JoeGKushner said:
RPG's cannot think to compete with video games, computer games or other forms of entertainment that come down. They cannot think to compare themselves, for younger people, to colletable games that have a low investment cost and allow a greater deal of trade. They will lose every time.
Can't they, though? I'm wondering about Warhammer, for example. They don't come down any more than dead RPG back-stock, and yet they turn a healthy profit....and mostly from young purchasers. The average new video game costs $50, and rumor has it that the price point will increase for the next generation of hardware. Someone is obviously buying all those copies of GTA:San Andreas, Halo 2 and Half-Life 2, and the hardware to run them. Most of the best-selling video games never come down in price except for sales or when they become part of a 'best-seller' series. And unlike a video game, which can become outdated or obsolete, my copy of Midnight won't (at least, not from a usability standpoint...from a game preference standpoint, perhaps...but that's another discussion).
Yes, many video games can be purchased used, but it's a different market model, where a great deal of emphasis is getting the game at launch time. Playing a game on launch day is tantamount to seeing a Star Wars/Star Trek movie on opening day. Many fans are willing to pay the premium. Clearly, many purchasers of a game like Halo 2 aren't doing a lot of price searching...particularly if they're purchasing it as a gift, for example. Halo 2 is available at dozen of outlets near me, such as game stores, department stores, record stores and, in some cases, supermarkets and wholesalers. A lot of folks were waiting at the stores at midnight to get GTA:SA...just like plenty of people paid more than retail for a Nintendo DS during the holidays last year. On the other hand, virtually no other publisher but WotC can even get recognized outside of the game store space, and few locations outside of a book store of any stripe will even listen to them, the big dog of the niche market and a subsidiary of a toy-making GIANT.
To a portion of the market, seeing Hitch at the $1.50 theater three months after it comes out is a worthwhile trade-off. But for RPG players, that doesn't happen nearly as often, if ever, IME. Just because you purchased Races of Destiny doesn't mean you'll do anything other than read it for until days, weeks, months or years afterward.
I think the real question is:
do RPG books contain enough value to demand their cost over the favor of other entertainment forms?
Personally, I think the problem is just that RPGs are still too much of a niche hobby, and that the rising costs associate with production (and the rise of the web and PDFs) have made printed books less valuable to the consumer. Combine that with the embarassment of riches in material available, and you have a problem.
