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.

 

[Mistwell]

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?

I randomly clicked a county in Virginia and it says a living wage there is $14.55. So $18/hr would be above a living wage in that area.

 

[Mistwell]

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

Dude, this is not the verbiage of "every criticism," but is rather firmly in the "grudge" language:

"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!"

And he admits it too, so no need to white knight him:

I did not have a grudge against WotC until very rescently,

 

[Mistwell]

[/QUOTE]

Inflation is real. Wotc is not lying here.

...

They will pocket that extra margin as long as they can. Because Greedy corporation gonna greedy cash grab whenever they can.

There is no extra margin though? Books are going up by less than the rate of inflation over that time. And yes I guarantee wages have gone up there over the past decade. It's Washington State, King County. From 2014 to today, average wage went up in that county over that time 22.2% to 45.7%. No company crows about being average wage there - it's expected, or else they can't hire the professionals they need.

 

[mamba]

Have their employee salaries, and freelancer pay risen 20% across the board in ten years?

Anyone that has worked for a publicly traded company would know that is a highly unlikely occurrence...

agreed, but I was not saying they should not have an increase at all, all I did was point out that they most likely do not need to make up for the last 9 years

 

[teitan]

Under license from WotC. It was not GF9 going rogue. If WotC wanted to bundle the items together, they would have -- they certainly know how to get cards made.

I didn’t say they did? I was responding to the idea you said of “they sold” implying WOTC sold. WOtC didn’t sell it until they put it in the boxed set. They didn’t lose anything on it which is the implication I was getting from the thread. It was a zero loss for WOTC. They got paid either way.

 

[teitan]

Actually, it should tell us as much about what a teacher makes as it does an Amazon employee. Crap wages are crap wages regardless of the job. I have friend who is currently working in an Amazon warehouse and, based on prior conversations with him, I think he would disagree with the premise that he gets paid a living wage.

No. Amazon associates aren’t being asked to learn how to use firearms and getting shot at without getting a raise while also being screamed at about grooming children and various other political things that aren’t true while at the same time first on the chopping block for funding cuts, pay cuts, benefit cuts and trying to take union busting to the organization that protects what little hasn’t been stripped from them in the last twenties years.

But please, do go on.

Living wage is $15 an hour. Amazon pays more than that base wage. Average starting wage is more than that. Plus 80 hours unpaid time a year, 48 hours paid time, 40 hours vacation time, 6 weeks PLOA, again insane insurance and other benefits including covering tuition if you want to return to school I believe 30 days after your start date. I don’t usually push Amazon as an employer but hey there are myths and there are facts and then there are things they do that associates don’t take advantage of. When my son was born I got 6 weeks off… paid. Most companies don’t do that for fathers.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Living wage is $15 an hour.

In 2016.

 

[Hex08]

No. Amazon associates aren’t being asked to learn how to use firearms and getting shot at without getting a raise while also being screamed at about grooming children and various other political things that aren’t true while at the same time first on the chopping block for funding cuts, pay cuts, benefit cuts and trying to take union busting to the organization that protects what little hasn’t been stripped from them in the last twenties years.

But please, do go on.

Living wage is $15 an hour. Amazon pays more than that base wage. Average starting wage is more than that. Plus 80 hours unpaid time a year, 48 hours paid time, 40 hours vacation time, 6 weeks PLOA, again insane insurance and other benefits including covering tuition if you want to return to school I believe 30 days after your start date. I don’t usually push Amazon as an employer but hey there are myths and there are facts and then there are things they do that associates don’t take advantage of. When my son was born I got 6 weeks off… paid. Most companies don’t do that for fathers.

Ok, I have no idea what you are talking about. At no point did I say Amazon workers are asked to carry firearms or any of the other strawmen you introduced into your argument. I recommend you go back and reread your post and my response. The topic was wages and that is what I addressed.

Since you are introducing strawmen rather than addressing what I said I will go on...

$15 is not a living wage, when the minimum wage was first introduced it was not meant as just earning enough to survive it was meant to provide a decent living. If you work 40 hours a week every week for a year you earn $31200 a year before taxes and the amount of that you will lose to taxes will vary from state to state. Let's assume everyone lives in a state that collects no taxes (I have no idea how that government would function) that means after federal taxes you would be earning around $28400. Rents vary from city to city so I chose my city from the list I linked to and the average rent of a studio apartment (hopefully you don't have kids) is $1015 or $12180 a year leaving $16220. From that you have to pay utilities, buy food, make your car payment, pay insurance, pay for your cell phone and whatever other bills you have to pay out of necessity. All of those bills increase if you are not a single person with no kids. Then you have to cope with catastrophic events like a major car repairs or expensive medical bills.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2021-08-06/report-15-hourly-wage-isnt-livable-anywhere-in-the-us

 

[Hex08]

I randomly clicked a county in Virginia and it says a living wage there is $14.55. So $18/hr would be above a living wage in that area.

I would recommend randomly clicking on 30 counties around the country and see if that holds for all of them (or even most). In many places that would be bare subsistence living, if that.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I didn’t say they did? I was responding to the idea you said of “they sold” implying WOTC sold. WOtC didn’t sell it until they put it in the boxed set. They didn’t lose anything on it which is the implication I was getting from the thread. It was a zero loss for WOTC. They got paid either way.

They're also all mammals.

Also true, but equally irrelevant to the conversation.