D&D General D&D Book Prices Are Going Up

WotC announced today that D&D books will be increasing in price this year.

Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants will be $59.99 as a preorder and $69.99 thereafter. These will apparently come as physical and digital bundles, so you won’t need to buy the D&D Beyond version separately.

This space is dedicated to communicating clearly and transparently with our players- even when the topic isn’t particularly fun. Since the release of the 2014 D&D core rulebooks, we’ve kept book prices stable. Unfortunately, with the cost of goods and shipping continually increasing, we’ve finally had to make the decision to increase the price of our new release print books. We're committed to creating high-quality products that deliver great value to our players and must increase our prices to accomplish that.

This will go into effect starting with Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants and new releases after Glory of the Giants. Digital pricing is unaffected by this MSRP (manufacturer's suggested retail price) increase, as digital products don’t need to be printed or shipped. The increase also doesn’t impact backlist titles. While we can’t promise that there will never be a change to the prices of digital products and backlist titles, we have no plans to increase either.

Players who purchase the Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants digital-physical bundle through Dungeons & Dragons store can get the bundle for $59.95 for the entire preorder window, which is consistent with our current digital-physical bundle pricing. After the preorder window closes, digital-physical bundle prices will go to $69.95.

 

[darjr]

DDB on an iPad isn't any different than a PDF in requiring you to think ahead enough to load what you need. If you download the book in the app, it's available offline with no issue. You can still search through your downloaded books without an internet connection. You really just have to plan ahead enough to make sure you've downloaded the books you want but that's not any different than making sure you have a PDF loaded on to the tablet. I'm not sure about other platforms like Android or Windows tablets, so that may be a problem if those are your tablet platforms of choice.

I just checked and I can even download a book that I haven't purchased but have access to through a campaign share.

I dint think the search is as good. Nor can I use a different app to access it if I like another better. Also I dint think I could print out whole chapters or the whole book in ddb, can I? Have to check on that.

 

[Velderan]

I dint think the search is as good. Nor can I use a different app to access it if I like another better. Also I dint think I could print out whole chapters or the whole book in ddb, can I? Have to check on that.

The search can be sluggish sometimes, I'm guessing it tries to search online first before defaulting back to local search? After the first search, it went much faster.

I'm not aware of any way to use it on other apps, I know my group was looking for a way awhile back to integrate dice rolling into Roll20 for one of our players who was traveling for work and only had an iPad and we couldn't figure out anything beyond "eh, just roll in DDB and tell us what you rolled". I've never tried to print anything from it beyond exporting my character sheet to a PDF and printing that. PDFs are certainly better for some things. For starters, you're not tied to that platform forever.

 

[Clint_L]

The search can be sluggish sometimes, I'm guessing it tries to search online first before defaulting back to local search? After the first search, it went much faster.

I'm not aware of any way to use it on other apps, I know my group was looking for a way awhile back to integrate dice rolling into Roll20 for one of our players who was traveling for work and only had an iPad and we couldn't figure out anything beyond "eh, just roll in DDB and tell us what you rolled". I've never tried to print anything from it beyond exporting my character sheet to a PDF and printing that. PDFs are certainly better for some things. For starters, you're not tied to that platform forever.

If the DM is also logged into DDB, they will see the roll happen. My students use it almost exclusively.

 

[Velderan]

If the DM is also logged into DDB, they will see the roll happen. My students use it almost exclusively.

You can, but just having the player say what they rolled made it so the DM had one less thing to pay attention to since everyone else's rolls were going to Roll20 where the map was. A few of our players preferred the Roll20 character sheet (absolutely no idea why...) so not all the player rolls were going to DDB anyhow. I guess it's worth pointing out yes, you can see all the DDB rolls in a campaign in the campaign log though.

 

[MerricB]

The search can be sluggish sometimes, I'm guessing it tries to search online first before defaulting back to local search? After the first search, it went much faster.

I'm not aware of any way to use it on other apps, I know my group was looking for a way awhile back to integrate dice rolling into Roll20 for one of our players who was traveling for work and only had an iPad and we couldn't figure out anything beyond "eh, just roll in DDB and tell us what you rolled". I've never tried to print anything from it beyond exporting my character sheet to a PDF and printing that. PDFs are certainly better for some things. For starters, you're not tied to that platform forever.

Yes, running on an ipad would be challenging.

I suppose it would be possible to use Chrome with the Beyond20 plug-in installed on an ipad, with Roll20 open in a separate tab. But then again - iPads can be locked down in a number of annoying ways.

 

[DEFCON 1]

At that point, you might as well just steal the whole book. It would be easier.

Wait... you can DO that? Jeez! What the heck have I been doing this entire time?!?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Wait... you can DO that? Jeez! What the heck have I been doing this entire time?!?

Being a decent human being. You FOOL!

 

[DEFCON 1]

 

[ShadowDenizen]

This is the cynical side of me speaking...

But that sounds like an EXTEREMLY large increase for "inflation"? Especially when you consider that digital pricing is minimally affected. (Yes the "we don't need to ship/print" arguement SOUNDs reasonable on it's face, but we can safely assume that WoTC will be making a massive attempt to move away from phsyical and gain digital traction over the next few years, since it's easy to monetize add-ons.

I normally like to give companies (even large for-profit ones) the benefit of the doubt, but WotC has proven to be less than forthright and upfront for the most part, and have publically announced that D&D is "under-monetized".

 

[Oofta]

This is the cynical side of me speaking...

But that sounds like an EXTEREMLY large increase for "inflation"? Especially when you consider that digital pricing is minimally affected. (Yes the "we don't need to ship/print" arguement SOUNDs reasonable on it's face, but we can safely assume that WoTC will be making a massive attempt to move away from phsyical and gain digital traction over the next few years, since it's easy to monetize add-ons.

I normally like to give companies (even large for-profit ones) the benefit of the doubt, but WotC has proven to be less than forthright and upfront for the most part, and have publically announced that D&D is "under-monetized".

Others have covered this, the price increase for the books is lower than inflation. The cost of digital content is entirely different. DDB used to be a separate company, now it's been brought in-house which means there is likely lower overhead.

 

[Parmandur]

This is the cynical side of me speaking...

But that sounds like an EXTEREMLY large increase for "inflation"? Especially when you consider that digital pricing is minimally affected. (Yes the "we don't need to ship/print" arguement SOUNDs reasonable on it's face, but we can safely assume that WoTC will be making a massive attempt to move away from phsyical and gain digital traction over the next few years, since it's easy to monetize add-ons.

I normally like to give companies (even large for-profit ones) the benefit of the doubt, but WotC has proven to be less than forthright and upfront for the most part, and have publically announced that D&D is "under-monetized".

Inflation since 2014 is over 28%, this is a 20% increase. So, effectively even after the price increase the books are cheaper than they were 9 years ago.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

But, (playing Devils Advocate), given the vast amounts of money that are being generated from D&D (probably more from ancillary material than core books), couldn't they have cut a break on the increase in books? Or even eaten it?

I know WotC is a for-profit (arguably greedy) company, but the goodwill of long-time (and even new) fans is priceless, as many companies are now learning. Plus, RPG's are a luxury, so many people will be daunted by the existing price-point, let alone the "inflated" price, since D&D is still one of the only RPG's that requires a 3-book entry to play. (So that price increase is effectively modified by x3 for new players.)

Not trying to be incendiary or hateful, here, just realistic and questioning company motivations as the steward of this license, as someone who's been playing since Basic D&D/AD&D 1E.

 

[Oofta]

But, (playing Devils Advocate), given the vast amounts of money that are being generated from D&D (probably more from ancillary material than core books), couldn't they have cut a break on the increase in books? Or even eaten it?

I know WotC is a for-profit (arguably greedy) company, but the goodwill of long-time (and even new) fans is priceless, as many companies are now learning. Plus, RPG's are a luxury, so many people will be daunted by the existing price-point, let alone the "inflated" price, since D&D is still one of the only RPG's that requires a 3-book entry to play. (So that price increase is effectively modified by x3 for new players.)

Not trying to be incendiary or hateful, here, just realistic and questioning company motivations as the steward of this license, as someone who's been playing since Basic D&D/AD&D 1E.

Realistically? Why shouldn't they make a reasonable profit on their products? That's kind of what companies do.

 

[Parmandur]

But, (playing Devils Advocate), given the vast amounts of money that are being generated from D&D (probably more from ancillary material than core books), couldn't they have cut a break on the increase in books? Or even eaten it?

I know WotC is a for-profit (arguably greedy) company, but the goodwill of long-time (and even new) fans is priceless, as many companies are now learning. Plus, RPG's are a luxury, so many people will be daunted by the existing price-point, let alone the "inflated" price, since D&D is still one of the only RPG's that requires a 3-book entry to play. (So that price increase is effectively modified by x3 for new players.)

Not trying to be incendiary or hateful, here, just realistic and questioning company motivations as the steward of this license, as someone who's been playing since Basic D&D/AD&D 1E.

You could make that case, but the obvious response is that they did eat the inflation cost for nearly a decade: books released in 2022 were making less money than in 2014, absolutely for certain, because costs have strafing increased. But a company can only keep their prices low for so long before they need to adjust them.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

Realistically? Why shouldn't they make a reasonable profit on their products? That's kind of what companies do.

I guess "Reasonable" is in the eye of the beholder?
But if they don't have any fans to BUY the products in the first place, the point is kinda moot.
Many companies that are "too big to fail" are feeling the effects of pinching their fans unncessarily.

Again, not trying to be trollish! But how companies treat their customers is an interesting topic, now more than ever, and many companies that are "too big to fail" may find that not to be the case, while companies like Paizo (and dozens of other smaller publishers) are benefitting from the (arguable) missteps of WotC.

 

[Parmandur]

I guess "Reasonable" is in the eye of the beholder?
But if they don't have any fans to BUY the products in the first place, the point is kinda moot.
Many companies that are "too big to fail" are feeling the effects of pinching their fans unncessarily.

Again, not trying to be trollish! But how companies treat their customers is an interesting topic, now more than ever, and many companies that are "too big to fail" may find that not to be the case, while companies like Paizo (and dozens of other smaller publishers) are benefitting from the (arguable) missteps of WotC.

Paizo is charging the same increased price for their new books, last I checked, and Paizo staff were openly praising the move from WitC to increase the price.

 

[Oofta]

I guess "Reasonable" is in the eye of the beholder?
But if they don't have any fans to BUY the products in the first place, the point is kinda moot.
Many companies that are "too big to fail" are feeling the effects of pinching their fans unncessarily.

Again, not trying to be trollish! But how companies treat their customers is an interesting topic, now more than ever, and many companies that are "too big to fail" may find that not to be the case, while companies like Paizo (and dozens of other smaller publishers) are benefitting from the (arguable) missteps of WotC.

So ... what should they do? Never raise prices, lose money on each book? Inflation is a fact of life and WOTC is not immune.

I really don't understand this need to vilify companies for making a profit. It's how they stay in business. If they're charging too much, don't buy the books. If you think Paizo has better products buy theirs. There are plenty of companies that are using inflation to jack up prices, plenty of businesses that do shady stuff. I just see no reason to think WOTC falls into that category in this case.

Are they never supposed to raise prices? Ever? Sell them at a loss?

 

[ShadowDenizen]

So ... what should they do? Never raise prices, lose money on each book? Inflation is a fact of life and WOTC is not immune.

I really don't understand this need to vilify companies for making a profit. It's how they stay in business. If they're charging too much, don't buy the books. If you think Paizo has better products buy theirs. There are plenty of companies that are using inflation to jack up prices, plenty of businesses that do shady stuff. I just see no reason to think WOTC falls into that category in this case.

Are they never supposed to raise prices? Ever? Sell them at a loss?

I'm not vilifying them. (At least not more than any other large company.)

I'm saying they should take the opinion of their customers (who make them.millions if not billions of dollars each year) into account when determining WHEN or IF to raise prices.

Raising prices now after all the disastrous PR this year seems tone-deaf to me. (YMMV of course.)

They could also consider not having a 3-book buy-in to play? They're getting ALOT of press/publicity right now, but what percentage of potential new players ate turned off by the 3-book buy-in to DM?

And again, the concept of moving to digital is plain, and makes sense for them, so if the push is fir that, where they can monetize the character-builder and DDB to the sky, why not cut a break on the physical books for the collectors? (Not even saying "Reduce Prices" [that will never happen] just don't increase by a full 20%)?

 

[Hussar]

There is never a good time to raise prices. No matter what.

 

[Velderan]

I guess "Reasonable" is in the eye of the beholder?
But if they don't have any fans to BUY the products in the first place, the point is kinda moot.
Many companies that are "too big to fail" are feeling the effects of pinching their fans unncessarily.

Again, not trying to be trollish! But how companies treat their customers is an interesting topic, now more than ever, and many companies that are "too big to fail" may find that not to be the case, while companies like Paizo (and dozens of other smaller publishers) are benefitting from the (arguable) missteps of WotC.

Except Paizo has also been raising their prices, citing the same thing WotC did. Kobold Press has also been charging more for books. Not sure about other publishers, though I'd recommend looking at preorders if you want to look for price increases since no one seems to be raising prices in existing inventory.