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.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

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.

Yea, I saw the Paizo and Kobold Press prices. I'm not thrilled, but I also have respect for their companies and their stances with and for the fans, and that goes a long way.

I don't get the impression that they are out to squeeze their fans, as I do with Wizards. (Not vilifying, they've openly stated D&D is undermonitized and the attempt is to lean on the existing player-base.)

To compare to a video game, look at CD Projekt Red; mid-size company, great reputation with fans, quality Witcher games. Then they drop Cyberpunk 2077 in such a broken state they REMOVED IT FROM THE PSN STORE. They squandered the fans good-will for a quick profit, and they are just niw beginning to recover.

 

[Parmandur]

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%)?

See nonreason to expect they haven't considered that, hence why they havenraised their prices since the Obama administration.

 

[mamba]

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.

no, they really shouldn’t. When will the customers ever want higher prices…

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?

not so many that it matters, given D&D’s market share.

 

[mamba]

I don't get the impression that they are out to squeeze their fans, as I do with Wizards.

given that they all raise the prices the same 20% that seems to be on you

 

[Clint_L]

Yea, I saw the Paizo and Kobold Press prices. I'm not thrilled, but I also have respect for their companies and their stances with and for the fans, and that goes a long way.

I don't get the impression that they are out to squeeze their fans, as I do with Wizards. (Not vilifying, they've openly stated D&D is undermonitized and the attempt is to lean on the existing player-base.)

A) They actually said that they need to expand their revenue streams and not lean so much on DMs.

B) Remember a year ago when Paizo were the bad guys because of how they treated and paid their employees? Just saying, this seems like kind of a double standard. It's the same price increase, but one company is a villain and the others are A-okay?

 

[Hussar]

A) They actually said that they need to expand their revenue streams and not lean so much on DMs.

B) Remember a year ago when Paizo were the bad guys because of how they treated and paid their employees? Just saying, this seems like kind of a double standard. It's the same price increase, but one company is a villain and the others are A-okay?

The hell you say. WotC is the bad guy for doing something and everyone else is the good guy for doing exactly the same thing? Naw, there's no way that could ever be true.

Right?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Every big company taking advantage of chaos around inflation is the bad guy regardless of whether we've grown in unhealthy parasocial relationship with them or not.

 

[Hussar]

Every big company taking advantage of chaos around inflation is the bad guy regardless of whether we've grown in unhealthy parasocial relationship with them or not.

Ok.

How often can a company raise prices? What is the acceptable amount of time? Ten years? Twenty years?

Raising your prices once in ten years is a bad guy? Seriously?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Ok.

How often can a company raise prices? What is the acceptable amount of time? Ten years? Twenty years?

Raising your prices once in ten years is a bad guy? Seriously?

Ok.

Look at my post. Note all the times I said anything about just 'raising prices' instead of taking advantage of the current chaos,

This spike is, to me, just like the egg price spike. Opportunists that got half an excuse and took a big fat chunk.

You want me to accept inflation as a reason to increase prices, show me the commiserate across the board pay rises for the workers, execs taking cuts and shareholders eating it.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

Ok.

Look at my post. Note all the times I said anything about just 'raising prices' instead of taking advantage of the current chaos,

This spike is, to me, just like the egg price spike. Opportunists that got half an excuse and took a big fat chunk.

You want me to accept inflation as a reason to increase prices, show me the commiserate across the board pay rises for the workers, execs taking cuts and shareholders eating it.

All this. (Exec Bonuses are a topic I haven't even touched on, since it's really largely too broad a topic and beyond the scope of this thread.)