Please stop paying full price for rulebooks.

[Tsyr]

How many hours of entertainment have you gotten out of Dieties and Demigods? The arms and equipment guide? Or any other book produced by a 3rd party publisher that isn't a module?

How often do DMs allow all that d20 stuff in their games? How many of you have bought something only to have your DM say, "No, you can't use that."

Why did you buy dieties and demigods, or the arms and equipment guide, if they weren't things you were going to use? I bought the former... It was something I would get use out of. And I have. Plenty to justify having bought it. I didn't buy the latter, and am not going to, because it's nothing I want or need.

As for you buying a product and taking it to your DM, then him rejecting it... well, that's life. Really, when you come down to it, most of the products out there are aimed at DMs... for them to decide if they want to use them or not. For the record, though, most of my most-used products are third-party. Slaine, Soverign Stone, several of the Mongoose books, etc.

So what if companies go under because people refuse to pay full price for RPG books! Some will survive, some won't.

I don't want companies to go under! A lot of my favorite companies are the ones that barely get by as-is, not the mega-companies like Wizards of the Coast and White Wolf, which could ride out financial troubles. In other words, if gaming companies started to die, it would be the ones I cared about.

Those that survive will have developed a way to produce the product cheaper. Those that thrive will have it cheaper but at the same quality or even better.

Logic 101: If it costs a certain amount to make a product of a certain quality, and the company is already only getting a very tiny percentage of profit back from that product, to make them cheaper and still have a positive profit flow, they would have to lower the quality of the product. This isn't a thing you can change with passionate cries of how bad the prices are. Lemme give you a hint what they could do to make the product cheaper: No playtesting. No art. Not as good of editing. Lower quality paper. Lower quality bindings. Fewer authors working on the product.

Now, which of those sounds like "improvement" or even "keep the same" to you?

At this point--It's too big. And besides, say for instance, it does die, according to the 1st argument gamers will still be getting hours and hours of enternment out of their books.

The problem is the hobby would still die. It would just take a while. People leave our hobby all the time. What keeps it alive is a steady supply of new blood comming in... if companies stoped producing new books, the we wouldn't have the flow of people comming into our hobby.

 

[Xeriar]

This thread was inspired by me going to a local hobby store seeing $40 books and seeing $30 books that didn't have much content in them.

Noone here is asking you to buy the junk that most companies are putting out, but...

Then I go to amazon.com and despite 30% discount, the books are almost out of what I'm willing to pay.

Amazon isn't turning much in the way of profits. If people decide to support Amazon instead of their FLGS, then several things happen

1: The FLGS's fold, you can't tell me you read this site with any regularity and claim that this isn't -already- a serious issue.

2: Amazon itself folds (for a number of reasons - it didn't exactly come strong into this ailing economy, and books are luxury).

3: Several gaming companies fold because they cannot support the pricing model people are used to (at Amazon) for a year (when they forget about it).

"If you don't like the prices of rulebooks, then don't buy them!"

I won't, but perhaps I'll take a step further to ask others not to either.

And I will go a step further and ask others to ignore you.

Dude, seriously, we're talking about people's jobs here, are you a troll? It's like you're laughing at the layoffs WotC and others have gone through.

Makes you happy, huh?

 

[mistergone]

Also, I have no qualms about buying expensive books if they're worth it. Sometimes we take risks, but hey, that's the way it works. I'm buying BESM d20 Deluxe Edition only having a vague idea of knowing what usable material is in it (though it'd be REALLY nice to have a preview of it!). Why the deluxe version? I prefer color over black and white, and hardcover over softcover. Simple as that. To me, it's worth it. So while a 40 dollar book isn't worth the money to one person, to another it is.

Chris

Oh man... so, only the "deluxe version" is in full color? And only that version has a hard cover? That blows donkey! I can see a horrible trend happening in the industry now were if you want a nice looking book you have to pay an inflated price for the "deluxe" edition. I don't like it.

Boycott this if you're ever gonna boycott anything about rpg books!

 

[Mark Chance]

If people decide to support Amazon instead of their FLGS, then several things happen

1: The FLGS's fold, you can't tell me you read this site with any regularity and claim that this isn't -already- a serious issue.

2: Amazon itself folds (for a number of reasons - it didn't exactly come strong into this ailing economy, and books are luxury).

3: Several gaming companies fold because they cannot support the pricing model people are used to (at Amazon) for a year (when they forget about it).

I don't shop at Bob's Games and Comics because Bob's doesn't have the selections I want, marks up the items I want too high, and also has to tack on state sales tax, further increasing the price out of my limited entertainment budget range.

So I shop Amazon.

This causes Bob's to go out of business? Which in turn causes Amazon to fold (because game books are such a huge part of their business, I'm sure)?

I buy almost all of my books from Amazon or Barnes & Nobles. All of them, and I buy far more non-game books than I do game books.

If Bob's can't handle the competition, I'm sorry for Bob. But Bob doesn't have to put food on the table here in my house or pay my mortgage and student loans.

It's simple math: Pay $40+ for d20 CoC at Bob's or pay $19 and change for the same book from Amazon?

Sorry, Bob. Nothing personal, but you lost this round.

 

[Ulrick]

I'm not a troll. I'm serious. And I'm not laughing at layoffs.

Layoffs happen. Sad but true. And Businesses have been going under since the dawn of commerce.

I'm sure that people who get laid off from a dying gaming company will be all right. I have confidence that they'll figure something out. And, if they really like gaming and want to get paid for it, they'll use some brainstorming and figure out a way to do it.

Businesses that should go under are ones that jack up prices w/o good justification. They probably WILL go under because competition will find a way to make the product cheaper but of the same quality or even better.

 

[Angcuru]

I agree that RPG books are noticeably cheap when compared with regular bookstore paperbacks and (especially) harbacks, this seems to be because (according to SKR's page) the retail multiplier is lower, from x2 (for WotC) to x4, rather than the x6 of publisher's price I know is standard in UK book trade. On reflection I think we're getting a relatively good deal.

don't forget to factor in Improved Critical: Price Increase.

 

[Tsyr]

Businesses that should go under are ones that jack up prices w/o good justification. They probably WILL go under because competition will find a way to make the product cheaper but of the same quality or even better.

How about this: Since you keep throwing this phrase about, despite being told how miniscule the profit margins are for most RPG companies, and where most of the price increase lies anyhow, go out and find us an example of this. Include pricing data at each step of the process, and the final profit for the game company. Then we can debate this. Until then, you're basicly just shouting "PRICES ARE TO HIGH!"... which is a perfectly fine view to hold, but then you try to make it out as a Statement of Absolute Truth, which, IMO, it's not.

 

[Mark Chance]

Until then, you're basicly just shouting "PRICES ARE TO HIGH!"... which is a perfectly fine view to hold, but then you try to make it out as a Statement of Absolute Truth, which, IMO, it's not.

Quite right, Tsyr.

The claim "Prices are too high" really means "Prices are too high for me." Unlike some, I do not think that the fact that RPG book prices are generally too high for me indicates price-gouging or other unfair/unsavory business practices on the part of the publishers, distributors, and sellers.

I am currently paid several thousand dollars annually below scale for my profession (teaching) than I would be in the mainstream (meaning the public school system). That is my choice. I choose to be vastly underpaid because I do not want to have to deal with the hassles of teaching in a public school in Houston, Texas.

That choice having been made, I also choose to have a regimented monthly budget that allows me X number of dollars to spend on luxury items (like books, with "luxury" being defined "something I want but don't need").

Within my budget, I cannot afford to pay cover price for most books, especially not hardback RPG books (which do have a higher price than hardback nonfiction, my main focus when reading).

So, I buy all of my books at discount, usually from Amazon.

Apparently, according to some people, this makes me some sort of villain for I am not supporting my FLGS and therefore contributing to the financial ruin of the entire RPG industry.

When my FLGS can get me the same discounts I can find on line, I'll be more than happy to shop there instead. Until then, I guess I'm a villain.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Ulrick, since you seem to have missed it, I'll say it again.

Three to eight percent profit margin.

You don't have to like current prices. You don't have to buy books. But to claim that business in this industry are jacking up prices unfairly or gauging the customers is just laughable. Most RPG companies barely get by on what they're making now.

And no, they can't just "figure out" a way to make their products cheaper. Decent writers and artists can only work so cheaply before they simply can't afford to stay in the field. Even purchased in bulk, paper and printing costs can only be sliced so much.

Is every book out there worth the price? Certainly not. But for the most part, every RPG book out there from a reputable company is pretty much in the cheapest range it could possibly be without driving the company under--and that applies to the "good" and "bad" companies alike.

"Prices are too high for me" is a personal decision, and one you're welcome to make. "Prices are higher than they need to be" is, however, not a personal opinion; it's simply a false statement.

 

[Psion]

I am sort of a fence sitter on this one.

On one hand, I find the term "price gouging" is being thrown around a little lightly here. Raising gas prices to $5 a gallon during a price panic... that's gouging.

I have heard people acuse publishers of gouging for putting out a $45 book... neglecting to consider that these books in some cases cost less than 10 cents per page, which is VERY reasonable.

I do think that some publishers expect way too much for their wares. When a publisher is putting out 96 page books with big type for $25 when everyone else is putting 128+ page books with small type for the same price, you have to think that they are providing less value for the money.

Solution: if you think it's too expensive, don't pay for it. If you pay for it anyways, it obviously wasn't too expensive.

In the end, I think people (myself included) need to avoid products that are not useful to them and are not quality. That way, we weed out the publishers who are pricey and substandard. If you buy anything that comes down the pipe, then you deserve what you get.

That said, hearily support publishers that deliver good value and make products that work for your game.

It's really that simple. Don't be a compulsive buyers, and the prices should take care of themselves.