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.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean I'd argue that for campaign books fewer pages is usually better. Whether or not that's true of adventures from other publishers, the problems with WotC approach to adventure design become much more apparent the more bloat it gets.

I mean fundamentally a lot of bad habits of how adventures are presented don't become a problem when a person can read through the whole thing in one comfortable sitting, get a sense of how the various important elements relate to each other, and map the adventure out in their mind. The further you get from that scale the more of a mess you get as you need to connect elements mentioned obscurely in passing in other parts of the book. And in WotC's case, at least, I would argue that the overworked and overlarge teams creating the adventures also struggle to keep track of how all the moving pieces go together. The more pages there are the higher chance of their being elements that are only there because they served a purpose in some prior draft.

Rules supplements and setting books don't have these problems nearly so extremely, though I think the editorial quality does similarly diminish as they bloat up. Certainly I think we would have gotten a better Monster Manual (the largest 5e book) if they had just published a shorter version with the intention of a Monster Manual 2 a year or two later rather than trying to cram way more creatures than they could reasonably playtest for a new game into one.

Could have gotten another $50 out of people too.

 

[Mistwell]

I am not convinced of this. I do think people were more forgiving of it than expected. But I also think peoples attitude towards WOTC has fundamentally shifted

I think 75% of their consumers have never even heard about the issues you're referring to.

 

[Hex08]

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.

What's the housing situation like if you earn $36k/year? Can you afford food, regular doctors/dentists visits (let alone an emergency), a social life and whatever else qualifies as a basic standard of living on that wage?

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Their profits keeping growing every year, there is not getting around that.

And there will be no blood left for anyone else after Chris Cocks is done. Lock up your wallets Ladies and Gentlemen, Chris Cocks is loose and he is thirsty for your last dime!

The Activists were actual fans, yes they made a business case for their case to convince other investors, but they were fans, unlike Chris Cocks.

What do you know about Chris Cocks? Cause it seems like you just have a grudge.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

They couldn't be worse then Chris Cocks. And again they warned us this would happen, they wanted a long term focus.

What did Chris Cocks do wrong?

Also yes they could be much worse.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Is every criticism of every terrible corporate move going to be blamed on a grudge now?

 

[Hussar]

Is every criticism of every terrible corporate move going to be blamed on a grudge now?

No. Not every criticism. Just the ones that get repeated over and over again by the same posters.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

No. Not every criticism. Just the ones that get repeated over and over again by the same posters.

I did not have a grudge against WotC until very rescently, dispite slowly increasing disappointment, the rescently spiked hard. Also I pushed back against boycotting the D&D movie and encouraged others to forgive after the OGL scandal was resolved. I outright have been a cheerleader for BG3, DADHAT, Radiant Citadel (once I got a look at it at Chapters/Indigo), etc...

So no I'm not persistant WotC hater, its was MOM/Aftermath MtG side, and while I've had complaints about the lore, major unset at the products only really started with Spelljammer, and then hugely spiked with the price increase.

 

[mamba]

I did not have a grudge against WotC until very rescently, dispite slowly increasing disappointment, the rescently spiked hard. Also I pushed back against boycotting the D&D movie and encouraged others to forgive after the OGL scandal was resolved.

wait, your grudge is much newer than the OGL thing? That one is new…

its was MOM/Aftermath MtG side, and while I've had complaints about the lore, major unset at the products only really started with Spelljammer, and then hugely spiked with the price increase.

no idea what happened with MtG, do not follow that, so for the D&D side it’s the price increase from a few days ago?

Spelljammer was way before the OGL, and you got over that, so the price hike it must be. Interesting.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

wait, your grudge is much newer than the OGL thing? That one is new…


no idea what happened with MtG, do not follow that, so for the D&D side it’s the price increase from a few days ago?

Spelljammer was way before the OGL, and you got over that, so the price hike it must be. Interesting.

Spelljammer was issues with a particular product, I've had them before, but its on a product by product basis, although my annoyance was growing at the pattern that was emerging. It wasn't a full fledged grudge until the price increase D&D side.