I'm pretty sure the price they mentioned was Canadian dollars and for 2 books. The MCDM shop has each book for $40 USD and $70 for both bundled.
What's Your Price Limit?
- Thread starter Retreater
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I usually buy what we need to play, which usually ends up being a print copy for me to read and then whatever VTT offering is needed (if anything). My group always asks when we start something new what I spent and offers to contribute, but I feel weird taking money for something I end up owning so I haven't taken money for anything yet.
I haven't made my mind on this. Sure, the PDF costs less than a printed copy to make, but it isn't necessarily inferior to a print product (resale value being a big pro as discussed earlier)... Here the shop shows € 127.60 (+shipping) for the physical bundle (both books) and € 66.41 for the digital-only bundle.
While (roughly) 50% off for the digital product is attractive, I think it might become too pricey for an impulse purchase. I often wonder if authors wouldn't get a better share if they offered a third option, with the rules, a basic layout and no illustration, so one only pays the production and not the extra things that might cut significantly into their share.
TheAlkaizer
Game Designer
I agree. I also ponder on this.
But I know that our reaction to prices and goods is much more emotional than rational. I'm mostly describing how I'm feeling.
The conversation of value is interesting. Creators will talk about what it cost to create the product, or what it would take for it to generate profits and pay employees a certain amount. On the side of customers, there's a ton of factors: your level of wealth, how genuine your interest is, personal preferences, how much you bought recently, etc.
I hate reading through books in PDF form. I only use PDF as reference on my laptop for quick searches. Through this preference, PDF have inherently less value in my eyes than the physical product I fawn over. It's also difficult for me to associate value to something that's entirely digital. Buying a Bluray for 15$ means owning the movie, buying it for 15$ on Amazon Prime feels... different.
Stormonu
NeoGrognard
I see a lot of this as well. Whoever is going to run the game buys a copy, the other players use that copy until they've had enough time with the system to want to explore it deeper for themselves. A lot just never buy a copy, and in my case as GM I've actually bought copies for long-time players.
It took me a while to get used to PDFs, and I do often fall back to reading the paper copies from time time. Mostly now, I read PDFs on my monitor when I'm building adventures where they can be set full size (or larger, damn old eyes) or on the iPad I expressly got because it's screen is the size of a hardcover book - the latter is what I take to games instead of a backpack full of books.
I still loathe digital dice though - I swear they're out to get me.
Thomas Shey
Legend
Even that strikes me as steep for PDFs unless they're huge, but its a little less ridiculous than when I read it as in American.
jdrakeh
Front Range Warlock
There comes a point when I tell them to do so or ask them to leave, if I'm running the game. If you can't tell me what your character's abilities do or how the rules work after two months of playing, you're not invested enough in the game I'm running for me to care if you continue to show up. Buy a book or don't come back. Look, I get that books are expensive, but if I could afford to buy them, so can you.
Neonchameleon
Legend
How much would I pay? Which of the following am I buying?
PDFs I find useful but not aesthetic so pay the least. About £20 or so.
Starfinder 2e would be interest and curiosity unless the art really grabbed me or unless one of my friends was running it and wanted me to play. I'm not paying £200 for that.
Daggerheart I picked up for £60 as a coffee table book and for interest. It has since moved categories - which means supplements are an easy sell. If I don't end up spending well over £200 on Daggerheart it's either because they don't turn the game into a line or Spencer Starke has done something truly horrible.
- Something for interest and curiosity
- A pretty full art coffee table book
- Something I know I'll get good use out of
PDFs I find useful but not aesthetic so pay the least. About £20 or so.
Starfinder 2e would be interest and curiosity unless the art really grabbed me or unless one of my friends was running it and wanted me to play. I'm not paying £200 for that.
Daggerheart I picked up for £60 as a coffee table book and for interest. It has since moved categories - which means supplements are an easy sell. If I don't end up spending well over £200 on Daggerheart it's either because they don't turn the game into a line or Spencer Starke has done something truly horrible.
Scars Unseen
Hero
It varies, but I'm generally willing to pay if it's something I really want. I just paid $90 including shipping for a hardcopy of Worlds Without Number, but it is a well put together book, with stitched binding.
delericho
Legend
Of course, as we've seen, when you "buy" that digital movie on Amazon Prime you never quite truly own it - they can, and in some cases have, pulled them back.
For me, it's not really a question of whether PDFs have less value that print - they have different value. I much prefer reading on print, and do admit to a fondness for having books on shelves. On the other hand, I'm now struggling for storage, and PDFs are better for both portability (1 laptop vs dozens of hardcopies), and easy reference. So, to be honest, I want both. And, in the case of the PHB/DMG/MM of whichever edition I'm running at the time, I'll happily pay full price for both - as I've said up-thread, the core rulebooks of a game you're actually playing are absurdly good value for money.
(I have absolutely no interest in digital formats other than PDF. I appreciate that some are arguably 'better' in some ways. But they all suffered from one absolute deal-breaker - in the environment where I was most recently playing, I simply could not use them.)
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