Predictions of the d20/gaming Industry

[Psion]

*wagging my finger* not if we don't say so.

I just had this argument on RPGnet. Do we really need to go through this?

While I can appreciate what Ryan is saying -- dollars speak louder than words -- at the same time, unless all publishers get on board, competition is going to make any major upward price thrusts risky, especially when publishers are marketing product that fill the same niche. When there is a Seafarer's Handbook, Seas of Blood, and Broadsides on the shelf, if one of those raises their price, it makes the choice a bit easier.

 

[King_Stannis]

I just had this argument on RPGnet. Do we really need to go through this?

While I can appreciate what Ryan is saying -- dollars speak louder than words -- at the same time, unless all publishers get on board, competition is going to make any major upward price thrusts risky, especially when publishers are marketing product that fill the same niche. When there is a Seafarer's Handbook, Seas of Blood, and Broadsides on the shelf, if one of those raises their price, it makes the choice a bit easier.

that is what i meant when i said "not without us". as with everything, consumers will ultimately decide - with their pocketbook.

i don't deny ryan the right to raise prices - it is a free market, after all - but i'm a bit puzzled with who he is referring to. does he plan on unilaterally saying to all D20 companies "goose up your prices by $X from this date forward?

exactly who do you speak for, ryan?

 

[Psion]

Today, I see a $40 Star Wars, a $40 Wheel of Time, a $40 Call of Cthulhu, and a $40 FRCS. And all of those products have sold more units than budgeted.

Uh huh. And I didn't pick up WoT or CoC. And in the latter case, I was REALLY tempted. And while I was visiting waldenbooks, there was a sizable amount of unsold dark side and new republic sourcebooks nearby.

I think that a significant amount of grousing should be seen as a sign that someone isn't buying. Now whether or not the lost sales translate into lost revenue is a matter of economics and is a tale that will be told on some acountant's spreadsheet and not bickering on an internet forum. But whatever the case, I certainly wouldn't discount consumer grousing out of hand. Dismiss some consumer grousing, yes.

 

[King_Stannis]

John Wick.

did he stop? even if he did, i thought it was because he hated the whole D20 thing, anyway. sort of a "sour grapes".


and even with that, he's published two D20 adventures!


you wouldn't want to bet a cool $5 that mr. wick is done for good, would you, wolfspider? i'll take that bet in a texas minute.

and seeing as you seem to be siding with the publishers on this one, maybe you could explain to everyone how you, as a consumer, will benefit from higher prices for RPG material?

 

[Psion]

i don't deny ryan the right to raise prices - it is a free market, after all

Exactly. It's a free market. You say "not without us", but if they raise prices and you still buy, then you have essentially given them the nod. Grousing alone is meaningless. Unless you organize a boycott. And to be honest, I don't see THAT happening. Gamers are too spoiled. Fortunately for the consumers, I think the current market is competative enough (albeit owing in part to a small body of publishers) that I don't think competition is going to allow for too much of a bump.

But that's right now. In a year, who can say? D20 publishers may have worked out a more comfortable division of the market and prices will likely go up.

 

[Erik Mona]

>>>
*wagging my finger* not if we don't say so. look, you can charge whatever the hell you want - just don't be surprised if no one ponies up 25 bucks for a mediocre 32 page adventure! still, you're free to try. i think if you took a poll of consumers (you remember us, right?), you'd find that the price of RPG products is at a more or less acceptable level. some too high (like bastion press), others a bargain.
>>>

Obviously, crap companies that charge tall dollars for crap products are going to lose their shirts. Finding the right balance is the job of the publisher. I suspect we'll see some wildly overpriced material in early attempts to define the limits, but I certainly don't think, for instance, that $50 is an unreasonable price point for a very thick full-color hardcover with the quality of something like Oriental Adventures, Wheel of Time, or the FRCS. I think half that is too much to pay for the same book on worse paper with a bad cover and black and white art.

It's all about the value a publisher provides to a prospective customer. If the customer sees a book as worth $50, the publisher has guessed right. If not, he hasn't. Ultimately, you decide not to buy his product. If enough other gamers feel the same way you do, that publisher needs to lower his prices or find a new line of work.

--Erik

 

[RyanD]

very funny, you use a very free-market approach with the GDW example when it suits your case (i.e. raise prices till people stop buying), and then turn around 180 degrees and expect me to care that someone who is doing something they LOVE for a living isn't making as much as someone who isn't.

I'm not being hypocritical. I think that GW (GDW sadly went bankrupt in the early '90s, partially because they charged too little for their products) is using a logical test to determine the pricing of their products - the actual behavior of the market, not what the market says it will do.

I'm suggesting that your logic regarding the price of hobby gaming products is faulty and needs to be re-examined. I am suggesting that until you recognize that you are not being presented with the best quality work that you could be due to mistakes in pricing made by publishers you are not fairly considering the case to be made for raising those prices.

as far as talent drain, i don't think that's the case. name one premier RPG talent that walked away full time to pursue other things?

Greg Costikyan (who developed the "original" d6 system for West End, first in Ghostbusters, then hit commercial success with the original Star Wars roleplaying game.)

You can read about this superb "ex" designer on his web site (http://www.costik.com/)

 

[King_Stannis]

>>>
*wagging my finger* not if we don't say so. look, you can charge whatever the hell you want - just don't be surprised if no one ponies up 25 bucks for a mediocre 32 page adventure! still, you're free to try. i think if you took a poll of consumers (you remember us, right?), you'd find that the price of RPG products is at a more or less acceptable level. some too high (like bastion press), others a bargain.
>>>

Obviously, crap companies that charge tall dollars for crap products are going to lose their shirts. Finding the right balance is the job of the publisher. I suspect we'll see some wildly overpriced material in early attempts to define the limits, but I certainly don't think, for instance, that $50 is an unreasonable price point for a very thick full-color hardcover with the quality of something like Oriental Adventures, Wheel of Time, or the FRCS. I think half that is too much to pay for the same book on worse paper with a bad cover and black and white art.

It's all about the value a publisher provides to a prospective customer. If the customer sees a book as worth $50, the publisher has guessed right. If not, he hasn't. Ultimately, you decide not to buy his product. If enough other gamers feel the same way you do, that publisher needs to lower his prices or find a new line of work.

--Erik

a very sensible response. i will add, though, that paying $50 for the sourcebooks you mention puts them out of my range. perhaps if i had to buy ONE - a campaign sourcebook for $50, then fine. but that would rule out purchasing others for the same price "just to have", which a lot of gamers do. so i think you'd see people purchase sourcebooks - high quality ones - for that price, but i think for the average gamer, owning multiple ones - just for the hell of it - would drastically reduce.

raising prices on spec can be a dangerous proposition. it could backfire, big time. and don't underestimate the value of good will. look how many gamers tsr lost in the 1990's who are only now coming back. they put out some substandard crap at (relatively) high prices, and it put them in bankruptcy. they also didn't give a *bleep* about the average gamer, in many people's opinion.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

name one premier RPG talent that walked away full time to pursue other things?

Sandy Petersen. Wrote Call of Cthulhu, and left to work on Doom and Quake (and made big money doing it).

Larry DiTillio. Wrote Masks of Nyarlathotep, considered for many years (if not still) the best RPG adventure ever written. Was story editor (if I recall correctly) for Babylon 5.

Sorry. That was two, right off the top of my head.

 

[Monte At Home]

"name one premier RPG talent that walked away full time to pursue other things"

Colin McComb
Ray Vallese
Wolf Baur
Zeb Cook
Bruce Nesmith
Andria Heydey
Rob Bell
Aaron Allston
Allen Varney
Mike Pondsmith
Sandy Petersen
Ray Greer/Steve Petersen/George McDonald
Paul Jayquays
Kevin Barrett
Coleman Charlton
Pete Fenlon
Terry Amthor
Frank Chadwick

I could go on, but this is depressing me. And I haven't even put anyone on the list that used to work on product that move to higher paying jobs elsewhere in the same company or the industry, like Julia Martin, Miranda Horner, Cindi Rice, Keith Strohm, and so on.

Oh, sure, you'll see one or two of them pop up again for a product or something (Wolf Baur has a pretty cool d20 module out now), but they were all once full time rpg creators in some capacity, and now they are not.