D&D 4E 4e price increase?

[Arkham Angel]

Yes, I've got the answer for all of you.

Just wait and wait a bit longer. Give it six months and then buy your books from some cheap reseller at Amazon.com.

I never stay on the cutting edge of anything. It's cheaper that way.

 

[Vigilance]

Having a high price means you might attract less gamers.

However, you don't want the price TOO low, because the core books will be the best selling books of the entire line.

I'd be willing to bet some folks with econ degrees spent some time crunching some serious numbers before these prices were arrived at.

 

[mcrow]

I didn't read this whole thread so I may have misses something but:

I had posted on here a couple months ago that I heard from a retail, who was told by the distributors, that the D&D core books would be $40. Everyone told me I was off my rocker.

Given the creap to $35, $40/book is starting to look pretty realistic.

 

[Krafus]

I don't know much about publishing or book distribution but I find it very difficult to believe that WotC's RPG pricing outside the us is purely 'greed' or a 'complete lack to care'. Does WotC even decide on what price they use outside the US? Even if the answer is yes, is their policy out of line with other publishers?

I have no idea whether they decide the Canadian price. But someone, somewhere, certainly does, and this cannot but negatively affect my perception of WotC. If Wizards are unaware of how this makes them look, then someone in their marketing department is asleep at the helm. Especially since, AFAIK, they've never mentioned that they were aware of the exchange rate and trying to lower Canadian prices. As to their policy being out of line with the other publishers, I fail to see the relevance. It's WotC we're talking about, not the other publishers. I believe that WotC's overpricing is wrong and unfair, especially as they don't seem to be doing anything to change the situation. Whether the other publishers do the same or not IMO doesn't matter. A number of wrongs do not make a right.

WotC has no control over exchange rates, remember. I assume they're reacting to things the best they can. They probably concentrate their efforts on the US market, because most of their customers live there. But their market outside the US is substantial--I'm sure thought goes into their pricing policies but it's difficult to forsee exchange rate rises and falls.

I agree that WotC has no control ove the exchange rate. But as I've mentioned in my post, the Canadian dollar had been steadily climbing for awhile before it achieved its recent parity with the US dollar. That was time enough for Wizards to have at least started to change their Canadian prices, if they had any intent of doing so. Heck, just a message saying they're aware of the disparity and will be trying to correct it ASAP would be enough to assuage me. But no - we're still seeing the exact same pricing difference as when the loonie was in the 0.70 - 0.75 range compared to the US dollar, with absolutely no hints that they plan to change that pricing in the future. Thus, not only are Wizards screwing their Canadian customers now, but there's no indication they mean to redress the situation anytime soon.

 

[Warbringer]

I disagree. Both D&D and video games compete for the same scarce resources: disposable income and leisure time. Anyone who has lost a player to WoW or a new baby knows how important the leisure time competition is. The importance of disposable income varies from person to person, but I'd argue that both D&D and video games are both competing for the Entertainment category.

And I'd add that the upper price set by a video game increases the price point of the competing product, in this case DnD.

Interesting, I'd add that this is what I believe happened with boardgames. The increasing price of in home entertainment allowed board game makers to charge more, which in turn allowed them to increase the quality of the board and pieces, knowing their was demand at the higher price point.

Overall, there is a higher price threshold for expenditure on in home entertainment/games...

What a rant... Sorry

 

[Ranger REG]

Just wait and wait a bit longer. Give it six months and then buy your books from some cheap reseller at Amazon.com.

Can I have your credit card number?

 

[Ranger REG]

I didn't read this whole thread so I may have misses something but:

I had posted on here a couple months ago that I heard from a retail, who was told by the distributors, that the D&D core books would be $40. Everyone told me I was off my rocker.

Given the creap to $35, $40/book is starting to look pretty realistic.

Too bad the level of excitement for 4e is not as great as the level of excitement for 3e way back in 1999-2000. It would have given WotC incentive to once again offer an "upgrade price" promotion.

 

[AWizardInDallas]

Give it six months and then buy your books from some cheap reseller at Amazon.com.

I never stay on the cutting edge of anything. It's cheaper that way.

Yes! That's exactly what I do too.

 

[vagabundo]

i'll do some good research and, if the dollar is still kitten weak against the euro, I'll buy from the states and pay the shipping on the three core books.

Currently $120 is €81, I wonder how much delivery will be. And there is no VAT on books for Ireland, so import away.

 

[The Little Raven]

That's not exactly a compelling argument. The lines were failing before they were moved to a far more minor sub-label. That they continued to fail does not necessarily indicate that the change in the physical quality of the product had anything to do with that.

Before the Arthaus move, they had print-runs equal to most other game lines, except for maybe Vampire, which was always the highest seller. After the change, they had smaller print-runs than before and were selling an even lower percentage of those smaller print-runs. So, instead of selling 20% of a 10,000 print-run, they were selling 15% of a 1,000 print-run. The games were moved to Arthaus because White Wolf believed that they could support themselves if their production cost was cut, and that was proven to be false.

If WotC want to grow the market, they really need to drop the 3-core-book model. Between a $90 buy-in (even if only from the DM), and the need to wade through 1,000 pages of rules, plus adventure preparation and character creation, all before you even get to start having fun, it's a really good advert for just playing WoW instead.

And cut like 60% of the core game that has existed, in some form or another, for 20+ years? If they squeezed everything into 1 400-page book, you'd lose so much that people take for granted these days. I mean, look out how pissed off people are that the Frost Giant won't be in the MM1... well, with a single book, you'd be cutting out almost ALL of the MM1 standard monsters simply to provide enough space for character options and DM advice/tools.