Are you doing your part to destroy the industry?

[Yair]

In both cases you've paid $8 for the same amount of usable material. Possibly a value for you if you give zero value to the additional material you paid for but are not using.

But as we know, games change, what happens when those other 2 classes could be of use to you? Now you'd be up to $12 buying on the individual plan, still at $8 if you'd have just bought the whole book. Even then, you still have the other 40some pages of material that you're not using now, but may use later...or even just use as inspiration.

Are you arguing that you place no value on, well, quality? Just on quantity?
Because you know, I can write a lot if you'l pay me by the word. It wouldn't be worth much IMHO, but if you're willing to pay, I'm willing to churn out reaves of gaming material real cheap...

 

[jaerdaph]

You're confusing apples and oranges. You're talking about a movie you can't take home, and a game rule you take home and play for years.

Again, more bang for my buck.

But I do see your point.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

Yay! I get to get into this little debate again!!!

And why is it a worthless measure? Is value for the dollar not a valid measurement anymore? Somehow it's now if the book changes my level of happiness for the dollar? It wouldn't be valid if publishers were pricing products the same, but now there's a huge difference in costs of products. Why shouldnt I, as a consumer, shop around for a value?

Because ultimately quality of product and page count are not linearly dependant. True, they're not dependant, but simply having more pages doesn't make something a good product.

Is page count a smart thing to take into account? You bet. But it shouldn't be the ending point of your shopping for value. In the end I think that's all any one arguing with you will really say.

 

[Turjan]

Somehow I fail to see what this whole price discussion has to do with the thread topic. One of the early d20 books I bought was Atlas Games' "Touched by the Gods", that's a 128 pg. b&w hardcover with an MSRP of $23.95 in 2001. Or think of Bastion Press' "Spells & Magic", 96 pg. color softcover, MSRP $24.95. I like both books and think they were good investments. They definitely did not destroy the industry .

And even if, that has nothing to do with what you personally did.

 

[jezter6]

Are you arguing that you place no value on, well, quality? Just on quantity?
Because you know, I can write a lot if you'l pay me by the word. It wouldn't be worth much IMHO, but if you're willing to pay, I'm willing to churn out reaves of gaming material real cheap...

Nope. Not arguing that at all. I'm arguing that it DOES count. Phil, and others, think that quantity has no value.

What I am arguing about is the exact opposite. Price per content is huge in my opinion, and a higher priced product per page is no better than one of a lower priced product. When I first started buying PDFs, you could get a full book with a bunch of classes, 20 odd feats, some new skill uses, and some fluff...for about $5. That's what I call VALUE for my $.

Now, there's the trend of low page count high cost items. Where you could piece together about 3 classes for the same price. Sure, you may not use ALL of the other product...you're still getting something out of it for your money. I mean, take a CD...do you use 700mb every time or do you copy a few things on it and burn it off so that you can go with it? What would happen if you could buy CDs at 150 mb at a higher cost per disc than a 650? Would anyone really buy it? doubtful. they'd just buy the full ones and be happy with it. It's apples and oranges, so the analogy isn't quite there...so I don't fault anyone for calling it stupid.

 

[jezter6]

Somehow I fail to see what this whole price discussion has to do with the thread topic. One of the early d20 books I bought was Atlas Games' "Touched by the Gods", that's a 128 pg. b&w hardcover with an MSRP of $23.95 in 2001. Or think of Bastion Press' "Spells & Magic", 96 pg. color softcover, MSRP $24.95. I like both books and think they were good investments. They definitely did not destroy the industry .

And even if, that has nothing to do with what you personally did.

The original poster posted about pricing hikes which led me to ask Phil a question in his response.


Back to the original topic at hand...I guess I'm destroying the industry by participating in these threads.

 

[Welverin]

Really? Because it seems that if a company on the verge of dropping out of RPGs like Alderac can produce one of the highest quality books I've seen in years can produce Spycraft at a price of $0.08 per page then a company with (comparatively) huge print runs like WOTC should be able to do a bit better than $0.17 per page, nearly twice as much. The same with Grim Tales, and all those who produce 200 page books for $35 a piece.

Even Guardians of Order, who from rumors I've heard were on the verge of collapse no too long ago, produced a beautiful LICENCED product (GoT) for $0.10 per page. Or SJGames, who just lost much of their staff, who still put out the new GURPS edition for less than $0.12 per page. How about the new Shadowrun book that's less than $0.10 per page.

I wonder if it's just a coincidence that all of the companies you praise for a low price per page rate have had financial problem, got to wonder.

 

[Turjan]

The original poster posted about pricing hikes which led me to ask Phil a question in his response.


Back to the original topic at hand...I guess I'm destroying the industry by participating in these threads.

Admittedly, that's the case. To combine both arguments would be a statement like:

"I'm destroying the industry because I don't buy anything as I think the books became too pricey."

In this form, the statement can hardly been refuted, even if other people see the price case completely different.

 

[philreed]

I wonder if it's just a coincidence that all of the companies you praise for a low price per page rate have had financial problem, got to wonder.

I was thinking the exact same thing . . .

And it's important to note that White Wolf is responsible for Game of Thrones being on the market now.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Didn't somebody once post a price-per-page for D&D books from the "good old days" with inflation accounted for?

Don't you have to ask why all of the books that were held up as great proof of lower prices being possible "even from companies on the verge of going out of business" sort of ... suspicious? Perhaps there's a LINK between those low prices and the companies doing poorly?

I admit, I picked up SpyCraft2 because I was interested, and the price was rock-bottom. And two weeks later, Spycraft is getting tossed off ...

--fje