D&D General D&D Book Prices Are Going Up

WotC announced today that D&D books will be increasing in price this year.

Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants will be $59.99 as a preorder and $69.99 thereafter. These will apparently come as physical and digital bundles, so you won’t need to buy the D&D Beyond version separately.

This space is dedicated to communicating clearly and transparently with our players- even when the topic isn’t particularly fun. Since the release of the 2014 D&D core rulebooks, we’ve kept book prices stable. Unfortunately, with the cost of goods and shipping continually increasing, we’ve finally had to make the decision to increase the price of our new release print books. We're committed to creating high-quality products that deliver great value to our players and must increase our prices to accomplish that.

This will go into effect starting with Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants and new releases after Glory of the Giants. Digital pricing is unaffected by this MSRP (manufacturer's suggested retail price) increase, as digital products don’t need to be printed or shipped. The increase also doesn’t impact backlist titles. While we can’t promise that there will never be a change to the prices of digital products and backlist titles, we have no plans to increase either.

Players who purchase the Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants digital-physical bundle through Dungeons & Dragons store can get the bundle for $59.95 for the entire preorder window, which is consistent with our current digital-physical bundle pricing. After the preorder window closes, digital-physical bundle prices will go to $69.95.

 

[Retreater]

Save money, only buy the core 3 for 5.5. Easy peasy. They all you need anyways.

Save more money - stick with the 5e books you already own.

 

[vecna00]

As someone who works for a company owned by a hedge fund, "barely breaking even" isn't what their corporate masters care about. They have a target number to hit, even if it's unreasonable -- and even worse, even if it requires unsustainable growth each quarter forever -- and they will hit it, or they will be replaced by people who will.

Is it insane? Yes. Is it incredibly common? Also yes.

"Line must always go up!"

 

[cbwjm]

If the bundles are like the dragonlance one, you need to buy direct from WotC to get the digital with the physical copy. Considering the cost of postage to NZ for that one, it's actually better for me to purchase them both separately. At least I get a small discount when buying through dndbeyond.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So it could be technically correct.

The best kind of correct!

 

[DarkCrisis]

Save more money - stick with the 5e books you already own.

Eh. Like 3.5, it seems to a good upgrade worth getting. But yeah whatever works for you

 

[DEFCON 1]

Save more money - stick with the 5e books you already own.

Save the mostest money - don't get the 5.5E books, sell your 5E books, and just use the downloadable 2014 Basic Rules.

 

[teitan]

No, it's not inflation, it's significantly less than inflation. Inflation since 2014 has been 28.1%, this is a 20% price increase. You do you, but thisnis hardly abnormal. Heck, the price increase is less than the price of a burrito.

It’s a good deal. I’m saying I can’t afford it now with a new roof and a baby. You can be rude to me about it, and usually you aren’t, when I said these things in my post, orrrrr, you can say “it’s good to see someone who has priorities and gets that his family is first”.

And where are you paying $20 bucks for a burrito??? That’s insane. But I would rather eat than buy a D&D book. I have a 6 month old, soon 7 month old to feed, clothe and pay for doctors visits. Happily do. I’ve got enough in D&D and I’m happy with that. Plus, I want to try this $20 burrito.

 

[Parmandur]

It’s a good deal. I’m saying I can’t afford it now with a new roof and a baby. You can be rude to me about it, and usually you aren’t, when I said these things in my post, orrrrr, you can say “it’s good to see someone who has priorities and gets that his family is first”.

And where are you paying $20 bucks for a burrito??? That’s insane. But I would rather eat than buy a D&D book. I have a 6 month old, soon 7 month old to feed, clothe and pay for doctors visits. Happily do. I’ve got enough in D&D and I’m happy with that. Plus, I want to try this $20 burrito.

$10, not $20. The MSRP is going up by $10 from $49.95, where it has been for a decade, to $59.95 (and only for new plbpoks, old books are still sticking to the original MSRP). I haven't seen a Burrito for as low as $10 in a long, long time.

And I can respect being done with aluxury item: I have a 5th kid on the way, myself, and I could stop tomorrow and have all the materials that I need, for sure.

 

[doctorhook]

People keep saying “inflation”, but just like with groceries, I’m convinced most of the cause is corporate greed.

 

[Micah Sweet]

While I have no insight into WotC’s business, I do publish similar hardcover books. He’s correct. It costs very little to print each hardcover book when done at scale. It costs us about $4, and it gets cheaper as your print run size increases, and their print runs are a thousand times ours.

Printing is only one of a thousand costs when producing a book, of course. (Not counting the 50% of retail you immediately lose to the distributor). So in isolation it’s not really a useful data point when deciding whether a company is making a decent profit or not.

Sure, but if they're using printing costs as an excuse for why the cost is going up for physical books but not digital (which is what they said), they are being intentionally incomplete.