JohnNephew said:
Just to clarify -- the copies of Touched by the Gods that we are selling at $12 are not water-damaged. Rather, they are what you might call "shopworn" -- the glossy finish on the cover is a bit scuffed, the corners might be slightly dinged or crushed. Basically, it's like buying a slightly used copy. (They are mostly returns from the book trade.)
In the two months we've been running the deal, which is described on the front page of our website, we've had a total of THREE mail order sales so far.
Perhaps people are fearful that the merchandise will be horribly unusable. Well, maybe. But as I said in the other thread, I've seen much the same phenomenon at game conventions. Most gamers who are willing to spend money at all are not extremely price sensistive. The gamers who are extremely price sensitive are generally not profitable to sell to -- even when you offer them goods below manufacturing cost, it does not reliably induce them to purchase. And trying to appeal to them on the basis of price is, for the publisher, financial suicide.
Perhaps people just don't know about it? I frequent RPGNet, The Forge, and EnWorld, and occassionally other RPG websites, but i almost never visit publisher websites, even for Atlas, which is probably my favorite RPG company--i pretty much buy everything non-D20 you publish, and some of the D20 System stuff, too. I just couldn't even begin to follow the website of every publisher whose products i keep up on, plus i'd never hear about companies i don't already know about that way, so i rely on clearinghouse-sites like the above to try and keep up on th RPG world. Maybe you advertised this, and i just never noticed it, but i'm headed over there right now to pick up a copy.
To answer the question: i'm highly price sensitive. It's just that most RPGs aren't anywhere near my price threshholds. The major exception is crunch-heavy stuff, such as D20 System or HERO. So, at list price, i've hemmed and hawed over Touched by the Gods (and Nyambe) for years now, but never quite justified buying it. But at $15 (guesstimating shipping), i'll grab it. For something that i really think i'll get a ton of use out of, $40 might not be an issue. I'm probably gonna grab the new TV-show RPG next time i get to the store, it's $30-40 (i forget), i've never heard of it or the company or the authors, and know only what i gleaned from flipping through it for 5min. But it seems worth the price. Conversely, the Babylon 5 RPG seems really awesome, but i balk at the $45 pricetag (which is particularly wierd since i'm a *huge* B5 fan), so i haven't actually bought it yet. I'll snatch it up the minute i see it used, and maybe get it discounted before then. Or, another example, I passed on Metabarons several times, including once when i went into the FLGS with money burning a hole in my pocket, and it was the only thing currently in stock that i wanted. Then snatched it up at half price later at another location. And, as much as i love Nobilis, if it'd been $80, i'd probably have passed on it (though i'm contemplating an $80 book just for gaming research right now, so...). At $60, i would've thought about it for a while. At $45, i just walked in and bought it. I'm particularly price sensitive for new editions. W:tA is probably one of my top-five RPGs of all time, but i didn't buy the 2nd ed core book until i found a beat-up used copy for $5. Oh, and i'm probably a big spender when it comes to RPGs. Last time i checked i was spending over $1000/yr on them (or, IOW, pretty much all of my disposable income).
But, then again, i'm also aware of the bind the publisher is in (which John mentions above). So, frex, i always buy my Ars Magica stuff new, at full price, from the FLGS. I want Ars to be profitable for both the publisher and the FLGS, so that it continues to exist and be stocked. And i trust Atlas not to gouge on the prices, so i'll simply pay whatever price they sell the books for. I don't even bother looking at the price tag on Ars stuff until i've decided i want it (at which point, the only question is if i'm buying it now or later). Whereas, for lots of other game lines, i weigh the price and the content, and may decide not to buy something i think i'd really enjoy or find useful, because it's too expensive. On the flipside, i'll gamble if something is cheap--i bought several titles from the EnWorld/RPGNow sale a few months back, because, at $1/ea, even if i decided i'd totally wasted my money, it wasn't much money. Oh, and despite reading reviews, looking at excerpts, and only buying things that are a good match for my interests, i probably only had about 75% success rate. Only one was a letdown, given that i paid $1. But only one of the dozen+ i bought would've been worth it to me if i'd had to pay full price, so i'm glad i bought them on sale.
Still, let me reinforce what John said: if someone is really in your market, they'll pay whatever they can afford. And if they really aren't you probably can't lower the price enough to entice them, and still cover your costs. At least, that's my experience.
