Mercurius
Legend
I started gaming back in the early 80s when a new AD&D hardcover book was a rare and wondrous thing. I remember rushing down to the local game store to pick up a new copy of Dragonlance Adventures or Manual of the Planes or Monster Manual 2. From 1977 to 1987 there were 11 unique hardbacks printed (13 if you include Dragonlance and Greyhawk Adventures), which is about one a year. 2nd edition, starting in 1989, wasn't much different, at least not until the mid-90s Skills & Powers phase (that was during one of my gaming hiatuses, and from what I've heard I didn't miss much, but I digress).
In 2000 came 3rd edition and with it a new golden age for D&D, after the dark ages of the late 90s. At first it seemed that the same trend would continue: a few hardbacks a year with a lot of softcover supplements. Then 3.5 came out in 2003 and what began was a flurry of tons of hardcovers over the next five years. I don't have a publishing history handy, but I read somewhere that during the entire 3rd edition phase--2000 to 2008--there were about 100 hardcovers published, which averages to about 12 a year!
4th edition has carried on this tradition of one hardback a month, for the most part. Occasionally they'll skip a month but then they might publish two in one month (I think a couple times three). But now we have Essentials coming and the core products are box sets and digest-sized softcover books. This got me wondering: Is the age of hardcover books ending? Or at least the age of hardcover gluttony? If so I think there is a very clear reason why: money, specifically the downturn in the economy.
I'm going to take myself as an example. I am a teacher at a private high school on a beginning salary and have little extra income. My wife and I budget ourselves $150 a month each in personal spending of which about a third goes to gaming products (for myself), sometimes more, sometimes less. When 4E first came out I made sure to buy every single hardcover. Then I started realizing that many of them I would briefly browse and then place on my shelf. There are a few D&D Insider accounts in my gaming group so almost everyone used Character Builder to make characters. I decided that I would no longer purchase the "Power" books and actually sold off the two that I had. Of the rest, there are books that I will automatically purchase like the campaign settings, but most everything else varies.
When I started investigating the Essentials line and it became of great interest to me, I pre-ordered pretty much everything in my Amazon Prime account. I barely hesitated, both because I am very interested in Essentials (and I can always cancel orders if I don't like the Red Box) but also because the price-point is less daunting, especially with Amazon prices.
Let's take Rules Compendium as an example. The Essentials version has an MSRP of $19.95, or $13.46 on Amazon. It is 320 pages and, I am guessing, doesn't have significantly less words-per-page than the hardcovers. Even if it has a quarter to a third less, we're talking about the equivalent of a 200-ish page hardcover for $20 (or less than $14). Compare that to the $30-35 (or $20-23) price-point of the hardcovers. It is about $10 less per book.
The digest-size seems particularly good for softcovers because they are less prone to tear and bend.My Volo's guides are in better shape than my 3E splats. And while I love hardcovers, I like the idea of them becoming special again--campaign guides, major core rules releases, maybe 4-6 a year rather than 10-12. It also just makes economic sense: Wizards of the Coast may actually make more money selling cheaper books because the profit margin probably isn't all that different per book.
We don't know if this trend will continue with D&D--my guess is WotC doesn't know either, but they're trying it out. If it works for them I would think we might see this with other companies.
What do you think?
In 2000 came 3rd edition and with it a new golden age for D&D, after the dark ages of the late 90s. At first it seemed that the same trend would continue: a few hardbacks a year with a lot of softcover supplements. Then 3.5 came out in 2003 and what began was a flurry of tons of hardcovers over the next five years. I don't have a publishing history handy, but I read somewhere that during the entire 3rd edition phase--2000 to 2008--there were about 100 hardcovers published, which averages to about 12 a year!
4th edition has carried on this tradition of one hardback a month, for the most part. Occasionally they'll skip a month but then they might publish two in one month (I think a couple times three). But now we have Essentials coming and the core products are box sets and digest-sized softcover books. This got me wondering: Is the age of hardcover books ending? Or at least the age of hardcover gluttony? If so I think there is a very clear reason why: money, specifically the downturn in the economy.
I'm going to take myself as an example. I am a teacher at a private high school on a beginning salary and have little extra income. My wife and I budget ourselves $150 a month each in personal spending of which about a third goes to gaming products (for myself), sometimes more, sometimes less. When 4E first came out I made sure to buy every single hardcover. Then I started realizing that many of them I would briefly browse and then place on my shelf. There are a few D&D Insider accounts in my gaming group so almost everyone used Character Builder to make characters. I decided that I would no longer purchase the "Power" books and actually sold off the two that I had. Of the rest, there are books that I will automatically purchase like the campaign settings, but most everything else varies.
When I started investigating the Essentials line and it became of great interest to me, I pre-ordered pretty much everything in my Amazon Prime account. I barely hesitated, both because I am very interested in Essentials (and I can always cancel orders if I don't like the Red Box) but also because the price-point is less daunting, especially with Amazon prices.
Let's take Rules Compendium as an example. The Essentials version has an MSRP of $19.95, or $13.46 on Amazon. It is 320 pages and, I am guessing, doesn't have significantly less words-per-page than the hardcovers. Even if it has a quarter to a third less, we're talking about the equivalent of a 200-ish page hardcover for $20 (or less than $14). Compare that to the $30-35 (or $20-23) price-point of the hardcovers. It is about $10 less per book.
The digest-size seems particularly good for softcovers because they are less prone to tear and bend.My Volo's guides are in better shape than my 3E splats. And while I love hardcovers, I like the idea of them becoming special again--campaign guides, major core rules releases, maybe 4-6 a year rather than 10-12. It also just makes economic sense: Wizards of the Coast may actually make more money selling cheaper books because the profit margin probably isn't all that different per book.
We don't know if this trend will continue with D&D--my guess is WotC doesn't know either, but they're trying it out. If it works for them I would think we might see this with other companies.
What do you think?
