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Chinese Government Burns Cthulhu RPG Print Run
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<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7776922" data-attributes="member: 16814"><p>I think you miss the concept that if everything went with locally sourced, more expensive options, we couldn't afford much at all. When you focus on a single product, especially a luxury item, you can make the mistake of generalizing that one case to a broader argument, but that fails. You can argue from the general to the specific, but going from the specific to the general is rarely correct. </p><p></p><p>In this case, you neglected that the end cost of the book is both the cost of production and the <em>profit </em>for the creator. And that the price of luxury goods like RPGs are fairly inelastic -- the sales I can get at $40 are not the same at $50 and certainly not what I can get at $60 -- so there's not as much room to increase prices to accommodate higher costs and pass them through. Your analysis reads like you've gotten Econ 101, maybe 102, under your belt and have a basic grasp of things, but have never actually had experience bringing product to market or operating a retail outlet beyond maybe working the register. I've done ordering and had to manage cash flow, both at a retail game store and for multi-million dollar projects. A 300% increase in a cost that ends up being 1/4 or so of your final retail price is murderously big in a thin margin market like RPGs. That cost alone can mean the difference between living okay on your sales and having to have a day job. You don't get rich in the RPG market, despite selling what are luxury goods.</p><p></p><p>Even with the risks posed by printing in China, it's still one of the best options for smaller players. If you're big enough to leverage volume, it becomes less because you can get more local printers to give better prices and you're saving more on shipping costs and lead times. But, unless you're big enough that a thinner margin will be evened out with volume, you can't just say 'the consumer bears the costs' to justify a $10 increase in costs. That's probably more than the anticipated profit on a $50 dollar book. Recall, the seller takes profit off of that before the distributor takes profit off of it and then the creator get's their cut. This isn't a perfectly elastic market where the demand is high enough to justify a 25% increase in price (at $40 starting price).</p><p></p><p>Any time you start thinking "this economy stuff is obvious and everyone's doing it wrong, it must be for bad reasons, I'll educate them!" stop and consider that you're trying to tell people who's livelihoods are on the line and who are probably at least as smart as you how they should be spending their money because you, who have no skin in their game, know better. This is actually a good lesson for any field -- if you think it's obviously simple but no one who does it for a living seems to be aware of how obviously simple it is, you're almost always wrong about it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 7776922, member: 16814"] I think you miss the concept that if everything went with locally sourced, more expensive options, we couldn't afford much at all. When you focus on a single product, especially a luxury item, you can make the mistake of generalizing that one case to a broader argument, but that fails. You can argue from the general to the specific, but going from the specific to the general is rarely correct. In this case, you neglected that the end cost of the book is both the cost of production and the [I]profit [/I]for the creator. And that the price of luxury goods like RPGs are fairly inelastic -- the sales I can get at $40 are not the same at $50 and certainly not what I can get at $60 -- so there's not as much room to increase prices to accommodate higher costs and pass them through. Your analysis reads like you've gotten Econ 101, maybe 102, under your belt and have a basic grasp of things, but have never actually had experience bringing product to market or operating a retail outlet beyond maybe working the register. I've done ordering and had to manage cash flow, both at a retail game store and for multi-million dollar projects. A 300% increase in a cost that ends up being 1/4 or so of your final retail price is murderously big in a thin margin market like RPGs. That cost alone can mean the difference between living okay on your sales and having to have a day job. You don't get rich in the RPG market, despite selling what are luxury goods. Even with the risks posed by printing in China, it's still one of the best options for smaller players. If you're big enough to leverage volume, it becomes less because you can get more local printers to give better prices and you're saving more on shipping costs and lead times. But, unless you're big enough that a thinner margin will be evened out with volume, you can't just say 'the consumer bears the costs' to justify a $10 increase in costs. That's probably more than the anticipated profit on a $50 dollar book. Recall, the seller takes profit off of that before the distributor takes profit off of it and then the creator get's their cut. This isn't a perfectly elastic market where the demand is high enough to justify a 25% increase in price (at $40 starting price). Any time you start thinking "this economy stuff is obvious and everyone's doing it wrong, it must be for bad reasons, I'll educate them!" stop and consider that you're trying to tell people who's livelihoods are on the line and who are probably at least as smart as you how they should be spending their money because you, who have no skin in their game, know better. This is actually a good lesson for any field -- if you think it's obviously simple but no one who does it for a living seems to be aware of how obviously simple it is, you're almost always wrong about it. [/QUOTE]
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