40 Dollar Cap?

[Henry]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 40 Dollar Cap?

How is inflation naturally driving up the cost of printed material. Has it dramatically changed in the past two years? I haven't noticed it on other books...

personally i think the businesses have realized they have to make more money or its not really worth their time to be in the biz.

depending on who you ask, the RPG market has been artificially DE-flated for the past 6 or 7 years. Book publishers do not typically make the razor-thin margins that RPG publishers do - much less the crap-to-cream ratio that mass-market publishing has in it compared to the RPG market. The sheer fact that over the past 7 years or so, that we've gotten the quality of product we have as gamers, with the cheap prices we have had, is nothing short of amazing. Just compare the price increase of paperback books, hardcover books the size of our game manuals, and magazines all in the mass-market area. Prices have steadily risen over the past decade, while until recently the RPG market was flat. We used to pay $10.00 dollars for an INDESTRUCTIBLE Player's handbook or Monster Manual 25 years ago. a decade later a D&D manual that cost $20.00 didn't last us as long. the years 2000 comes around and we are STILL paying $20.00 for a product of equivalent quality? Something's amiss there. Thus, the $30.00 standard price tag we are starting to see is not that unexpected. We STILL want to see something special for that $40.00 purchase, but it's still not that big of a sticker shock, if you look at historical trends.

 

[thundershot]

You also have to remember that Ryan Dancey isn't the one setting the prices OR selling the product. It was just a prediction.

Personally, I WANT to see a book that's worth paying 50 bucks for. Honestly. If the quality is there, and it's very meaty, and it's something I'm interested in (and for a price like that, it'd have to be of interest to a lot of people), then I'm all for it. I have far too many sub-par books that just sit on the bottom shelf and don't get any use. And you know what, if people really want to object to it, then they will... with the almighty dollar (or pound, or whatever).

Again, I'm not rich or anything, but if I can get a spectacular product for 50 bucks that I'll use for years on end, I'll be much happier than buying a computer game that I'll pay the same or more for, and only get 6 months to a year out of it.

Except for Super Smash Bros. I played the original to death until the new one came out, and I'll continue until the next... <grin>



Chris

 

[Crothian]

Re: Re: Re: What Dancey says, what Dancey says!

CHECK with YOUR local STORES. THEY will TELL you THAT the TARGET of WOTC is ANYONE with MONEY.

I have and the majority of the people who buy d20 books are around 18-22. Sure, other people do buy the books (I'm not in that age catagory), but it is mostly these people. Sure, Wizards is not going to refuse money from everyone else, but they still market mostly towards that group.

 

[jgbrowning]

psion

FYI, the companies that seem to be holding the prices down aren't little guys. They are medium to big guys. Which sort of makes sense, since they can benefit from scale economies.

we probably mean the same. I view everyone that isn't WW/SSS or WoTC as a "little guy"

joe b.

 

[King_Stannis]

if we do get some of this high-end stuff, i can guarantee that it will be pirated off of morpheus et. al.

let's face it, not many 7th graders, 12th graders, or even college students are going to pay $100 for a book that can be grabbed off of a PtoP sight in a few minutes. i think the publishing world would be surprised at the number of people that would sacrafice the quality of a $100 original book for the utility of a scanned copy for free.

sorry to go there, but it's the truth. people will support the industry only so far before cost-benefit analysis. $100 or even $70 is a lot of quarter-drafts at the local college bar.

 

[jgbrowning]

well

if we do get some of this high-end stuff, i can guarantee that it will be pirated off of morpheus et. al.

let's face it, not many 7th graders, 12th graders, or even college students are going to pay $100 for a book that can be grabbed off of a PtoP sight in a few minutes. i think the publishing world would be surprised at the number of people that would sacrafice the quality of a $100 original book for the utility of a scanned copy for free.

sorry to go there, but it's the truth. people will support the industry only so far before cost-benefit analysis. $100 or even $70 is a lot of quarter-drafts at the local college bar.

what was the average age of a Napster user? 18-22? sounds very familiar.

only difference is that a lot of what is being put out is OGC and that can be traded without copyright problems. as i said in one of my earilier post, its only a matter of time before someone puts all the OGC he can get his hands on up on a web site and asks for others to send him the stuff he doesn't have. All he'll have to do is duitifully take down any non-OGC stuff that people send him that companies ask him to take down and, although he will be reviled by the "community" he'll have a lot of friends in the new community he's creating.

and honestly, he'd have a point. he may be an ass about it by not letting the guys who came up with the ideas make a good profit before putting it up on his board, but the point of the OGL was to allow such distribution to promote the industy as a whole. *if i understand that correctly *

honestly, this biz has a slim margin. so do many other businesses, but they usually have huge amounts of sales to compensate for that slim margin. trying to make the margin bigger is possible, and i wouldn't mind seeing better stuff, but there will be some resistance and the limited supply of customers may make that resistance detremental on a whole. but than again it may not, could go both ways...

and you can tell, looking back over my last paragraph, that my gamer mentality comes through. I said "trying to make the margin bigger is possible, andi wouldn't mind seeing better stuff", which implys that in my head, if im going to pay more the material has to be better.

joe b.

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

Except for Super Smash Bros. I played the original to death until the new one came out, and I'll continue until the next... <grin>

God bless that game. My group of friends at college put an entire MONTH of playtime on that cartridge in one semester. Out of the 20 or so of us, there was always at least two people playing. It was like a religion.

 

[mmadsen]

if we do get some of this high-end stuff, i can guarantee that it will be pirated off of morpheus et. al.

I think the whole point of a $100 product is that it includes poster-sized, full-color maps, miniatures of all the characters and monsters, etc. A super-product like that isn't easily pirated.

 

[GILGAMESH]

if we do get some of this high-end stuff, i can guarantee that it will be pirated off of morpheus et. al.

i think the publishing world would be surprised at the number of people that would sacrafice the quality of a $100 original book for the utility of a scanned copy for free.

Already, if you look hard enough you'll find nearly all the DnD books in a PDF form some where on the internet. I my self (not intentionally looking mind you) have found all of the "Slayers Guide" books, ELH (no, not the play test version) all of the core books, most of the Sword and Socery stuff, all of the "purchase-on-line PDF(Wild spell craft, Taverns fairs etc.) I honestly haven't down loaded any of it (I purchaced all the books I need,) but many people will. Anyone with a scanner and a hand full of borrowed books can and will make even the most obscure text available to anyone. I do not advocate this at all. But it is a fact. If these produces are priced beyond what consumer want to spend. Then alot of people will get them were they can. Amazon, Buy.com, Morpheous, Grokster, etc.

 

[mmadsen]

Anyone with a scanner and a hand full of borrowed books can and will make even the most obscure text available to anyone.

I can understand making an obscure text available -- the scanner feels he's performing a public service -- but I don't see why someone would spend the time and energy to scan in hundreds of full-color pages from a new product that's on shelves now, available for purchase, then put it on-line.

Anyway, for the time being, beautiful, full-color hardbacks with nice paper are a big step up from 150-dpi scans, and the poster-sized maps and miniatures in a hypothetical $100 product wouldn't transfer well over copper cable.