Midnight 2.0 PDF on sale now...for $50!!!!

[Turjan]

Correct. It's incorrect to think that "making that pdf took no work." It took just as much work as making the book! You can argue distribution methods and functionality all you like, but saying it takes no effort to create an RPG pdf isn't logical.

Well, if this isn't dodging the original question . Of course, there are the costs for writing the book and the artwork for the pdf, too. How much is this of the final price of a print book? 10%? 20%? Then you have the percentage of your price that the online vendor gets. And that's it. No printing costs. No transport costs. No distributor costs. No share for the brick and mortar or online shop owner.

That's btw why I listed the Malhavoc numbers up there. I strongly assume that their profit margins are roughly the same for the print products and their pdf products; everything else wouldn't make sense. And if I then take Iron Heroes as basis (because that one's not sale priced), we come up with somewhat less than 37% of the MSRP as realistic pricing. Taking 98% of the MSRP, like FFG, is just vastly increasing their own profit margins (it's a 'market' without competition, after all). The fact that you get the print book, including shipping, for exactly two thirds of the pdf price, although you have all the production and transport costs with the print product in addition to what the pdf costs, illustrates this very nicely. Talking about the additional costs in pdf's in this regard is something like a bad joke.

 

[eyebeams]

I don't suppose that, in everyone's rush to be scandalized, anybody's asked whether or not this is a mistake?

DTRPG had the same problem with A Game of Thrones. Until they finish putting the .pdf price into the system the MSRP is used as a placeholder.

 

[d20Dwarf]

Well, if this isn't dodging the original question . Of course, there are the costs for writing the book and the artwork for the pdf, too. How much is this of the final price of a print book? 10%? 20%? Then you have the percentage of your price that the online vendor gets. And that's it. No printing costs. No transport costs. No distributor costs. No share for the brick and mortar or online shop owner.

That's btw why I listed the Malhavoc numbers up there. I strongly assume that their profit margins are roughly the same for the print products and their pdf products; everything else wouldn't make sense. And if I then take Iron Heroes as basis (because that one's not sale priced), we come up with somewhat less than 37% of the MSRP as realistic pricing. Taking 98% of the MSRP, like FFG, is just vastly increasing their own profit margins (it's a 'market' without competition, after all). The fact that you get the print book, including shipping, for exactly two thirds of the pdf price, although you have all the production and transport costs with the print product in addition to what the pdf costs, illustrates this very nicely. Talking about the additional costs in pdf's in this regard is something like a bad joke.

To directly answer the original question then, I don't understand why anyone believes a company should charge less for a pdf than for a print book. Maybe companies should start arguing the benefits of pdfs in saving space and weight for the consumer. You don't need to put it on your shelf! Fits easily on your hard drive for easy moving! Seriously...you *like* lower prices, so you hold up a company that offers you lower prices as an exemplar. The truth of the matter is that the pdf market is a complete mystery even to the people selling them, and to large companies that don't derive a significant portion of their revenues from pdf sales, any effort in that arena should be undertaken with caution and with a mind that affecting paper sales in any way is a bad thing.

Companies exist to make money.
Consumers want cheap products.
Tension.
News at 11.

 

[Turjan]

To directly answer the original question then, I don't understand why anyone believes a company should charge less for a pdf than for a print book.

I think I made that pretty clear: because they only have a fraction of the costs. By taking the same price for the pdf, they are abusing a monopoly situation.

Companies exist to make money.
Consumers want cheap products.
Tension.
News at 11.

Obviously, they don't want to make money with pdf's in this case . At least not more money than with a few desperate people overseas.

 

[philreed]

The truth of the matter is that the pdf market is a complete mystery even to the people selling them,

AMEN!

 

[reveal]

To directly answer the original question then, I don't understand why anyone believes a company should charge less for a pdf than for a print book.

Actually, my question was how much it costs, on average, for a company to print hardcover copies of their books and distribute them and how much does that add to the final cost of the book.

I'm in no way implying that PDFs should be cheaper than hardcovers nor am I implying that there is "no work" involved in making the PDF. What I'm trying to figure out is if, say, a company adds 20% to the MSRP based upon shipping and distribution for the hardcover, why do they add the same 20% to distribution of the PDF?

But, as you said, it's a mystery to a lot of companies. Perhaps, in this case, FFG is "testing the waters" to see what kind of a response they get and, if it does well, they'll lower the price on this and/or future PDFs.

 

[Thanee]

$50 for a PDF... Yeah, right!

$5 ok, $10 still ok, $20 maybe, if you don't have the book. But $F-I-F-T-Y ?!?

At least it will be easy to track down the pirate who puts it on p2p... that's one of the three who bought it.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

I guess that's one way to fight piracy. Price the book so high that not a single person will buy it. That way, there isn't anyone to actually put it on the net.

Until someone scans it themselves...

I posted this same thing on AtS' board:

FFG, and every other publisher, has two choices: They can make the PDF available for a reasonable price, and make a few bucks, or they can set back and watch it get downloaded for free. They stand to make money one way, but not the other.
Either they can create the PDF, or wait for a pirate to scan it himself and disperse it to the masses.

I'd much rather pay $5.00-$10.00 for a sharp high resolution PDF from FFG, and have the satisfaction of knowing that my money is going to a company I like. However, with a $50 price tag, I can live with a lesser quality version for free, obtained from a "questionable" source.

And, having already paid $50 for the print book, I don't feel the least bit guilty. I could scan it myself, but I don't have the time or equipment. If another person is willing to do the work for me, great.
I am, however, a little sad that FFG didn't give me the oportunity to pay a REASONABLE price for it.

Now, all that said, I say these things knowing a copy of the book is sitting on my game table as I type this. I wouldn't download it if I didn't already own it. Support FFG folks, that's the only way we'll get more product, and they deserve it for the awesome job they've done.

 

[Buttercup]

Shouldn't we be more concerned that FFG raised the price of the second edition by $15 over the first edition? That's just insane. Did costs really rise that much in the two years between 1st and 2nd edition?

Yes, they did rise that much. For small print runs (and any RPG book other than the three core WotC books is considered a small print run) the costs are astronomical. Paper and ink are pricey, and if you are using full color, then the cost has really gone sky-high.

 

[Turjan]

Yes, they did rise that much.

Although the prices generally rose, this statement isn't correct as written. In this case the reason lies also in the fact that the new book claims to be more than 40,000 words longer, how ever this translates into additional pages.

EDIT: Reveal cleared that up, thanks . It's up to 400 pages from the 256 pages of the 1st edition.