Please stop paying full price for rulebooks.

[MeepoTheMighty]

I'm confused. I buy products at my FLGS, which also offers a fairly large discount on everything. Am I killing the industry?

 

[Monster Manuel]

The market for RPG books would not vanish if every single FLGS in the world were beamed up to Neptune tomorrow.

FLGS: I'm going Alone!

MM: Yes, but I'm going with you!

I think this is being blown way out of proportion. Boycotts won't work, because there are people like me who realize that roleplaying is one of the cheapest forms of entertainment around if you don't buy everything out there.

And no, buying from a discounter is not tantamount to genocide. Neither is one person's budget anyone's business but their own. I love games, but family comes first. Priorities don't need justification.

Hell, I'm a writer in this industry, so I have a vested interest in making *some money*. I would buy from an online discounter if I saw a really great deal.

Let's try to put this in perspective.

 

[Mark Chance]

Mark, I'm sure that you will do what you feel you are right to do. You don't need anyone else to tell you that.

About that you are right. I am most definitely stubborn. I get it from my daughter.

I've even tried to offer a olive branch, but you don't seem to have a sense of humor about this and as far as I'm concerned we're not going to see eye to eye.

I also have a very well-developed sense of humor. For example, I've been laughing every time I respond to a message in this thread.

I think that you take your finacial ability and budgetary concerns to be far more extreme than it really is and I have pointed pointed that out and the reasons why.

And you're perfectly free to think that. But that doesn't make you right. Could I restructure my budget to allow me to pay full price for books? Sure. I could quit teaching this year, go back to consulting, and get an automatic $10K pay raise as well. I could win the lottery. I could start knocking over liquor stores. Any number of things both mundane and wild could happen.

But, as I've already pointed out, counterfactuals are always true because the premises they are built on are false.

All that said, there is no need to change my budget because there is nothing wrong with my budget, my budgetary priorities, or me buying books online at a discount.

I don't think that you are liar, or arrogant. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that you are probibly a good guy.

Why thank you. Honestly. I even believed you the first time, but I sometimes cannot resist jerking a chain.

Catch up with me at GenCon and I will buy you a beer, or any other tasty beverage of your choice, I promise.

Now if I can't afford cover price for books, what makes you think I can afford to attend GenCon?

But, just for the sake of camraderie, my tasty beverage of choice is Glenlivet, straight up.

And, yes, I have to save up from month to month for my whiskey budget as well.

 

[EricNoah]

Ah....

*sways back and forth with Cyndi Lauper on one side and Ray Charles on the other*

"We are the world ...."

Glad to see this come to some kind of resolution.

 

[Mark Chance]

Hrm... I can afford a lot of things I can't afford according to that logic. Mark, I'm sympathetic to you. Not everyone here thinks your an evil, industry-destroying madman.

Why thank you. I am not fit to loose the straps of the sandals on your feet.

But, to be fair, at least one of the listed labels is often not too far off the mark.

 

[Numion]

If there is demand for the books, someone will supply them.

Amen.

If the on-line stores went belly-up after they've killed the small stores, then there's the niche for the small stores again, eh?

 

[barsoomcore]

Go get 'em, Mark!

*looks around at the smoking ruins*

Sorry I missed all the fun. If I'd known it had gotten THIS exciting in here, I'd've pulled on my Big Stomping Boots and joined in. Not that you needed any help in the Stomping department, it looks like.

 

[Vaxalon]

If there is demand for the books, someone will supply them.

Not if the demand isn't strong enough at levels that are above the profitability mark.

Eventually, the monetary rewards drop to the point that the quality has to suffer to keep providing the book. Considering that the market already has products (PDF) that have NO physical existence aside from a pattern of electrons, I don't think there's any room to move in that direction before people just stop making them.

This kind of boycott works when the market is really cheating people. It doesn't work when they're producing quality products at a reasonable price.

Noone's getting rich here!

 

[Vaxalon]

If the on-line stores went belly-up after they've killed the small stores, then there's the niche for the small stores again, eh?

Yep, the niche is back, but in the meantime half the gamers have stopped playing because the production chain is empty and there's nothing to buy.

And everyone suffers.

 

[Mark Chance]

Speaking of PDFs, since so many people are so gung ho about supporting the gaming market (and sincere kudos to all of you), I just know that many, many folks are going to rush right over to RPGNow.Com and buy at least one copy of my d20 System fantasy PDF module, The Office & Affairs of Love.

The relevant link magically appears at the end of each one of my messages.