Price-Sensitive Gamers

[Storminator]

Test yourself.

How many people own the $4.50 Green Ronin character sheets? It's a pretty spiffy sheet, but it comes in at nearly five bucks and others are free. If you have any, odds are you aren't very price sensitive.

PS

 

[Henry]

In any environment, when presented with two products of equally-perceived value, a consumer will naturally buy the cheaper one. In this case, if you found the creature collection good enough to buy in the first place, then you would have likely picked them up anyway. Obviously, you found them worth enough to want to own in the first place, or you would not have bought them.

Any item over USD $5.00 is not really considered an "impulse buy" - so unless you had a rather large amount of cash to burn at that time, you I am assuming had to think about it for at least a few seconds before taking them to the purchase counter. You mentioned Rokugan as being a good product - what is your opinion on the two creature collections? Most reviewers seem to enjoy the books as good sources of monsters droppable into most campaigns.

As for myself, if I find a product indispensible, or know it to have high praise from respected individuals, I will work to afford it even if its cost is higher than what I would normally pay. I perceived endless use out of the FRCS book - which is why I paid $40.00. I do not perceive good value (at best one-time value) out of Deities and Demigods, so I am asking to borrow it from a friend of mine who has it, to see if there is anything of renewable use in it, and therefore, perceived value.

I perceive value in the Neverwinter Nights game, and when it comes out, I plan to buy it unless its price exceeds $90.00. The use and re-use I intend to gain from the game will cause the game to pay for itself, once acquired.

In my opinion, for most consumers, if great value is perceived, and the funds are physically available, an item will be bought even if up to 40% to 50% higher in price than expected. Any higher than that, and the price is too high for the perceived value.

 

[Davelozzi]

i think the current pricing of products is right where it should be: most of us can afford most of what we want but secondary items are given careful consideration.

I agree.

 

[Zerovoid]

I think the original poster has raised a very good point here, and I agree with it. While I would definately pay top dollar for a quality rules supplement, I wouldn't buy a mediocre one at all. Having a poor product with unbalanced rules is in my mind worse than having only the core books. Players will always be trying to take the unbalanced feats and PrC's, and you'll have to personally review everything.

On the other hand, a non-rules supplement like the creature collection or an adventure module is different. These things are under the control of the DM, so they can't cause balance problems. If I could choose to buy two mediocre quality monster books, say 100 monsters each, 50 usable, versus a book with 100 monsters, 90 usable, I'd probably go with the cheaper ones. More monsters total, in this contrived example, and the rest are bound to have a few good ideas.

Adventure modules are similar. If I don't have time to prepare, even a mediocre adventure module is likely to be an improvement to the session, so if its cheap, why not buy it?

 

[Regdar]

Bah, it's in the contract

Bah, ale and whores gets expensive, Regdar prefers the bargains when Regdar can get them.

Price Gouging, to see how high you can sell a product = jerkwads (for the cussing sensitive) in Regdars opinion, and a good way to alienate your customers.

 

[AtFantasyReviewGuru]

I'm VERY price-sensitive . . . I have so little money (even LESS than I had in college . . . I'm still not sure how that's possible). I generally will flip through a book in the store, visiting several times for months, trying to gauge its relative value, if I've exhausted all avenues of getting it for free and I perceive it to be of use in my current campaign (stuff that would not be for the right levels, or would be useful in campaigns I'm not currently running, I have decided to wait until I know they are useful). If I think a product has more than 50% material for use in my campaign, I'll pay for regardless of price, but I have never paid more than $37.95 for anything RPG (that was the call of cthulhu (non-d20) rulebook), but that $37.95 was a one-time occurrence, and it happened when I had more money. For example, I didn't even consider buying any of the classbooks (except tome & blood, which in the end I decided not to buy)-they didn't seem like they had enough useful material in them.

An exception might be Ravenloft stuff, because currently I am running a Ravenloft campaign, but since 3e I have made the setting much more my own (didn't like what they did with classes in RL 3e) and even that I question. For example, I don't think I need Denizens of Darkness at present moment. I'm largely running 2e adventures and I can easily convert whatever creatures I need to. I will only get the Gazetteer if it details lands I'm planning on using sometime soon (which it does), but VRA I think will have enough general-use stuff.

Also it depends what TYPE of product - for example, I almost never use monsters so monster books I almost always pass. The only exception so far has been the MM. Adventures I already have way too many of, at least for now. Campaign settings I generally skip. I've already got more than I'll ever use. Most of what I want is stuff usable for PCs - I know I'll want to show it to my players as soon as possible, because it's much easier to put GM-only stuff in a campaign and pretend it's been there the whole time than PC stuff.

 

[Umbran]

If you start by selling the products at a higher price, 6 months later you have the option of discounting the item in a clearance sale.

There's a few weaknesses with this plan - mostly, they are based in the fact that gaming books arenot toasters, and gaming stores are not department stores.

First, the publisher, who conrtols the cover price, does not control clearance sales. If the publisher intentionally over-prices, but those sales don't happen, then he's shot himself in the foot.

Second, putting one gaming book on clearance does not say to us "Ooh, this book is cheap now". It says, "This book is not good enough to sell except on clearance," which is not a good sign, marketing-wise.

And, lastly, having to do a clearance sale to move items may be a standard in the department stores, but it isn't in small bookstores. It's a pain in the neck for a small retailer. I suspect that they'd not want to stock items they cannot move without a sale.

 

[Quickbeam]

I will buy the core rulebooks, modules and campaign setting material I find most useful or appealing, regardless of price -- relative to sane limits of course. However, I never, ever buy the class books, supplements, and other extraneous material because I don't find them to be intrinsically valuable or useful in my gaming. I bought both the Kingdoms of Kalamar Sourcebook and Player's Guide last week for almost $70 combined after tax. Then I donated $25 to EN World later that night. I'm not bragging about my expenditures, simply illustrating a point. Within 24 hours I spent nearly $100 on "gaming" but it had been months since my most recent purchase, because nothing appealed to me or seemed necessary. My average monthly outlay is probably no more than the cost of a nice module or class-specific supplement.

Compare this to some of my friends who buy darn near every D&D product distributed, but do so when the items are on sale or made available through special offers. These guys love everything RPG related, and feed their habit in the most affordable manner possible. They spend $15 every time they walk past a hobby shop it seems.

I will always be willing to pay a premium price for quality books and gaming supplies that are well-designed and interesting to me. I flat out won't buy the "extras" even when they're on sale, because I don't find these items appealing. YMMV.

 

[JohnNephew]

Someone else, a game publisher, pointed out that he wasn't selling many of his super-cheap water-damaged products off his company's web site.

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.

I'm pretty sure there is a price threshold where you can spur more sales of RPG items. Maybe it would be something like selling a 128 pp softcover for $5. The problem is, that threshold is below the cost of manufacturing for almost every game publisher. (The exception might be WotC -- e.g., the price on the D&D adventure game, made possible by the incredible print volumes they run. $10?! I looked at that in the store and felt like I'd have to check myself in to the psych ward if I DIDN'T buy it, even knowing that if I was patient I could get a copy free from friends at WotC.) And the weird way that price psychology works, if you can't charge less than $5, then it may make no real difference if you charge $20 or $30.

(Note: I don't know if $5 is the magic point.)

 

[Storminator]

Re: Re: Price-Sensitive Gamers

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.

<the rest SNIPPED>

I bought one based on hearing about it in the other thread, and I must say I couldn't be happier. When it arrived I read some and had it out on the table. My wife walked in, picked it up and looked it over and said "so what's wrong with it?" To which I had to reply "nothing."

While it wasn't in mint shape, it certainly looks fine.

And on a side note, it's a pretty bitchin' product. Quite looking forward to subjecting my PCs to cult after cult!

Thanks John!

PS