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.

 

[mamba]

I live in Virginia and the average warehouse pay at their facility here is $18/hour or just over $36k/year. That is the same, or more than, the typical pay for a 1st year teacher or police officer. It is also a good wage for anywhere in the state, other than maybe the DC suburbs.

I won’t live in a state where 36k is considered a good wage. My starting wage 20+ years ago was more than that (not adjusted, the actual number), I was not working in a warehouse, but still… I find it hard to believe that this is considered a good wage for anyone but a highschool droppout

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I won’t live in a state where 36k is considered a good wage. My starting wage 20+ years ago was more than that (not adjusted, the actual number), but then I was not working in a warehouse, but still… I find it hard to believe that this is considered a good wage for anyone but a highschool droppout

Except that the wages don't exist in a vacuum.

There are high wages in Southern California but there are also very high housing prices.

There are dirt cheap housing prices in the rural Midwest, but I'd also have to take a big pay cut to live there.

So that $36k in rural Virginia (where I have lived and worked) is a good wage in many communities (not Blacksburg or Charlottesville, but certainly Pulaski County or Dumfries), but it is also unsustainable in the counties bordering DC, where housing and transportation costs are much, much higher.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

It's called "inflation" which has impacted the cost of materials and manufacturing. Not particularly surprising.

Correction, its called Greedflation and its a huge scam.

 

[mamba]

Except that the wages don't exist in a vacuum.

There are high wages in Southern California but there are also very high housing prices.

I am aware of that, I stick by my rule

If I go on a 10k vacation now, it does not break the bank, if I made 40k a year it would.

Plenty of stuff is relatively resistant to location pricing (housing is very much the opposite end of that spectrum), so I am better off making more and spending more,

I didn’t say live in one of the 10 zip codes with the highest income

According to Wikipedia the average income for West Virginia is 58k, the median is 36k. Maybe that is just me, but median is not the same as good to me.

For Virginia it is 74k and 47k respectively, so 36k there is even bad.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Gotta keep those "record profits" going into Q4, amirite?

Eventually its going to stop and whole thing will come crashing down on WotC.

I really dislike Chris Cocks' Leadership.

 

[Parmandur]

I won’t live in a state where 36k is considered a good wage. My starting wage 20+ years ago was more than that (not adjusted, the actual number), I was not working in a warehouse, but still… I find it hard to believe that this is considered a good wage for anyone but a highschool droppout

That is a pretty average decent salary for most Americans with high school degrees, per my 5 minutes of Google research. In world historical terms, 36k a year is very high.

 

[Parmandur]

Correction, its called Greedflation and its a huge scam.

No, inflation is an inevitable phenomenon with a fiat currency system, and it's not even necessarily bad, when the pace is steady. But no individual or corporation can stop the rising of costs as the money loses value.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I live in Virginia and the average warehouse pay at their facility here is $18/hour or just over $36k/year. That is the same, or more than, the typical pay for a 1st year teacher or police officer. It is also a good wage for anywhere in the state, other than maybe the DC suburbs. Starting pay is lower than the average, of course. Virginia also has a higher state minimum than the federal minimum, at $12/hour, and increasing each year until it reaches $15/hour in 2026.

Fun fact: the fight for a $15/hour minimum wage has been going on for so long that the fair cost of living wage is now $23 / hour.

At this rate, we'll catch up to cost of living some time before we run out of potable water and fish... so sooner than one might think.

Edit: Also, yeah, good luck living in the DMV without a roommate at 18 dollars.

 

[mamba]

That is a pretty average decent salary for most Americans with high school degrees, per my 5 minutes of Google research. In world historical terms, 36k a year is very high.

on a worldwide basis yes, but I am not interested in competing with or comparing against salaries in Somalia or Bangladesh.

Having a high school degree only is another way of saying unskilled labor these days, so yeah, for those it might be good, doesn’t mean it is actually good, much like being better than Bangladesh salaries doesn’t.

It is only good if you compare yourself to the bottom of the ladder, see my average and median salaries for the Virginias earlier. Making the median or less is pretty much by definition not ‘good’

List of U.S. states and territories by median wage and mean wage - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Parmandur]

on a worldwide basis yes, but I am not interested in competing with or comparing against salaries in Somalia or Bangladesh.

Having a high school degree only is another way of saying unskilled labor these days, so yeah, for those it might be good, doesn’t mean it is actually good, much like being better than Bangladesh salaries doesn’t.

It is only good if you compare yourself to the bottom of the ladder, so my average and median salaries for the Virginias earlier

List of U.S. states and territories by median wage and mean wage - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Even just in the U.S., the average salary for someone with a high school degree and no college degree is 30k a year.