D&D (2024) D&D Pre-orders; this is sad

[UngeheuerLich]

your educated guess was that they probably make more per printed book.

No. You read that wrong. I did not make that claim. (Or I mistyped something, please send me to that post).

You do not need to guess that I have no sufficient proof, I am saying so myself...

Good.

which one? The book sales price breakdown from Alphastream? That is a guess already and that still does not say anything about the digital side...

Ok. So I probably read you wrong.

this is still 15 years out, no market research today will give you that

Exactly.

I have been saying this for quite some time, not sure why you missed that.

Was hidden too well

I have, you should look into things beyond math some day

Ok. Your >95%? Or did I miss somethig else?

 

[mamba]

No. You read that wrong. I did not make that claim. (Or I mistyped something, please send me to that post).

maybe I misread it, the post is

Edit: after my post you edited in some numbers. So Ibhave to look over it to estimate if those are enough to make a halfway educated guess.
My educated guess: probably not.

Ok. Your >95%? Or did I miss somethig else?

That is an educated guess, not math. As I said repeatedly, we have no hard numbers to base any math on. If we had, we would not need (educated) guesses

 

[UngeheuerLich]

maybe I misread it, the post is



That is an educated guess, not math. As I said repeatedly, we have no hard numbers to base any math on. If we had, we would not need (educated) guesses

Ok. Lets withdraw both of us and reread our stances. We probably took the other one the wrong way and we agreed all along.

No hard numbers. Just guesses.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

it's not baseless, it is an educated guess. Do I have WotC's numbers, no, but that does not mean it doesn't have a probability of > 95%

For an estimate of WotC gets per book, see Estimating D&D’s Revenue | Alphastream

"If the above model were true for D&D, a product like the $59.95 Bigby’s might look as follows:

• $60 retail price, which is what your FLGS charges you.
• $30 is what the retail store paid to the distributor.
• $15 is what the distributor paid to the gaming company.
• $15 is what the gaming company gets for all of its work. This must cover salaries, printing, art, editing, marketing, etc."

They easily make more profit per book on DDB

That's not correct. Game stores don't usually get 50% off - we get closer to 40. And distributors don't make anywhere near a full mark-up from their cost. They make up for it in volume. A more realistic picture (though probably not exact) is $60 retail/$36 distributor/$25 WotC. I went over this in another thread.

They absolutely make a bigger profit margin on digital, as all their expenses are front-loaded, but print is "easy money" - and quite likely still more than half their income. Your prediction is a very common one - it's got all the surface logic - but it probably won't come to pass. It's like "everyone will have flying cars in 2015" (Back to the Future). Sure, we can make flying cars, now - but we wouldn't want to.

We won't want to get rid of print entirely.

 

[occam]

That's not correct. Game stores don't usually get 50% off - we get closer to 40. And distributors don't make anywhere near a full mark-up from their cost. They make up for it in volume. A more realistic picture (though probably not exact) is $60 retail/$36 distributor/$25 WotC. I went over this in another thread.

They absolutely make a bigger profit margin on digital, as all their expenses are front-loaded, but print is "easy money" - and quite likely still more than half their income. Your prediction is a very common one - it's got all the surface logic - but it probably won't come to pass. It's like "everyone will have flying cars in 2015" (Back to the Future). Sure, we can make flying cars, now - but we wouldn't want to.

We won't want to get rid of print entirely.

Thanks; I was going to reference your earlier post with these estimates.

The point being, we don't have the real numbers. If WotC is making $25 gross profit on a $60 book, then it's much more difficult to argue with any confidence that they're making even more on a $30 digital book. We don't have the real margins on either one, so unless one works for WotC and is willing to give away company-confidential profit margin numbers on this thread, no one here has a basis for confidently saying that more profit is made on either physical or digital books.

 

[mamba]

That's not correct. Game stores don't usually get 50% off - we get closer to 40. And distributors don't make anywhere near a full mark-up from their cost. They make up for it in volume. A more realistic picture (though probably not exact) is $60 retail/$36 distributor/$25 WotC. I went over this in another thread.

Alphastream said that it could be more, but since all of it is a guess, I did not see any particular point in including that in the quote as well

They absolutely make a bigger profit margin on digital,

that was my point, and given your $25 to WotC that means they also make an absolute bigger profit per unit, as that is the price point of many adventures (or $30 for newer ones)

but print is "easy money" - and quite likely still more than half their income.

possibly, we have no good numbers for that, but I do expect 1) WotC is working towards that share getting smaller and 2) that share actually going down (obviously, otherwise they would never get rid of books)

Your prediction is a very common one - it's got all the surface logic - but it probably won't come to pass.

I am not saying it 100% has to and it cannot be avoided, but I do believe WotC would prefer it and is trying to achieve it. Whether they succeed, time will tell

We won't want to get rid of print entirely.

not sure who 'we' is here, but I am not even saying that they will not print any more books at all. I was saying they want to get out of the mass market books (to be replaced by digital for the higher profit margin and hopefully a subscription too), but still would have small print runs for collectors and people who refuse to switch over.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Thanks; I was going to reference your earlier post with these estimates.

The point being, we don't have the real numbers. If WotC is making $25 gross profit on a $60 book, then it's much more difficult to argue with any confidence that they're making even more on a $30 digital book. We don't have the real margins on either one, so unless one works for WotC and is willing to give away company-confidential profit margin numbers on this thread, no one here has a basis for confidently saying that more profit is made on either physical or digital books.

The biggest question would actually be - how many books to they sell compared to how many digital subscriptions? There's no doubt that DDB rakes in the dough - they wouldn't have paid, what was it, 145M for it? (I don't remember, but it was a LOT of money). But they had the money to buy it because of selling print books, didn't they?

I've heard that Comics have never been able to break an 80/20 ratio of print-to-digital. Now, comics are a bit of an unfair comparison, as they're collectable, relatively cheap, obsessively loved, and don't have the digital tool sets that ttrpgs have (your Character Builders, and rules searches that make digital actually worthwhile). But, I'm not sure that DDB outsells print D&D books. Is it more than half the money WotC makes on D&D? I just don't know.

 

[Parmandur]

The biggest question would actually be - how many books to they sell compared to how many digital subscriptions? There's no doubt that DDB rakes in the dough - they wouldn't have paid, what was it, 145M for it? (I don't remember, but it was a LOT of money). But they had the money to buy it because of selling print books, didn't they?

I've heard that Comics have never been able to break an 80/20 ratio of print-to-digital. Now, comics are a bit of an unfair comparison, as they're collectable, relatively cheap, obsessively loved, and don't have the digital tool sets that ttrpgs have (your Character Builders, and rules searches that make digital actually worthwhile). But, I'm not sure that DDB outsells print D&D books. Is it more than half the money WotC makes on D&D? I just don't know.

I mean, Magic Arena has been gigantic for WotC, but print cards still fly off of Target and WalMart shelves and jeep entire FLGS afloat.

Print is gine: premiums print products like RPG books or TCG cards moreso than some print formats (pulp novels went through an extinction event in the face of self published ebooks, big novels are fine).

 

[mamba]

If WotC is making $25 gross profit on a $60 book, then it's much more difficult to argue with any confidence that they're making even more on a $30 digital book

it really isn't, they have a higher profit margin on digital. @FitzTheRuke agreed with that too, but I guess you conveniently ignored that part while believing the parts that agree with you

 

[Parmandur]

it really isn't, they have a higher profit margin on digital. @FitzTheRuke agreed with that too, but I guess you conveniently ignored that part while believing the parts that agree with you

I doubt that they are making a higher gross profit on $30 a Beyon copy versus $25 a print copy, not with the overhead Beyond has