Books pricing themselves out of reach?

[Belen]

So does anyone else get the feeling that the books and market is slowly pricing itself out of casual reach?

Of course it doesn't help that I don't understand the way things work at all. I mean, one of the old Necromancer adventuers went for like $12.95 at 96 pages a few years ago. The reprint, due to limited demand and what not, would be like $25 bones. And most 96 page books are around that price. Not the publishers fault I imagine but outside of printing the books in Canada, I think we may get a little bit of a backlash of books not because people don't like or want the books, but simply can't afford 'em.

I have to agree. The prices have skyrocketed. If I did not get my wife's employee discount, then I would be screwed. I can barely keep up with the companies that I enjoy and that does not even count the occasional book that I may want from someone else.

I think the costs will slowly drive out/ disenfranchise the younger people who would join the hoby except for the high price.

Heck, even the Midnight 2e book will be $50! That's nuts!

 

[Henry]

Another thought just hit me: You think that's high, you should try to buy gasoline recently. My wife and I spend $70.00 per week together on Gasoline, and that's only counting from work to home. Anything beyond that is extra.

 

[Gez]

Heck, even expensive coffee table books which run for $19.95 to $29.95 are half the price they first came out at.

20 to 30 ameribucks is not what I would call expensive for coffee table books.

I've seen beaux-livres for more than 600 eurobucks at the local FNAC (France's equivalent to whatever you know as big shops where you can buy all sorts of books, computer games, music albums, audiovideo stuff and computer gizmos).

 

[Crothian]

I also don't think you can look at price alone. They few high priced books I have I have actually gotten more use out of then the cheap books. Companies seem to know that high priced books need to have more in them and they have deleivered on that.

 

[diaglo]

adventures and other supplements too are priced too high imo.

i'm willing to pay $10 for an adventure
and $15 for a supplement.




i paid $10 for my first phb. and $4.50 for G1. and $5 for Chainmail.

 

[Turjan]

Another thought just hit me: You think that's high, you should try to buy gasoline recently. My wife and I spend $70.00 per week together on Gasoline, and that's only counting from work to home. Anything beyond that is extra.

You should try and move to Europe for a while, then you learn to appreciate that expenditure .

I'm also in the boat with those people who just buy less because of the price tags. I positively decided not to collect the Conan line because of the price; I just bought the main campaign book and Road of Kings when I got an exceptionally good offer. The price increase might also mean the end of some of the d20 experiments. Atlas Games were a good example for a company with comparably expensive hardcovers with small pagecount. Except for a very few cases, I usually wait to get them as a bargain or from ebay.

 

[Kanegrundar]

i paid $10 for my first phb. and $4.50 for G1. and $5 for Chainmail.

Yeah, and I paid 10 cents for my first comic book.

Inflation has taken a bite out of everything, but as far as many of the D20 books that I buy go, I'm pretty happy with the value. That's not to say I haven't felt jipped, but that's a rare occurance.

Kane

 

[fredramsey]

I'd own Conan, but I won't buy a $50 game book just on principal.

 

[kenobi65]

i paid $10 for my first phb. and $4.50 for G1. and $5 for Chainmail.

And $1 to fill up the tank on your Model T so you could drive to your FLGS to buy those.

 

[Kanegrundar]

The other issue I consider when I buy books, which I'm surprised I overlooked before, is the amount of use I get out of these books. $50 is nothing when I can use the material for years and years to come. That's what ticks me off about movie tickets. I pay $8 per ticket for only 1.5 to 2 hours of entertainment!!! I buy one book, I can use that book for as long as I play D20, and likley longer if I convert the material to whatever system that I move on to (though at this point, I don't see that happening any time soon).

Kane