Game Pricing

[Numion]

Re: Re: buying from Amazon.com (And packing my bong)

Take another toke! I don't consider my Income to be quite as disposible as you do. I have a wife and children,and the rest that goes with that! To pay to much (willingly) for something is stupid. Not noble. And to punish players of these games just to "hurt" the collectors is irresponsible and assinine! Who are you to judge why someone buys something! And why do you care! I tell you what, move out of your parents basement.Get a job, some bills, some responsiblities. And I know for a fact your tune will change!

No need to get angry... nobody forced you to get married and have kids.

I don't live in my parents basement or any other room, and I still can't get my mind around the idea that all things considered

RPGing is a cheap hobby!

I mean, I could easily spend more money on a single one week skiing trip to the north, than I spend on RPG material during the whole year! And, for example, for $/hour RttToEE is the cheapest form entertainment I know. Brobably even cheaper than making children

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

Pay for authors

Does no company/publisher add "commission" to an author's salary? If Monte, Skip, and Jonathan each had 50 cents for every DMG, PHB, and MM sold....

OK, not the best example since it's a WotC product.

But any "commission" or royalty--however small--would be a nice bonus for authors. And the "reward" scales up with sales.

Maybe companies already do this. I know one GURPS author, and every time I tell him I'm buying one of his books, he tells me he'll buy another french fry with the royalty.

 

[R.X.DIEM]

Re: Re: Re: buying from Amazon.com (And packing my bong)

No need to get angry... nobody forced you to get married and have kids.

I don't live in my parents basement or any other room, and I still can't get my mind around the idea that all things considered

RPGing is a cheap hobby!
I mean, I could easily spend more money on a single one week skiing trip to the north, than I spend on RPG material during the whole year! And, for example, for $/hour RttToEE is the cheapest form entertainment I know. Brobably even cheaper than making children

If RPGs were as cheap as you say it is then why is there so much debate about it! And far more importantly, children are not a hobby! They are a wonder and a blessing! And no I don't believe that you don't live in you parents basement!!!

 

[drothgery]

Re: Re: buying from Amazon.com (And packing my bong)

Take another toke! I don't consider my Income to be quite as disposible as you do. I have a wife and children,and the rest that goes with that! To pay to much (willingly) for something is stupid. Not noble. And to punish players of these games just to "hurt" the collectors is irresponsible and assinine! Who are you to judge why someone buys something! And why do you care! I tell you what, move out of your parents basement.Get a job, some bills, some responsiblities. And I know for a fact your tune will change!

I'm not the guy you're responding to, but I'd certainly pay as much for a good, complete, full-color hardcover tabletop RPG product as I did for say, Final Fantasy X, which provides about as much entertainment value for me.

Yes, this might well be because I can afford to spend that much money. But that doesn't mean I'm still mooching off my parents or something like that; it means I'm single and have a fairly good job.

 

[King_Stannis]

I don't know what you're referring to. I certainly don't think anything is broken - I think things are better today than they've been in 15 years in terms of the health of the RPG market.

That doesn't mean that things can't continue to improve. One of those improvements would relate to publishers charging more money for products that deserve higher prices, and another would be creating a whole new range of top-shelf products that can command higher prices than we've ever seen before.

Even if those two things happen, there will still be relatively inexpensive products on the market. Nobody is advocating that only high priced items get created - we're arguing that it's a mistake to continue pursuing a low-cost strategy that doesn't work as intended....


Ryan

of all of your posts on this subject, this is probably your clearest - and best. i can kind of see what you are saying, and i'll also say that there is nothing holding these companies back....except, perhaps, the suspicion that creating top shelf items at high prices might backfire. in the rpg industry, it might only take one failure to put a small company under. so perhaps, a company thinks that it is better to charge a little lower price and get a known (albeit smaller) return on the product than risk utter failure and no return - and ruin. in other words, they live to fight another day. still poor, but still in business.

i also have another question. do you think that WotC "set the bar", so to speak, with the low prices for the core rulebooks? do you think companies used them as a measuring stick in some way in pricing their own products over the last year or so.

 

[R.X.DIEM]

RPGs of the Rich and Famous

I don't know what you're referring to. I certainly don't think anything is broken - I think things are better today than they've been in 15 years in terms of the health of the RPG market.

That doesn't mean that things can't continue to improve. One of those improvements would relate to publishers charging more money for products that deserve higher prices, and another would be creating a whole new range of top-shelf products that can command higher prices than we've ever seen before.

Even if those two things happen, there will still be relatively inexpensive products on the market. Nobody is advocating that only high priced items get created - we're arguing that it's a mistake to continue pursuing a low-cost strategy that doesn't work as intended.

I'm advocating is the position that lower prices don't increase sales - there's no relationship between product price and sales within a quite large band of potential SRPs; thus, publishers should price at the high end, not the low end, of that band. A publisher would sell just as many units at $15 as they would at $12, so they should charge $15 and either increase product quality or increase profitability - but not charging $15 isn't earning them any benefit.


Ryan

And what part of HOLLYWOOD are from! Gaming merchandise for the Rich and Famous! Have you not Followed the resent story line here over the past few weeks? Many people ARE discouraged about the high price of MANY RPG products. What the heck does top-shelf products mean? Shouldn't all of you publishers put out TOP-SHELF products to begin with! Are you holding back the good stuff for only those who can afford it!! You are an ELITIST!! You have proven that soundly! When is the last you bought a RPG retail? I believe that you also live in your parents basement!! Oh, almost forgot.....Champagne wishes and caviar dreams....

 

[Crothian]

There is still one company that seels things cheap. 350+ pg books for 25$, and 120pg books for 8$. It's like I said above, their page count is higher then three other books, but any two of those smaller books costs about 10$ more. And how do I reward this company? I own every book they have every put out. Sure it helps that they are socialible and nice people. Sure it helps that I have never been treated anything short of nice by them. And it helps that their quality of books is high.

Again, we have someone in the industry defending the prices. It's like Office Space when they are called in to defend their jobs. Who isn't going to do their best to make sure they have a job tommorrow and the highest pay scale they can get?

 

[Arcane Runes Press]

Re: Re: Re: Re: buying from Amazon.com (And packing my bong)

If RPGs were as cheap as you say it is then why is there so much debate about it!

Because people like to bitch, no matter what the price of something is. If every book was 10$, there would be people who would complain that they weren't 9$. I used to work at a music store that sold CD and cassette singles, most with 2-3 songs for $1.99. Many kids who couldn't afford the full CD bought them, but others, even obviously well off adults, still bitched about the price. When we would cycle out the old singles (after about 1-2 months) for $.99, people would buy them literally by the handful, but there was STILL a small, but vocal, group of people that bitched about the price.

You can see it online. Malhavoc's Book of Eldritch Magic is 5$, hardly more than a Big Mac meal, but you can still find it on PtP, right alongside the "too expensive" FRCS. Obviously, there are people who aren't willing to part with their money no matter how inexpensive the product.

You can see it in other luxury industries too. People complain about movie ticket prices, but total box office goes up, up, up each year, despite the heavy competition of DVD and first run cable stations.

At the heart of it, there's simply no such thing as too expensive of a luxury item. Luxury items are, by their nature, unneccessary purchases at any price. There's such a thing as too expensive for you, but that is hardly the same thing. It is the right and responsibilty of each customer to determine for himself what his cost threshold is. The average consumer is not concerned with how much the majority will pay, only what HE will pay. In other words, the CONSUMER IS SELFISH. That is how he (or she) protects his own interests.

Meanwhile, the business MUST do the opposite. It MUST be concerned with the threshold of its chosen consumer base as a whole, not on a case by case basis. It is the right and responsibility of the business to charge the limit of what the majority of its chosen market will bear, while providing that market with a quality product. The business is not concerned with what you will pay, only what the MAJORITY will pay. In other words, the BUSINESS IS SELFISH. That is how it protects its own interests.

For example: my cable costs $39.99 a month, which is WAY TOO MUCH in my opinion, but I still pay the bill each month, since I love the History channel too much to let it go. At the same time, I refuse to pay $69.99 for digital cable, even though I desperately want many of the channels offered. 70$ is simply beyond my threshold. I am exercising my rights as a consumer by choosing not to pay what they want. IF digital was $49.99, I would part with the extra cash. As it stands, however, my cable company is never going to sell it for $49.99, since the base of customers willing to pay $69.99 is obviously large enough to justify the price. My cable company is exercising its rights as a company.

Now, if my cable company found that there was a huge base of consumers who would pay $49.99 for digital cable, they WOULD drop the price, but only if the sheer volume of customers made up for the 20$ drop. That's good business sense. If they dropped the price simply so that more people could have digital cable and took a big hit in profits because of it, that's bad business sense.

Whew! I think this might just be my longest post ever!

Patrick Y.

 

[Hard8Staff]

I *love* this thread.

(taking notes...)

Dave

 

[RyanD]

i also have another question. do you think that WotC "set the bar", so to speak, with the low prices for the core rulebooks? do you think companies used them as a measuring stick in some way in pricing their own products over the last year or so.

Yes and no.

I wrote an infamous article in another forum used by industry professionals where I indicated that we were going to "use price as a weapon" with the core 3e books.

WotC has leverage in this area that no other publisher does, due to the huge volumes of core 3e books, which can be an order of magnitude bigger than the next biggest release in any given year. That volume means we can get our cost of goods very low on a per-unit basis. As a result, from time to time, WotC can make what we consider an "acceptable" gross margin even at a lower than normal price. That makes it possible to pursue the 'price as a weapon' strategy - not always necesary, and not always worth doing - but possible.

I had three major concerns which I addressed with the price of the core books:

1) The first year of 3e sales was all about the network upgrade - getting existing players to switch from 1e and 2e to 3e. To do that, I wanted to get the "entry price" as low as we possibly could.

2) 3e is really a $60, not a $20 purchase, because esssentially all of the active players will likely buy three books, not one. At $60 for the "game" of 3e, the product is twice as expensive as its one-book competitors. Keeping the price per book low allowed us to stay as close as possible to the one-book games.

3) With the OGL, it was possible for a competitor to take the guts of 3e, rewrite the flavor text elements, and publish a competitive PHB. I wanted to make it essentially impossible (due to economies of scale) to do that. It just isn't possible for a small press publisher to sell you a 256 page, full color, hardback book for $20, and so nobody bothered to try.

By pricing the books at $20, we also discouraged anyone from "coming down" to meet us in the fantasy market. There were a lot (a surprisingly large number) of industry professionals who were convinced that 3e was doomed. It was possible that some of those people might decide to create a competitive fantasy RPG timed to release with 3e to "steal" customers based on the perceived "failings" of 3e. That $20 price point made it almost impossible to do so. (The only game that really tried was Shards of the Stone, which I don't believe even got shipped to retailers).

Furthermore, I've argued in the past that unlike all other RPGs (which are designed to be sold to people who already play RPGs), D&D really is an "entry level" RPG game. It is a well established strategy in pricing to give people a "positive shock" on price to trigger a buying response. Before a person is an RPG player, they are likely to be substantially far more price sensitive than they are after they fully understand the hobby and the value it delivers. That $20 price point creates "price shock" which can trigger impulse purchases with people who are mildly curious.

I think that at this point, most publishers have realized that they are not competing in the entry-level market, and shouldn't have entry-level prices on their core books. They're selling to committed RPG consumers. As a result, prices are strating to rise across the industry with no obvious decline in unit volumes.

On the other hand, people are always entering the market with little or no prior experience, and they may think that the $20 PHB is a "standard price" and try to sell their books based on that level (which most of them simply can't - the big factor in stopping any rush to create $20 core books). I suspect that the level of professionalism in the service component of gaming (sales agents, distributor reps, distributors and retailers) is now high enough to at least try to convince these people to price their products more reasonably.