D&D 3E/3.5 Curious about 3.0 vs. 3.5 marketing

[Tranquilis]

Well, I don't know if marketing is the right word, but...

I've always liked the "succinct neatness" of the 3.0 materials, especially the 96 page softbacks like "Tome and Blood", "Song and Silence", and "Hero Builder's Guide" (or whatever the title is). They expanded the game, giving players options, but in a densely-packed 96 pages. The books were small, and the entire run took up about the same space as six 3.5-era hardbacks. In 3.5, most of this material was rereleased, but in the larger, 190+ page hardbacks ilke "Complete Mage" and its ilk - packed with full-color illlustrations instead of the black and white ones of 3.0.

What caused the change in production values between editions? I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but the "lower" production values of 3.0 lends to the idea that it was all a big playtest version, lol! Also, if 3.5 had not been released, what did the future hold for 3.0 seeing that expansion material for every core class had been released in a pretty quick amount of time? Would we have seen softbacks of "Libris Mortis", and others with b&w illustrations?

 

[delericho]

What caused the change in production values between editions?

I'm not absolutely certain, but I'm reasonably sure it's just an economies of scale thing - the price-per-page to produce the bigger books was actually lower, meaning they were sold at a better margin, and they actually represented a better deal for the customer. (Which in turn meant that more copies were sold on average, leading to bigger print runs, leading to a still lower price-per-page.) Basically, it was a win-win.

It's also likely that the price of paper was a significant factor, too.

 

[JeffB]

Id also wager they wanted to NOT have to share shelf space with dozens of other d20 softcovers that tread the same ground and were in the same format. Of course, eventually hardcovers became far more commonplace among the d20 publishers too.