[Devil’s Workshop] D20 Shakespeare: Macbeth available at RPGNow.com

[jezter6]

Phil: I was being a bit facetious and overstating my case. I apologise for that.
Here's what I've found out at RPGNow about books I own and/or publishers from this thread:

RPGObjects - Blood and Fists - 63 pages - 3 classes, probably about 30 feats - $6.95 ($0.11/pg)
RPGObjects - Blood and Guts - 96 pages - 16 classes, about 50 feats including MOS feats - $8.95 ($0.09/pg)

Adamant Entertainment - Thrilling Tales Man of Mystery - 6 pages - 1 class - $2.00 ($0.33/pg)
Adamant Entertainment - Thrilling Tales Air Ace - 6 pages - 1 class - $2.00 ($0.33/pg)

LPJ design - Prototype: Sorcerer Supreme - 5 pages - 1 class - $1.29 ($0.26/pg)
LPJ design - Prototype: Troubleshooter - 4 pages - 1 class - $1.29 ($0.32/pg)

Ronin Arts - 101 Mundane Treasures - 26 pages, 101 items - $4.59 (on sale for $1.95) ($0.17/pg)
Ronin Arts - Dozen Holy Books and Divine Tablets - 9 pages, 12 items - $1.99 ($0.22/pg)
Ronin Arts - Future: Starship 2 - 13 pages, 1 ship - $2.50 ($0.19/pg)
Ronin Arts - 13 Arcane Operative Items - 5 pages, 13 items - $1.49 ($0.29/pg)
Ronin Arts - Monsterous advanced classes: werewolf - 8 pages, 1 class - $1.89 (on special for $1.39) ($0.23/pg)
Ronin Arts - Modern: Madness - 11 pages - $2.25 ($0.20/pg)
Ronin Arts - DM's Idea Pipeline Oct04 - 12 pages - $3.00 ($0.25/pg)

TGM - Modern Players Companion - 37 pages - 8 classes, about 25 new feats - $6.60 (I got it for $5 before the price increase) ($0.17/pg)
TGM - Modern Players Companion 2 - 42 Pages - 13 classes, about 10 new feats - $6.60 ($0.15/pg)

Dog House Rules - Sidewinder Recoiled - 294 pages - 19 classes - $16.50 ($0.06/pg)

My 3.0 Players Handbook (I never switched), coming in at 286 pages, $19.95 ($0.07/pg)

At RPGobjects price, book would have been $28.60
At Adamant Entertainment price, book would have been $94.38
At LPJ Price, book would have been $82.94
At Ronin Arts price, book would have been $63.58
At TGM price, book would have been $46.24
At DHR price, book would have been $17.16

Publishers of longer products, on average, are much cheaper than those who are putting out products of less than 20 pages. Phil and Louis are pretty high up there on the content to price ratio.

Heap: I'm not after any 1 publisher. I think there are multiple publishers out there who are doing this, and I will paint in broad strokes. I had never seen compilations from phil till now, and searching thru his RPGNow store, I only see 3 in the first 2 pages of product listings. I'm not sure if he's part of this or not...he says he's releasing compilations in a timely manner, but I can't really find out exactly what day every one of his 200+ items comes out. Louis was on the list too, and still is. I'm not happy with his pricing model at all. That's why I came into this thread to discuss it with him. They've both been more than kind and I appreciate them for it.

 

[Man-thing]

My 3.0 Players Handbook (I never switched), coming in at 286 pages, $19.95 ($0.07/pg)

At Ronin Arts price, book would have been $63.58

Seems like a fine price to me. I had to buy the PHB twice, whereas my Ronin Arts is update for free and occassionally compiled; the PHB had tons of stuff I'll never use, whereas I can choose not to buy the current dozen for $1.35 and haven't found nearly the same amount of usable content in the PHB on a percentage basis with any the Ronin Arts release

btw Phillip: If you release your own OGL 286 page hardcover colour book, I' buy for $63.58.

 

[philreed]

At Ronin Arts price, book would have been $63.58

I don't understand this. If I'm following your math you're trying to determine what I would charge for a 286-page PDF?

Let's run some different numbers. The average WotC hardcover at 224 pages is $34.95. So that's -- to use your calculations -- $0.16/page. That means that if everyone used this number that same 286-page PHB would cost $45.75.

A WotC 32-page adventure costs $9.95. That's $0.31/page making the 286-page PHB cost $88.66.

Here's a secret: price per page fluctuates greatly as a product gets larger in size. Our Forbidden Arcana is 172-pages for $15.95. Using your math that would be $0.09/page making the 286-page PHB cost $25.74.

From what I can tell, you're not worried about anything but price per page. Anyone can run numbers but the numbers actually don't mean much.

 

[jezter6]

It's why I added info on number of classes, items, feats, or whatever was in the book as well....

And I know your price fluctuates, as I took a selection of your products...one of the dozens ones, a single starship, 101 treasures, etc...

And why CAN'T price per page be important? It shows how much content I'm getting, in pages of readable text, for each dollar I spend. I see it as perfectly fair. How is it not? The cost of PHB was thrown in just as an aside to compare. If you want me to take that down, I will...

What I am determining is, in comparison of 5 companies, what YOUR average price is. I took a larger sampling of your work because you have the most out there...not really perfect on math, but I feel it gives a more realistic average than only sampling 2 of your products.

I'm looking at content for the money. With other companies on that list, I'm getting from 6-10 classes, plus 20 feats, plus a bunch of other rules. Sure, I won't use all of it, but I doubt I'd use all 12 of the books in your 'Dozen' books either.

And Phil, I'm not singling you out...you happen to be replying the most.
I think we can see that the most outrageous of the sampled publishers is not you at all. In fact, you're smack dab in the middle. Do I still think you're products are too expensive for the amount of material contained in 1 piece? Absolutely. Is LPJ and Adamant overpriced? There's no question in my mind about that, the single class model is the one that drives me crazy the most.

 

[philreed]

And why CAN'T price per page be important? It shows how much content I'm getting, in pages of readable text, for each dollar I spend. I see it as perfectly fair. How is it not?

As has already been mentioned, if you don't need all of one product how is price per page important? Let me grab a book that's close by . . . okay, first one I grabbed is the D&D Miniatures Handbook. 192-pages for $29.95. Price per page is $0.16. But wait! Of these 192-pages only 72 are actually useful to me. Now we're at $0.42/page for content I find useful. And since it's all or nothing, I have to buy it all if I want any of it. If WotC had released it using my model, I could have bought only the sections I needed and ignored the rest.

Grabbing a second product, Tome of Horrors II, it's a higher-priced product but I actually get more use out of it. That means it was a better buy for my needs.

What, exactly, is your goal with this line of reasoning? Is it harming you if publishers offer products in the manner they feel best suited to them? If the customers disagree with the publishers, I suspect the customers will make that disagreement known by not buying the product(s) in question.

 

[C. Baize]

If the customers disagree with the publishers, I suspect the customers will make that disagreement known by not buying the product(s) in question.

Just to play Devil's Advocate...

Or they might, say... jump on the most widely read gaming forum on the 'net and express their disagreement there, as well.

A silent non-sale says nothing... Perhaps he feels it relevant to let you know WHY you're not getting the sale?

Valid... no?

 

[jezter6]

Since we're both going around in circles, and nobody is really going to change anyone's mind....we shall only agree to disagree.

I find this way of business to be of no value to the industry, and I'm not going to change my opinion any more than you are going to stop publishing short PDF's instead of full sized, economically priced books.

Thanks for at least having a debate without getting down to name calling and trolling. It's been fun, we should do it again sometime.

If you ever want to talk further about this, feel free to drop by the chat and have a go at me.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Don't take this the wrong way, but I think you could use a seminar or a class or two on microeconomics, economic theory, and small business economics.

Personally I don't think your desires map to a successful business model nor the desires of the PDF market base.

You're taking one aspect of the equation and making it stand in for everything else or, now, two. Price per page isn't the only consideration. Number of types of content is not the only consideration either. Neither are they together. In fact your two biggest arguing points can often be reversed to present equally desireable products: I.E. a product that focuses on only the thing the customer wants means they pay LESS. A product that contains fewer pages of fluff/art means the customer pays LESS.

With every book purchased there's a secondary Opportunity Cost of the items you CAN'T purchase because of purchasing that book. I.E. - I buy a 250 page book for 25 dollars, of which I only wanted three things but contains 25 I doubt I'll need. That 25 dollars is a flat cost that cannot be adjusted. Now say there are PDFs available of some of that content and some other content that I want. Each of them is 10 pages, each costs 2$.

Now, by your pure page/numbers count the PDFs are a far "worse" buy because the price per page has doubled. But, as far as opportunity cost goes, it's much more desireable for ME to pay TWICE the price-per-page in order to be able to buy all of the data that I want. If I buy the big book I've blown all of my money on only a few things I want, but because the PDFs have a lower absolute price I'm able to buy more unique chunks that I want.

I don't see how that's a BAD business model, it gives the customer what they want for the price they're willing to pay while at the same time reducing the opportunity cost associated with each product, allowing them to purchase more products that they want.

Now, not all of these products are up my alley. The single-class products are of no interest to me. But if they sell well, then they're of interest to somebody and it may be the case that those somebody's only wanted that particular class and were happy to pay X dollars for it so they would have money to spend on OTHER small products they were interested in.

--fje

 

[philreed]

A silent non-sale says nothing... Perhaps he feels it relevant to let you know WHY you're not getting the sale?

Valid... no?

Perfectly valid. For him (and others like him) we offer collections. You see, I try to fill the needs of both camps.

 

[lmpjr007]

I must say this in one of the most interesting posting I have read in a long time. For me it is very interesting to see how people think of our projects and pricing policies. I must say this has given me alot to think about.