Game Pricing

[Ranger REG]

2) College textbooks are not leisure books. All of the books at a Barnes and Noble are leisure books. RPGs are leisure books. Hence why RPGs get "leisure book" prejudice instead of "this is a requirement so I can pass college" prejudice.

Yes, I attended college. Yes, I bought the books. But I still would balk at a $60 RPG book. Why? Leisure book prejudice.

Well, not all books sold at Barnes & Noble or Waldenbook are leisure books. They too sold reference books, even encyclopedia. In fact, I bought my Star Trek Encyclopedia hardcover for $50 back in 1996.

(Damn, I should be in charge of marketing for WotC...)

Hmm. I don't know. Bringing back the binder idea, after everyone still remember the Monstrous Compendium fiasco. Your name might be on the top of the list for layoff.

IMHO, the safest job security at Wizard ... sadly ... is editor. Kidding aside, I still pray that Wizards employ skilled proofreaders and editors. While it is a fact that some errata will slip by them, it shouldn't be the norm.

 

[drothgery]

I would contend that "college textbooks" are not the same medium as "mainstream books."

2) College textbooks are not leisure books. All of the books at a Barnes and Noble are leisure books. RPGs are leisure books. Hence why RPGs get "leisure book" prejudice instead of "this is a requirement so I can pass college" prejudice.

That's funny. At every B&N (and every other physical bookstore) I've ever been to, there are shelves of programming books where short paperbacks run at least $30, and rather large sections of other expensive reference books. Although I keep my programming books at the office, none were required for my job; I bought them because they cover topics in Computer Science that are interesting to me.

 

[War Golem]

I'd have to agree that college textbooks are not the best apples-to-apples comparison for RPG materials, for exactly the reason given - for the most part, I didn't have much choice in buying those books. They were required to pass the class, so I bought them. My experience with this was over 10 years ago, and even then the new textbooks were running $40-$100+; and used books were frequently not as cheap as you would have thought.

I think a better comparison when strolling through Barnes & Noble, Amazon, or any of the large booksellers, would be everything in the "Computers" aisle. A range of highly technical vs. more prose-oriented books, some with high end color graphics, some all black-and-white. There's all kinds there, and many are not geared towards the computer professional. And further, this, like RPGs, is a highly segmented market - everyone has their favorite graphics program, or programming language, or web editor, or server OS, or whatever... and usually doesn't spend a lot of time or money on the others. So you end up with a lot of niche products fighting it out for the $$ of a select few interested parties.

The average price ranges for the books in this section are significantly higher than for RPG products (and computer books are rarely hardback, at that).

 

[Hard8Staff]

On binders with laminated pages:

I think I can hazard a guess as to the expense of such a project since the HM GM Shield is laminated and 32 pages and required some assembly.

My guess is that a full-color 128 page binder product that was laminated, hole punched and shipped with dry-erase markers would run approximately $100-200 retail. Take out the color and you're still at the $75 dollar range.

Laminating is pricey, but the biggest cost is assembly.

If we take out the markers and eraser, drop to B&W, do not assembly (i.e., shrinkwrap the pages inside the binder for assembly by the consumer), we're probably down to under $50.

I was thinking about Reagon-era trickle-down economics and had another thought on increasing RPG revenue. Perhaps we're going about this all wrong. Rather than raise prices on the products, maybe we publishers should simply increase the amount of GPs given in our adventures, enriching the player's PCs. This would trickle to the PC, who'd tip the GM and...

 

[drnuncheon]

Because some people really can only afford to spend $10. I don't care how great a value something is, if you don't have the money, you don't have the money. Many people have to decide between gassing up the car and paying the electric bill this week instead of next. Some of the responses to this have been "then don't play RPGs if you don't have the money!" My response is: I hope you go through some hard economic times to give you some perspective. What, people of lower incomes should be frozen out of RPGs? A subtle example of the class system at work.

I have trouble accepting the idea that thinking games are a luxury item is somehow lacking in perspective. They are - it's a fact. Gaming is not a necessity, it's a leisure activity that one indulges in by choice.

I can't afford to own a horse, or a 50' sailboat, or a private plane. You should pity me and feel bad for me because I can't afford these things, and we should all get together and complain about how the plane manufacturers are pricing their products too high and alienating the "average flyer". What, people of lower incomes should be frozen out of riding, sailing, flying?

You call this "A subtle example of the class system at work." So what do you advocate? Government subsidized RPG purchases for low-income gamers (and riders, and pilots, and golfers, and...)? Come on.

J

 

[Ashtal]

Having been in hard economic times, and about to go through them again, I can honestly say that gaming money dried up and I did go without.

But, that's life.

Birthdays & Christmases filled my gaming needs as best as they could. And when I finally did have money - yowza, it was nice to be able to buy what I wanted. I hunted through used stores, swapped unwanted games for ones I did want from friends looking to unload. And with the Internet now ... yowza again. Lots of possibilities.

In the end, though, it is a luxury. And once you've grabbed one game, you can never really be frozen out of the hobby. The book is only the launching pad. The rest comes from your noggin.

No game company is beholden to produce a fabulous product for as cheap as they can to reach every gamer all the time. That's just not how economics works. Sometimes you earn more charging more but selling to fewer people - and I'd rather they do well and be able to keep in the business. You can't take that $40 price tag personally.


Ashtal

 

[Sigmund]

Just another opinion here....I agree with the mismatch of comparing rpg books with the captive consumers of college texts....and I also agree with the much more appropriate comparison of rpg books to computer books. I feel, however, that computer books are not the only, or perhaps the end of the comparison. Many non-fiction books can be compared to the format of rpg books and their prices compared. Strolling through my memories of my 3 years as an employee of the book dept. of Media Play, I can list gardening books, sports books, automotive books, photography books (by this I mean how-to guides, not books of photography), cookbooks, travel books, etc... Perhaps what would be most useful is finding a subject with a line of books that compares well in relation to size of consumer-base and book-format with rpgs and seeing how that subject's book industry fares price-wise and pay-wise (for the writers that is). Computer books might be higher priced because the publishers know in advance that computer professionals get paid more (just a guess...in reality I have no idea ).

 

[V-2]

Perhaps what would be most useful is finding a subject with a line of books that compares well in relation to size of consumer-base and book-format with rpgs and seeing how that subject's book industry fares price-wise and pay-wise (for the writers that is).

Martha Stewart.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I have trouble accepting the idea that thinking games are a luxury item is somehow lacking in perspective. They are - it's a fact. Gaming is not a necessity, it's a leisure activity that one indulges in by choice.

I can't afford to own a horse, or a 50' sailboat, or a private plane. You should pity me and feel bad for me because I can't afford these things, and we should all get together and complain about how the plane manufacturers are pricing their products too high and alienating the "average flyer". What, people of lower incomes should be frozen out of riding, sailing, flying?

You call this "A subtle example of the class system at work." So what do you advocate? Government subsidized RPG purchases for low-income gamers (and riders, and pilots, and golfers, and...)? Come on.

J

No, I'm not asking for subsidies. But it would be nice if gamers themselves (or, judging by threads like these, consumers in general) would quit trying to rationalize why it's good for prices to go up, and even encourage such a thing! Are consumers now so sheep-like that they not only accept and agree to being fleeced out of more money, but even try to make it easier for publishers/writers/designers/whoever to do so? This isn't being a smart consumer. Consumers will never win if they simply turn over and let merchants have their way with them. So, by the reasoning you present, should I care if Game Company X goes out of business, or game designer John Doe makes less than 20k per year? Should we subsidize them? I care from the basis of being a human being, but I don't see anyone rationalizing why I should make more money at my job; it would be nice, 'cause I could use the help. My pleas for more money fall on deaf ears.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Having been in hard economic times, and about to go through them again, I can honestly say that gaming money dried up and I did go without.

But, that's life.

Birthdays & Christmases filled my gaming needs as best as they could. And when I finally did have money - yowza, it was nice to be able to buy what I wanted. I hunted through used stores, swapped unwanted games for ones I did want from friends looking to unload. And with the Internet now ... yowza again. Lots of possibilities.

In the end, though, it is a luxury. And once you've grabbed one game, you can never really be frozen out of the hobby. The book is only the launching pad. The rest comes from your noggin.

No game company is beholden to produce a fabulous product for as cheap as they can to reach every gamer all the time. That's just not how economics works. Sometimes you earn more charging more but selling to fewer people - and I'd rather they do well and be able to keep in the business. You can't take that $40 price tag personally.


Ashtal

My point originally was that the whole "let them eat cake" attitude was awfully condescending.

No, game companies are not beholden to gamers; neither are gamers beholden to game companies. But sometimes it seems like it. Why is it OK for game companies and designers to say they can't make car payments or have to have jobs on the side, so they have to raise prices, but it's not OK for consumers to reply in kind, and say - I have just as many expenses; raise prices and you not only lose me as a customer, but you price some people out of the market? It seems just as insensitive to me to simply dismiss those who would drop away with price increases as it is to razz game designers who don't make a lot of money.

Y'know, a year or so ago I took 9 boxes full of RPG stuff to the local Goodwill. I could have sold the stuff on E-bay or taken it to a game shop, but I really love the hobby, and felt it would be cool for someone from a lower income level than myself to have a chance to get acquainted with the hobby, or to have the chance to increase their game collection. I may not be Mother Theresa, but I do try to put my money where my mouth is.