones at XYZ (see link). We hope that those stores who participate in that networked purchasing system can pass along some of that discount to their regular customers, particularly those who return again and again to the Encounters program at that store.

We're really looking forward to hearing what you think about this new Player's Handbook. We think we've put together a gorgeous product that will really wow D&D players around the world, and will last a long time as a core set of rules to be played for many years to come. We hope you will agree.

OK, that could use some polishing, but that's my best attempt at an announcement that drives the news better than the Barnes and Noble one does.

And...that exercise did help me see how this could have been done better. Though of course I made up a lot of details to flesh this hypothetical announcement out, some of those details must exist right? I mean, in the very least they could talk a bit about the art, and the quality of the print and binding, and why the price point was reached, and those reasons?

OK, so in light of all that I apologize to [MENTION=37579]Jester Canuck[/MENTION]. He's got a good point - it could have been done better, and probably should have been done better.

delericho · Mar 4, 2014

N'raac said:
Agreed. "Labour of love" seems more and more the tagline for RPG products.

That and "Funded by Kickstarter".

I must admit, KS has surprised me a great deal. I expected it to be HUGE for a while and then hit a brick wall, hard. But the backlash doesn't seem to have happened (much). Instead, things seem to have settled into the "third phase" pretty smoothly - people have become much more choosy when backing projects, which means the success rate has probably gone up, which makes a widespread rejection at this stage unlikely.

So, I guess I was wrong about Kickstarter. Shocking!

That said... one consequence of that "third phase" is the projects are unlikely to be funded unless one of three things is true: (1) There's a "Big Name" behind the project (eg Monte's game of the year), (2) There's prior record of successful project completion, or (3) The project is very carefully scoped and presented.

What this means is that it's increasingly great for people who are established (in Kickstarter or generally), but not at all great if you don't have that prior record. And if Kickstarter becomes the way to get a product/company funded and started, that's another closed door.

On the other side of the industry, I think it will be very interesting to see what happens if/when Paizo decide it's time to do a new edition. Because I fear there's a fundamental problem caused by the OGL - you can't get people to re-buy your Core Rulebook if you don't make significant changes, but the free nature of the OGL makes the market very resistant to making those significant changes.

(That's not to say they can't find a way. As I said, it will be interesting to see what happens.)

And, of course, it will be very interesting to see how 5e is doing eighteen months from now. I don't doubt it will be the game of this year and will be absolutely HUGE this year. But will that be sustained?

Very true. I see a lot of "loyalty to the company", "loyalty to the store" and "loyalty to the hobby" arguments presented in this regard. WoTC is not required to sell at a price I find acceptable. Neither am I required to support WoTC over a company producing cheaper product (or product I prefer), my FLGS over a less costly online retailer or the hobby itself. But I don't expect WoTC to cater to my preferences, Amazon to start providing online access to "skim through the book" before I buy, or the hobby to continue on under the efforts of charitable souls donating their time, or providing it for less than its market value.

All of this is true, but what concerns me (somewhat) is the potential lost on-ramps to the hobby. Amazon et al are great for getting all manner of products, provided you already know what you want. But if not, they're unlikely to hook a new player.

That was something that the FLGS (and, indeed, the printed magazines) did, at least to an extent - they announced to the world, "Hey! We're here!" And both WotC and Paizo do at least some stuff to try to tie into that. Knock out those supports, and it becomes at least a bit harder to get into the hobby.

Iosue · Mar 4, 2014

Mistwell said:
OK, so in light of all that I apologize to @Jester Canuck. He's got a good point - it could have been done better, and probably should have been done better.

Yeah, but what I'm thinking is that while WotC is gearing up to do a better announcement, B&N jumped the gun and screwed the pooch. I'm not exactly sure that that's WotC's fault. I mean, Jesus, even the frickin' New York Times jumped the gun before WotC could make their official announcement about 5e.

TwoSix · Mar 4, 2014

DMZ2112 said:
Because it's a totally reasonable price point!

Pretty much. A lot of the kickstarters I've looked at recently have been upfront that publishing costs have skyrocketed in the last few years. I have to imagine that even at $50, WotC won't be earning a bigger percentage margin on the sales of the core book(s).

Just as a point of reference, the cost of the new Mage20 anniversary edition is $135 on Kickstarter. (Admittedly, stretch goals plus other things in the package add some value to that.)

Jester David · Mar 4, 2014

Mistwell said:
OK, that could use some polishing, but that's my best attempt at an announcement that drives the news better than the Barnes and Noble one does.

And...that exercise did help me see how this could have been done better. Though of course I made up a lot of details to flesh this hypothetical announcement out, some of those details must exist right? I mean, in the very least they could talk a bit about the art, and the quality of the print and binding, and why the price point was reached, and those reasons?

OK, so in light of all that I apologize to @Jester Canuck. He's got a good point - it could have been done better, and probably should have been done better.

Thanks for the effort!

An official announcement might have also included details such as the expected page count, which could have dramatically impacted the price discussion (for better or worse).

If they came out and said it was a 400+ page book it would have quieted some of the complaints. If it is an all-in-one product that would have also quieted some complaints. And an official announcement might have mentioned the MM and DMG, highlighting their size and price, so if those were smaller/cheaper the cries of a potential $150 would be quieter.

There are also the concerns about the quality of the starter set, since, paradoxically, $20 is too cheap. But not everyone was satisfied by the Red Box and its contents, so previewing the starter box sooner might be nice, to make us feel like they responded to complaints of the Red Box and included things like actual character creation and more content than one playthrough and two levels.

Or they could have told us the books were all $50, all 330-odd-pages, and the starter set is the Red Box 2 and the forums would have imploded....

Jester David · Mar 4, 2014

Iosue said:
Yeah, but what I'm thinking is that while WotC is gearing up to do a better announcement, B&N jumped the gun and screwed the pooch. I'm not exactly sure that that's WotC's fault. I mean, Jesus, even the frickin' New York Times jumped the gun before WotC could make their official announcement about 5e.

They had no shortage of time though. Normally they would have announced that stuff at D&DXP/Winter Fantasy, but they didn't go this year. So they just delayed until B&N beat them to it.

D&D 5E Initial D&D Next Releases Showing Up on Barnes & Noble Website

N'raac

First Post

SkidAce

Legend

DMZ2112

Chaotic Looseleaf

Umbran

Mod Squad

Mistwell

Crusty Old Meatwad (he/him)

delericho

Legend

Iosue

Legend

TwoSix

Dirty, realism-hating munchkin powergamer

Jester David

Hero

Jester David

Hero

Similar Threads