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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alphastream" data-source="post: 7808444" data-attributes="member: 11365">I wrote about <a href="http://alphastream.org/index.php/2017/11/21/what-is-an-adventure-worth-part-2/" target="_blank">the cost of the D&D Tomb of Annihilation hardback here</a>. When I polled people, the $49.95 price was deemed too high by 36% of respondents. That $50 book ended up costing each of us a total of 3 cents an hour! RPGs are stupidly cheap. Sure, many of us have or have had problems affording material. Life on a budget is hard, always. But, there is a ton of free and low-priced material out there for every game, including Numenera. For all that we claim to be huge RPG fans, we spend more on snacks than on RPGs. Meanwhile, every famous creator ends up with a GoFundMe for their health and insurance plan. RPGs should cost a lot more. The idea of raising the cost and selling to the group is excellent. We need more ideas like that. MCG is one of the few small companies providing decent salaries and benefits. We've seen a few companies, such as Matt Colville's MCDM, start to offer better word rates for authors, but most of the industry still offers a wage that isn't close to livable. Our industry, to survive, must take care of its creators.Part of the problem is the lack of education. Most fans don't understand the low profit a company receives, even from regular distribution. They think WotC sells a $50 book and keeps $40. The gaming store keeps $25, the distribution company keeps $12.50, and WotC gets $12.50 with which to cover all of its costs. Take a look at the amount of art, each of which is more than $100. Take a look at the layout, the editing, the multiple writers and developers and other staff. Those are expensive books. Then look at the Amazon price and redo the math on how bad that is for any company. For many companies, an Amazon sale is more like advertising, because they don't make any real money on the sale. For a small company, even selling direct can be difficult for a small product with a decent $200 cover image (it can easily cost much more for a cover). If the budget overall were $500, and the product price is $2, just breaking even is hard... selling direct. Sell through a place like DriveThru and a $2 price likely never gets you there. This is a brutal industry and prices need to come up. $2 for a 4-6 hour experience for 4-6 people is untenable.</blockquote>

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