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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RyanD" data-source="post: 169359" data-attributes="member: 3312">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.</blockquote>

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