BESM d20 Pricing

[Guardians Of Order]

[This message was composed as a reply on RPG.net when someone asked about the pricing difference between the BESM d20 Deluxe Editiion vs. Standard Edition. I thought the EN World folks might find the reply useful as well. - Mark]

BESM d20 Deluxe Limited Edition is expensive by industry standards, no doubt. Even the standard edition isn't cheap when you compare it to the great value of HERO, D&D, and WW core books. We believe we priced it correctly for our company, though.

[Side note: we just proofed the printer blues for the DLE and Standard editions yesterday -- the books are just gorgeous! The DLE is spectacular!]

To put some perspective on the DLE vs. Standard prices though, we make the same profit per book on the DLE as we do the Standard when sold through normal distribution channels -- even at $60 vs. $30. The DLE really is that much more expensive to produce.

Most game industry books that are called "limited editions" simply have a different cover with perhaps a few extras. Not BESM d20! There is a huge difference between the BESM d20 DLE and the Standard Edition, which is why the cost is so much more.

Here's a breakdown of the difference between BESM d20 DLE vs. Standard.

BESM d20 DLE vs. Standard:

$59.95 vs. $29.95
Limited Print Run (One Only) vs. Unlimited Print Run
144 page vs. 144 pages
Hardcover vs. Hardcover
Full Colour vs. Black and White
Glossy Premium Paper vs. Standard Paper
Foil-Embossed Black Leatherette Cover vs. Colour Cover
Dust Jacket vs. No Dust Jacket
Cloth Bookmark vs. No Cloth Bookmark
Envy of Everyone vs. Envy of d20 Fans

Hope this gives some insite into our pricing decisions.

 

[Blacksad]

BESM d20 Deluxe Limited Edition is expensive by industry standards, no doubt. Even the standard edition isn't cheap when you compare it to the great value of HERO, D&D, and WW core books. We believed we priced it correctly for our company, though.

First, no one will compare your prices with those of WotC or White Wolf, they have way larger print run and can seriously reduce the price of their book. You will be compared to the prices of Dream Pod 9 or Hogshead Publishing...and you have higher prices than those.

and second, you say that you believed that you priced correctly your book? That looks like a big lapsus

*Still waiting the release of d20 Mecha*

 

[thundershot]

Well... let's do a comparison.

Legends & Lairs (FFG) vs. BESM d20 (standard)

$24.95 vs. $29.95
Unlimited Print Run vs. Unlimited Print Run
176 pages vs. 144 pages
Hardcover vs. Hardcover
Black and White (with some color) vs. Black and White
Standard Paper vs. Standard Paper
Color Cover vs. Color Cover

So I trimmed it a little. 5 bucks less with 32 more pages. Hm... Maybe the price should be looked at.

Now for the other one...

BESMd20 (LE) vs. Oathbound (Bastion)

$59.95 vs. $39.95
Limited Print Run (One Only) vs. Unlimited Print Run
144 page vs. 288 pages
Hardcover vs. Hardcover
Full Colour vs. Full Color
Glossy Premium Paper vs. Glossy Premium Paper
Foil-Embossed Black Leatherette Cover vs. Colour Cover
Dust Jacket vs. No Dust Jacket
Cloth Bookmark vs. No Cloth Bookmark

For something like this... 20 dollars more for half the pages, and a foil cover and a dust jacket and a bookmark. I dunno. Does it really cost that much more for one print run? Don't most d20 books only have a single print run?

And I'm not out to get you or anything, since I've already bought Oathbound, and have already paid for BESMd20 DX. But if I could negotiate on the price a little...


Thanks
Chris

 

[Guardians Of Order]

Well... let's do a comparison.

Legends & Lairs (FFG) vs. BESM d20 (standard)

BESMd20 (LE) vs. Oathbound (Bastion)

I could come up with about a hundred other example books that are cheaper than BESM d20 Standard or Deluxe as well. Some people may even find the other books better, too

Bottom line: we priced BESM d20 Standard and DLE at what we believe are the right prices -- fair, justifiable, and well worth it. Others may disagree, and that's OK. We also publish books that are some of the cheapest on the market (Silver Age Sentinels d20 Stingy Gamer Edition is only $10; Tri-Stat dX: Core System RPG is only $10; etc.). Again, we price our products at the level we believe is the correct price.

Guardians Of Order does not compete with price. Heck, we don't even compete! We produce the best products we can, at the right price, and we let the market decide if our judgements are correct or not. What other companies are doing is not overly relevant to us

For something like this... 20 dollars more for half the pages, and a foil cover and a dust jacket and a bookmark. I dunno. Does it really cost that much more for one print run? Don't most d20 books only have a single print run?

It's not the "one print run" that costs so much; that just tells our customers that we're not pulling the bait-and-switch on them by making a "not-really-a-limited-edition."

What costs so much is making colour plates for a very small print run. We never print colour books in print runs as small as we do for our DLEs. Without charging a premium price for colour, we'd get hammered fiscally. Or, to put it mathematically:

Full Colour + Premium Additions + Small Print Run = Many, many $$$$

Hope this gives some additional insight!

 

[thundershot]

Hey, all's cool with me. I'm the guy who paid for it through a gaming store months ago. I just want it in my hands.

That, and a legible preview sampler... *nudge nudge*

But yeah, I was just trying to compare it to other d20 books, since, as a consumer, I DO have to worry about all of the other companies. This will be a very strange purchase for me, since, and I'll be honest, I've never bought a GOO book before. To buy the most expensive one sight unseen is generally out of characater for me.

For the most part, I've learned to order Bastion, Fantasy Flight Games, Mongoose, and Perpetrated Press (okay, so it's only 2 books so far) books without even seeing them in the stores.

If BESMd20 goes well (i.e. fully compatable with standard D&D classes), d20 Mecha will join it on my shelf.


Thanks!
Chris