Is the Age of Hardcover Gluttony over?

[jimmifett]

Simple: Enough people are willing to pay more for hardbacks that publishers make more money on them.

In many cases, for small publishers, "make more money on them" actually means "make any money on them at all". (John Nephew of Atlas Games had a post on, IIRC, RPGNet about a decade ago that talked about this in specific budgetary terms.)

Because publishing a book in hardback often meant that a small publisher could afford to publish the book at all, a lot of small publishers moved to hardbacks.

How did this affect WotC? Well, in the early days of 3rd Edition they were getting out-competed in terms of perceived value. WotC released a bunch of softcover class supplements only to see other publishers releasing hardcover class supplements.

What happens next? 3.5 is launched 1-2 years earlier than originally planned, allowing WotC to reboot their supplement lines as hardbacks.

Fast-forward to 2010 and WotC's policies have essentially eliminated direct 3rd party competition for their books. And softcovers return. (At WotC's volumes, they can sell the softcovers at a lower price point and, hopefully, recoup the difference in higher sales.)

Of course, part of the reason the move to hardcovers was necessary in the first place is because RPG fans aren't willing to pay reasonable prices for RPG books. (With "reasonable" being defined here in terms of "a price at which the publishers can actually make a livable wage based on how much it costs to produce the book and how many copies it can sell".) This is particularly true with softcover books, which I'm guessing most people are expecting to pay around $20 for if they have a page count around 150-300 pages.

In other words, they want to pay the same price for a softcover RPG book that they were paying in 1990. Despite the fact that:

(1) Inflation alone means that a $20 book in 1990 should be retailing for $35 in 2010.

(2) Costs in the publishing industry have actually risen far faster than in the economy as a whole (largely due to the increased price of paper). (Which is why the average price of a paperback book has tripled in price over the past twenty years.)

(3) RPG books aren't selling anywhere near the same volume that they were selling in 1990 (which means that creative costs need to be amortized over fewer copies sold).

None of which is to say that people should pay more than they think the product is worth. But if you're still calibrating your expectations of what an RPG book "should" cost off 1990 (or even 2000) prices, then I'm afraid you're deluding yourself.

Economics really should be more than just a half year course in high school taken along side driver's ed... I'm constantly having to explain these principles to the wife when she thinks a company SHOULD do x when they only do y and it's not fair.

 

[Umbran]

(1) Inflation alone means that a $20 book in 1990 should be retailing for $35 in 2010.

That's a slight overstatement. Most of the calculators out there show $20 in 1990 being more like $32 in 2010.

(2) Costs in the publishing industry have actually risen far faster than in the economy as a whole (largely due to the increased price of paper). (Which is why the average price of a paperback book has tripled in price over the past twenty years.)

Again, an overstatement, but a rather major one. Standard mass market format paperback novels run about $8 or $9 today. They most assuredly didn't cost $3 in 1990. Trade paperbacks run at $15 today. They didn't cost $5 in 1990.

In one of the recent threads on this subject, I think it came out that the common wisdom about costs in paper rises was not longer true - paper costs rose through the 1970s and 80s and into the 1990s but that the prices of the paper itself had leveled out in more recent years. Costs of printing and binding had risen since then for other reasons.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

My copy of Unearthed Arcana had a screwed-up binding when I bought it new, but I glued it back then and it's been good for the 25 years since.

Maybe I've had good luck, but every paperback book I've ever bought for D&D has remained intact. It's only ever been hardbacks that have given me problems.

 

[Diamond Cross]

Well, my hardback AD&D books are still in very good shape, as well as my Palladium books that I've had for more than ten years.

However, I still have a dislike for buying over expensive hardback books.

 

[Umbran]

However, I still have a dislike for buying over expensive hardback books.

For a novel I'm likely to only read once, $30 for a hardcover is out of line, yes.

For an RPG book I'm likely to use for many hours of play, $30 may not be too far fetched.

 

[Retreater]

Hardcovers or paperbacks are about equal to me ... depending on the type of product. Generally speaking, for my preference, rulebooks should be hardcover and splats should be softcover.

There are exceptions. The Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition for a $10 digest sized entry into the system is awesome.

Retreater

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Challenge: Faih and Avatars. Have never seen a copy that saw use in a 6 month time frame that didn't fall apart.

Response: I own 2 that are still perfectly fine. Now, in all fairness, one didn't see much use because I bought it on sale, having forgotten that I already owned one...but you couldn't tell the difference between the 2 of them if I handed them to you. And yes, I did actually use F&A for my homebrews.

 

[BryonD]

Again, an overstatement, but a rather major one.

Actually, it is not.

Standard mass market format paperback novels run about $8 or $9 today. They most assuredly didn't cost $3 in 1990.

I've got quite a few mass market paperbacks from that time and $3.50 - $3.95 is right. Triple may not be right, but it is far from a "major" overstatement.

 

[billd91]

That's a slight overstatement. Most of the calculators out there show $20 in 1990 being more like $32 in 2010.

You're going to quibble over $3?

 

[pawsplay]

You can't quibble in here. This is the Quibble Room.