Books pricing themselves out of reach?

[Crothian]

True enough. How about ads scattered through the book? Would you buy a book that had ads for those sword making companies or collectable card games?

Unless it is a magazine, keep the adds in the back

 

[Barak]

Having the ads in the back would be very close to having no ads, since advertisers would (with good reason) pay very little (if they are at all interested) for ads with such bad placement.

That said, books with ads anywhere but in the back wouldn't sell well at all.

 

[lyle.spade]

Try www.campusi.com for cheap books and other things. It searches almost 100 online booksellers simultaneously, and returns a list in order from cheapest on up -- and even factors in shipping when the amount is available. I've gotten a number of books through that over the last few months because I, too, refuse to spend $35 or $40 for a game book, regardless of how good it is. Look, I only see matinees, too, because the story or fx don't get any better after 6pm...but that's just me.

 

[Gez]

True enough. How about ads scattered through the book? Would you buy a book that had ads for those sword making companies or collectable card games?

If I don't know in advance it has them, maybe.

But then, my leisure budget would be cut for several decades, as it's rather expensive to hire a hitman to assassinate those responsible for that inclusion of ads in the pages.

 

[twofalls]

The original question was:

Like one of the game designers recently said: Maybe you could consider getting the Core 3.5e books bundle, and dropping them off at Toys for Tots, the Salvation Army, or some other such place, for the kids who can't afford the modern cost of books, because their parents can't afford the modern price of necessities... If you can argue that $50-100 for an RPG book is affordable, then I'm sure that swinging a core bundle will be no problem!

Thats an excellent suggestion, and I will do just that. Ironically, I've chosen not to pick up the 3.5 core books for myself because I don't feel 3.0 is broken at all, other than a couple minor items such as Haste.

My unspoken point was that money is relative. There is a lot of upset here about the cost of the game, however there more folks out there than just myself who don't have problems buying books. Your point is well taken however that there are those who will have difficulties with the higher costs. I didn't mean to come off sounding unsensitive.

 

[twofalls]

True enough. How about ads scattered through the book? Would you buy a book that had ads for those sword making companies or collectable card games?

No, in fact I wouldn't. I even avoid going to movies on time to try to miss the commercials that I'm now PAYING to see. Finding an advertisement in the middle of my recent RPG purchase would offend me to the point of boycotting the company that started doing it.

 

[WildWeasel]

An H2 might be worth the price, too, yet I won't be buying one anytime soon. Nor will I buy a $4,000 dollar HDTV screen. Worth it in a global sense, but for me, personally? No way.

In other words, these things are not overpriced, for what they are. They may not be affordable by you, but that's a different matter entirely.

 

[WildWeasel]

True enough. How about ads scattered through the book? Would you buy a book that had ads for those sword making companies or collectable card games?

No.

 

[Kanegrundar]

True enough. How about ads scattered through the book? Would you buy a book that had ads for those sword making companies or collectable card games?

I'm going to have to give a big "negatory" on that one. They annoy to an extent when I have to sift through tons of ads in magazines, but I expect to see them. Ads in the back of an RPG aren't nearly as intrusive, but I would hate them all through a book. If it was a book that I was thumbing through, I'd likely put it back no matter how much I like the content. If it was one of the few books I pick up without looking at first, I would return it promptly and not likely buy much from that publisher again.

Kane

 

[Varianor Abroad]

I think that the frequency and volume of product now available (which is much higher than what was around when I played 1E - I skipped 2E) has a lot to do with this complaint about price. ENWorld has a lot of "fashion forward" gamers. Not having all the latest releases can make you feel left out if your budget can't handle it.

I wonder if the same volume of product with lower prices would generate threads from different people complaining that products are overpriced. They would just have more books on their shelves.