$5 4E PHB @ GenCon!

[Imaro]

Thanks to Edition War, plenty of people have been more and more inclined to make up their mind about whether they're "on one side" way before Pathfinder's formal debut. I doubt that this move is going to change anybody's minds; it looks to me less like a move to try and undercut someone else's sales and more a way to encourage people to spread around exposure to 4e. A lot of the truly undecided gamers, or those who think Edition War is silly, might be inclined both to buy Pathfinder and take advantage of WotC's offer. And then swing by our booth for a copy of Geist!

Madness, I know.

I won't be at GenCon, but Geist will be one of the two rpg's I'll be definitely picking up in August... the second being the Supernatural rpg by MWP.

 

[mudbunny]

Oh, forgot to mention -- I'm not even playing D&D 4e! Still, if there was another WotC book I was interested in (e.g., the Eberron book with the poster map), I would totally toss in a 4e PH for $5. If nothing else, I'd share it with friends, hoping maybe someone would decide to start a game.

I am pretty sure that this is what WotC is hoping will happen. Someone goes to GenCon, picks up Divine Power, and for $5, picks up a PHB to give to a friend who just might be interested in joining the group.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Ari, your Point B is more or less what Mistwell was saying, I think.

D'oh!!

I misread the original post. I thought he was saying that they were making more on the PHB at $5 direct than they were at $30 through channels.

I don't know how I made that mistake, but I did.

Apologies to all concerned. I shall now go out onto my balcony and do the Dance of Shame.

 

[mudbunny]

Apologies to all concerned. I shall now go out onto my balcony and do the Dance of Shame.

We want video proof, or it never happened!!

 

[Crothian]

Apologies to all concerned. I shall now go out onto my balcony and do the Dance of Shame.

Are you going to put that up on you tube?

 

[Mistwell]

I strongly doubt it. While cover price is a hefty mark-up from cost--to cover things like distribution, the book sellers, etc.--it's not that big a mark-up.

Yes, it is.

They sell for about 40% off already from distributors like Amazon and Borders (I just bought MM2 from Borders for 40% this weekend with a coupon). And those distributors have to make money, and they also spent money to get the book there, and on overhead.

So we are talking roughly 60% that never goes to WOTC from a retail sale that now goes to them from a direct sale. That is huge. It averages more than they would have made if both books had sold through a retailer.

For example:

Adventurers Vault 2 = $29.95, and PHB = $34.95, full retail.

Big box retailers are selling them for 40% off. So $17.97 and $20.97.

Those retailers have direct costs, plus overhead costs, for those books. And, they need to make a profit on them. So, conservatively speaking, it's another 20%.

Which means WOTC probably sees for those two books, sold through a big box retailer, about $11.98 and $13.98, for a total of $25.96.

But, sold at GenCon, they instead see $29.95 +$5.00 = $34.95. Which is actually a pretty substantial increase in profit. It's an increase of over 1/3!

[Edit - And now I see your edit/follow-up, and we seem to agree ]

 

[Eridanis]

You know what...here's a question. What's WOTC doing for M:TG at Gencon?

Selling 100 full-price copies each day of From the Vault: Exiled (an all-foil set of 15 cards from older sets).

I am pretty sure that this is what WotC is hoping will happen. Someone goes to GenCon, picks up Divine Power, and for $5, picks up a PHB to give to a friend who just might be interested in joining the group.

Exactly. I doubt anyone who doens't play 4E will buy Divine Power just to get the PHB for $5, unless they've wanted to give it a try and the price point was prohibitive for them. If you're going to buy, for instance, Adventurer's Vault 2 at GenCon, you're very likely to be playing in a 4E game, and likely will have another $5 to spend; why wouldn't you buy a house copy for your table if you're a regular player? Seems to me like a nice bit of a thank-you to the fans, as well as a way to get people with $35 who are on the fence to make the jump.

 

[Scott_Rouse]

For the record, this is not a reaction to Paizo and PFRPG. Just today over email I wished Erik a great show. Erik and I were planning on grabbing a beer or dinner durring the show, but for personal reason I have had to change my plans and will not be attending GenCon this year. I wish Paizo all the best with their efforts. We need a strong, vibrant, and diverse RPG industry. If companies like Paizo fail, we all loose.

The idea behind the promotion came up when we were exploring ways to make sure this GenCon was a great show for our fans. A few months ago we had a brain storming session and out of this we came up with some fun ideas to reward our customers who attended (and in some cases those who didn't attend). With the global economic issues we wanted to really support the con and make sure people keep coming back year after year. GenCon is our most important convention. Might I remind you it was only a little over a year ago when many of us thought it GenCon 2008 would not happen. This year we decided to put some extra effort into the convention because, like the industry comment above, when the GenCon is healthy we all benefit.

So the real story behind promotion for $5PHBs is to give DMs and their groups some extra copies of the PHB and for players to get an extra copy for themsleves or a pass-along copy into the hands of a friend who is not currently playing.

 

[Voadam]

I would LOVE a re-released and updated PHB.

And now I'm even sadder I can't make it to Gen Con. Still, $5 PHBs are the first smart marketing to come out of WotC in a while...

-O

I think they've done a couple good things lately.

Removing the OGL incompatibility portion of the GSL was a good move.

Offering free pdfs of the quickstart rules and Keep on the Shadowfell was a good move.

Adding monster manual pictures into the free online art gallery was a good move.

Its not enough to get me to go 4e but IMO these are all good moves on the part of WotC.

 

[Erik Mona]

If you ask most people from WotC/Paizo, I am sure that they would say that they hope that PRPG/4E does really well, because they realize that anything that brings new people to the RPG hobby, be it 4E, Pathfinder, WoD or any other RPG is of benefit to the hobby as a whole.

I know pretty much everyone over here thinks that. I applaud WotC for what looks like a pretty exciting promotion. If I didn't already have the 4e PHB or if I was running a game and was sick of that one player who never seems to buy ANYTHING and just mooches off of everyone else, I'd strongly consider getting a PH for five bucks.

--Erik Mona
Publisher
Paizo Publishing