mach1.9pants
Hero
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
D&D 5E Initial D&D Next Releases Showing Up on Barnes & Noble Website
mhensley
First Post
hmm... so either it was mistaken removed or wotc had them remove it. Perhaps the info was wrong on price or the pub date. Or maybe they just didn't want the bad publicity at this point. In any case, wotc needs to hurry up and put out an official press release detailing the initial products for the new edition.
Certainly. I think the way it was presented would have been called a "prestige-class" in 3/3.5/PF (and maybe a path in 4e) so it didn't feel right including it in the list of classes. Maybe I should have said "base classes"?
Plaguescarred
D&D Playtester for WoTC since 2012
Perhaps price and/or release date was inacurate ?
I've seen a few arguments with video games thrown into the mix to justify the price of yhe PHB. Well I can say with all certainty that this is not a good argument.
Video games effect D&D sales, D&D does 'not' effect video game sales. The two are not im competition with each other, well they are but not in a realistic way. Video games attract millions and millions, D&D does not.
Video games require no books of rules you have to learn, no fellow human beings, and space to play in. Pop the disc in your console and you are ready to go.
TTRPGs do not share in this luxury.
Video games effect D&D sales, D&D does 'not' effect video game sales. The two are not im competition with each other, well they are but not in a realistic way. Video games attract millions and millions, D&D does not.
Video games require no books of rules you have to learn, no fellow human beings, and space to play in. Pop the disc in your console and you are ready to go.
TTRPGs do not share in this luxury.
The cold, harsh reality here is that, if the price at which the product will be purchased falls short of the price required for the producer to cover all of its costs and generate a profit, the product will no longer be produced.
Brick and mortar game stores are fewer and further between because buyers buy online for a discount those FLGS' can't match. If WoTC cannot generate a sufficient wholesale price for the books to cover their production and design costs and return a profit margin consistent with alternative lines of business, they will redirect those resources elsewhere.
There are ways to lower the price point. Make a cheaper product. Maybe that means softcover instead of hardcover. Maybe it means B&W instead of colour art. Or it means less art, or cheaper art. Or it means less playtesting.
Let's assume, for the moment, that WoTC actually has a sense of their costs, and the price needed to produce a sustainable product (I know, I know, how could an operating business POSSIBLY have more knowledge and acumen than a bunch of Internet Board posters, but if we can suspend disbelief enough to game with giant, firebreathing, flying lizards, our collective imaginations should be up to the challenge of briefly imagining such a wild and crazy fantasy). What would you sacrifice from the final product to lower its price?
Brick and mortar game stores are fewer and further between because buyers buy online for a discount those FLGS' can't match. If WoTC cannot generate a sufficient wholesale price for the books to cover their production and design costs and return a profit margin consistent with alternative lines of business, they will redirect those resources elsewhere.
There are ways to lower the price point. Make a cheaper product. Maybe that means softcover instead of hardcover. Maybe it means B&W instead of colour art. Or it means less art, or cheaper art. Or it means less playtesting.
Let's assume, for the moment, that WoTC actually has a sense of their costs, and the price needed to produce a sustainable product (I know, I know, how could an operating business POSSIBLY have more knowledge and acumen than a bunch of Internet Board posters, but if we can suspend disbelief enough to game with giant, firebreathing, flying lizards, our collective imaginations should be up to the challenge of briefly imagining such a wild and crazy fantasy). What would you sacrifice from the final product to lower its price?
Campbell
Relaxed Intensity
Here's the problem with the loss leader strategy - in order for a company to position a product as a loss leader the marginal profit for supplement products needs to make up the difference. Supplement sales would have to be much higher than they have ever been at any point in the past. Historically there has been an exponential drop off in supplement sales as a line continues and you appeal to a niche. When WotC has invested so much in the new edition it is asking a lot to request they take a bigger risk on the assumption that they can sell radically more supplements than any edition of D&D has ever done in the past when they are facing steep competition from Paizo.
Bedrockgames
Legend
Lots of reasons.
First, i do not believe this is inflation. In 2003 i bought the 3.5 PHB for 30 dollars. Today, with inflatoin, that should be around 38-39 dollars, not fifty. Like I said, smaller companies that do pod or small runs, i can understand a fifty dollar price tag. For a company like wotc i expect something closer to 40 pr less.
Second, I am less interested in WoTC's version of D&D than I was in 2000 and 2003. After the dissapoitment of 4e, i am reluctant to buy three core books to run a game because i do not know if I will use them. A fifty dollar cover price makes me less certain.
third, the economy is less stable today and i have more responsibilities. I have to be more careful and less selfish about my purchases than I was in 2000 or 2003.
if you want to pay fifty that is cool. I dont blame wotc, since they need to make money. But we are not obligated to buy the next PHB, and cost is a reasonable consideration when other games are vying for our attention.
delericho
Legend
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.)
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.
