Please stop paying full price for rulebooks.

[Mark Chance]

B) If you don't want to pay full price because you can't afford to (or even don't want to), hey, great. But don't claim you're doing it because current prices are somehow jacked up or otherwise unfairly raised. RPG books, for the most part, cost what they need to cost, or even less.

In other words, I wasn't objecting to anything Mark is doing. I was objecting to the "call" for everyone to do so, when the reasons behind that call were blatantly misinformed.

Exactly. I have said several times that Ulrick's whining about price-gouging and cries for a boycott is ludicrous. I then explained why it is that I buy all of my books (not just game books) on-line.

And for this, I'm called a liar, told to get over myself, accused of having my head up my ass, implicated in the piracy of books, et cetera.

 

[Mark Chance]

Hang on. I can understand you saying that you don't have the money to buy rpg books at full price, but comics are expensive for the amount of reading they provide. How many do you buy?

I currently collect about a dozen monthly titles. I buy that at the FLGS because they do give me a small discount and because ordering via mail is a good way to ensure that they arrive in poor condition.

And comics, for me, are a good value entertainment dollar wise. I re-read them, use them for plot ideas, sometimes try my hand at comic book art using the characters as models, share them with my children, and have even used them in class with my students.

I think arwyn sums things up well:

Let me get this straight: you bozos are deriding Mark for how he spends his money? He's not even doing anything illegal, and is buying books from outlets selling their goods to consumers through legitimate avenues within the market - and a bunch of people are questioning his buying habits?

If nothing else, the self-righteous invective aimed at me proves it's much easier to be tolerant when you don't actually disagree with the people you tolerate.

 

[John Crichton]

This sounds like fun.....

But anyway, to those who are concerned with the possible death of the FLGS, it will or will not happen on an individual basis. The stores themselves and surrounding populations will determine their fate. But anywho, doesn't Mr. Chance buy comics at a FLGS? That's supporting them. And he's keeping his hobby costs down by purchasing RPG stuff online. I do something similar as do many other around here. Everyone gets a bit (online and offline).

 

[herald]

Mark, no one called you a liar. But I did think that you need to get over yourself.

My point was and still is that you overstate you finacial difficulies. As far as I know you are wonderful individual who could be the next Nobel Prize winner for just about anything under the sun.

Jeez, if I could buy you a beer, I would. Here, send me you address and I'll mail you one.

 

[Mark Chance]

Mark, no one called you a liar. But I did think that you need to get over yourself.

My point was and still is that you overstate you finacial difficulies.

So, I say one thing, but I'm not accurate (based on your uninformed opinion). In other words, I'm not telling it like it is. I'm lying. And on top of that, I'm arrogant to boot.

 

[Vaxalon]

Yeah, pretty much.

He's saying noone has a gun to your head about buying at a discount. Noone's forcing you. You have made a decision that the books are only worthwhile to you at price KX, and not at X. That's your decision to make.

K is the discount you want, X is the shelf price.

Then you tell us that the reason is that you only have (KXY) dollars for books, and that you want to buy Y books. What we're saying is that rather than solving the equation this way:

(KXY)/XY=K (the discount you demand)

You could solve it this way:

(KXY)/KX=Y (the number of books you can afford)

This proves that you COULD buy fewer books at a higher price. Since you say that you are FORCED to seek the discounts, you are being called a liar because that is patently untrue.

You'll notice that there are NO constants in these equations. I'm not making ANY conclusions about your finances, or how expensive the books are.

 

[herald]

Mark, you stated your money situation. And I made the counter arguement that you do have the capability to buy what you want. That's not uninformed, I was indeed making a point with the given information.

And once again, your putting words in my mouth, I never claimed that you were arrogant.

You do seem very interested in making this conversation about you though.

 

[herald]

Damn geeks.

MUWHAHAHAHA!!!

WOW, that's some pretty impresive recall to find that one. Funny, I like it.

 

[herald]

Damn geeks.

MUWHAHAHAHA!!!

WOW, that's some pretty impresive recall to find that one. Funny, I like it.

 

[Numion]

Quoted like someone who doesn't understand capatalism. There are plenty of cases where the government have stepped where businesses undercut smaller venders to corner the market.

Capitalism is not defined as "Survival of the fittist." Capitalism is predicated on the idea of a fair market economy. If someone manipulates the economy, it's not a level playing field.

The idea of gamers somehow being responsible for keeping up the FLGS is not from this world.

The idea of D&D vanishing if FLGS go bankrupt isn't a fact. It's pure speculation, designed to drive the FLGS' intrests. They would have us believe that their intrests are also our intrests, of course, but we can also choose to make our own conclusions.

FLGS don't create the market. Or if they do, it's WotC that should be making them profitable, not us. Individual consumers right, almost responsibility, is to seek the cheapest prices. Thats what drives companies to develope, and to offer the ever cheaper prices.