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.

 

[jasper]

Ouch. I remember the days of buying my 1E DMG (at Toys-R-Us) for $18, and not getting the Monster Manual because the DMG & PHB alone were “expensive”.

I fully understand the price increase to pay for the increase in costs in everything, but sometimes I wish we could go back to the likes of non-glossy paper with just black & white interiors and more line-drawing art.

I am glad I decided I’m not switching to the new ruleset, hopefully with my existing books, this just reinforces I need to hang onto those books I’ve already got and get the most use out of them that I can.

Kids these days. I had to wait a whole year to get my DMG as Christmas Present. Do you know how whiny you have to be for a Whole year. Also. WTF I got my PHB and MM in OCT 80 and DMG 81 Christmas. Man I feel old. You kids. Get off my lawn and weed the garden. Drink out the hose when you need water. And pee on old man's Ooft'a car if you have to go!

 

[Oofta]

Kids these days. I had to wait a whole year to get my DMG as Christmas Present. Do you know how whiny you have to be for a Whole year. Also. WTF I got my PHB and MM in OCT 80 and DMG 81 Christmas. Man I feel old. You kids. Get off my lawn and weed the garden. Drink out the hose when you need water. And pee on old man's Ooft'a car if you have to go!

Hey now, if you're going to pee on my car ... wait ... actually it could use a good wash ... drink a lot before you do it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Other companies would charge far more for their books if they could. It was mentioned above that one of the 3PP thinks a reasonable price would be $100. Whether you personally care for the books is not relevant, plenty of people buy the books.

I have to say once RPG books start hitting 100 dollars, I think the production needs to change in order to bring things down. I make RPGs and would never buy a book for 100 dollars. That feels like text book levels price gauging

 

[Bedrockgames]

Hey now, if you're going to pee on my car ... wait ... actually it could use a good wash ... drink a lot before you do it.

 

[Retreater]

I have to say once RPG books start hitting 100 dollars, I think the production needs to change in order to bring things down. I make RPGs and would never buy a book for 100 dollars. That feels like text book levels price gauging

I've seen some worth $100. Good binding, great art, original content, stuff to be proudly displayed on a shelf. The only thing I've seen close to that from WotC was "Art & Arcana."
I don't flip through most official products and feel that there's quality. Honestly, they feel rushed and amateurish. Splitting binding, smeared text, half completed art, generic maps, encounters that haven't been playtested, stories written by teams of authors who don't know what the others are doing.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I've seen some worth $100. Good binding, great art, original content, stuff to be proudly displayed on a shelf. The only thing I've seen close to that from WotC was "Art & Arcana."
I don't flip through most official products and feel that there's quality. Honestly, they feel rushed and amateurish. Splitting binding, smeared text, half completed art, generic maps, encounters that haven't been playtested, stories written by teams of authors who don't know what the others are doing.

100 is just too pricey for me. I am sure the art could be great and the content wonderful but when RPGs reach 100 bucks, that means it time to just start making RPGs at home IMO

 

[cbwjm]

The new price for the books I feel is still reasonable. I've seen PDFs priced for as much and went "nope", but for a physical book I think it's fine. Those PDFs might have had nearly twice the content, but it still felt like too much for digital copies.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The new price for the books I feel is still reasonable. I've seen PDFs priced for as much and went "nope", but for a physical book I think it's fine. Those PDFs might have had nearly twice the content, but it still felt like too much for digital copies.

At least on drive thru one reason I think prices are sometimes higher is the top 100 algorithm is based on amount of revenue (not just numbers sold). So this means you can end up lower on the list even if you outsell other games, if your price is too low (and being on the list helps drive sales)

 

[UngainlyTitan]

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.

Inflation can occur in precious metal based currencies also, particularly if there are large increases in the supply of the monetary metal.

 

[Parmandur]

Inflation can occur in precious metal based currencies also, particularly if there are large increases in the supply of the monetary metal.

Fair point, but it's usually more controlled.