3.5 Price Increase

[Gargoyle]

One of the dealers at Games Plus was speculating that the new books are all clocking in at 320 pages for WoTC to justify a Price Increase after a year or so on the shelves.

Thoughts?

I myself think that's very possible. With games like Savage Worlds clocking in at 144 black and white pages for $30 and most meatier hard covers clocking in at $35-$40 for black and white books, the $35 seems like an acheivable goal.

I think they realized that to get owners of 3.0 books to buy the new books, the 3.5 books had to have additional content. They also probably realized that by adding more content they could expect more sales and be able to afford larger print runs.

WOTC, like any good publisher, really doesn't want high prices. They want a higher profit margin and more sales to generate more profit while increasing their market share. High prices might make them the same money, but with fewer sales, fewer people will be playing their games, and that hurts in the long run.

So they aren't thinking "Hey we need to justify a high price with more pages"; they're thinking "Hey, if we put in more content, we'll get 3.0 owners to buy these books and we'll be able to increase our profit margin by getting printer discounts for the larger page count and at the same time we can keep our prices reasonable to further increase our sales and market share."

Of course, that's just my opinion. They may just be using some arbitrary formula based on the movement of the planets for all I know.

 

[Intrope]

Sounds amazingingly like table 3.1 from my un-revised PH... I must have that same demo copy!

Actually, on this point the reviewer is right: the unrevised table lists the BAB by class names, and doesn't break out the saves into separate columns at all. The new table is generic: the BAB column heads are Good, Average and Poor and the Saves are in two columns (Good and Poor).

A minor change, but a good one.

 

[Numion]

One of the dealers at Games Plus was speculating that the new books are all clocking in at 320 pages for WoTC to justify a Price Increase after a year or so on the shelves.

Thoughts?

More likely they just wanted to make the new books more desirable, so that they could sell more books. People find justifiying buying the revision books easier if they get more stuff than before.

No doubt the prices will rise sometime in the future, but I don't think it's because of that 'tactic' some comicbookguy came up with. Prices just increase every now and then, without any WotC conspiracies.

 

[James McMurray]

I heard that the 3.5 books will be going up to $179 at the end of the year! And that they're already working on 3.51! And that the pages of the 3.51 books will be made of dried and pressed flesh from harvested newborn babys that were born on Christmas!

Where can I preorder?

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

One of the dealers at Games Plus was speculating that the new books are all clocking in at 320 pages for WoTC to justify a Price Increase after a year or so on the shelves.

Thoughts?

...

Yes the second printing will be more $$! Seemed to work for them last time, so why would they not do this again?

Think twice all of you who will wait for the second printing to rectify typo's etc...

 

[2d6]

Where can I preorder?

I'm told that the $179 special editions will only be available from local game stores


2d6

 

[Valiantheart]

I heard that the 3.5 books will be going up to $179 at the end of the year! And that they're already working on 3.51! And that the pages of the 3.51 books will be made of dried and pressed flesh from harvested newborn babys that were born on Christmas!

Well at least I know where all that red underlining ink came from.

 

[Ranger REG]

The dirty rat bastards. How dare they try to make up for the increased cost of adding more pages by increasing the price. Its a conspiracy I tell you! If they really loved us they would charge 12.95 for the books. Thats fair. OR at least give us a trade in for our old beat up 1E thru 3.0 books. I mean come on! The dirty rat bastards!!

LOL!

Man, you must buy your clothes at illegal sweatshops. Anyone who publish this kind of books for $12.95, I hope they're exploiting poor caucasian children this time around.

-- an aspiring enterpreneur who just attended Kathie Lee Gifford's business seminar.

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

LOL!

Man, you must buy your clothes at illegal sweatshops. Anyone who publish this kind of books for $12.95, I hope they're exploiting poor caucasian children this time around.

-- an aspiring enterpreneur who just attended Kathie Lee Gifford's business seminar.

Oh wow, I'm going to export all my game design to Mexico! Yay NAFTA!

 

[spacecrime.com]

Oh wow, I'm going to export all my game design to Mexico! Yay NAFTA!

There have been some times when I've been tempted to export myself to Mexico. I haven't done enough financial homework to make any decisions, but the combination of U.S. writing income and a low local cost of living might prove to be interesting.

cheers,