Price-Sensitive Gamers

[Kichwas]

Nonetheless, if there was a huge demand for savings of 30%+ (we now have some of those fire sale items available at 30% off through Warehouse 23)

Warehouse 23?

I would never have thought to look for d20 product at a GURPS store.

 

[JohnNephew]

Warehouse 23?

I would never have thought to look for d20 product at a GURPS store.

We have an arrangement with Warehouse 23 -- they do all our mail order. If you use the "Buy" buttons on our website, it loads the order into a shopping cart on Warehouse 23 in a new window.

It's important for us to have easy-access mail order on our website, for consumers who have trouble finding the book via FLGS or their favorite online retailer, but doing it properly is expensive and time-consuming, and frankly was not an effective use of our time (nor were we doing it especially well, since we never did get a shopping cart of our own up and running). Now W23 handles it for us; we ship big boxes to them, rather than little boxes to lots of people.

---

Back on price sensitivity: I heard an interesting comment on NPR today, on Talk of the Nation. An economist was studying how rational people were as buyers, in terms of determining value. The experiment was this: People were given a number, and were asked whether they would pay that amount of dollars for various items (a music CD, a computer game, a novel, whatever). The number they were given was determined by the last two digits of their social security number. Last two digits are 23? So the price comparison point is $23. 95? Then $95.

Then, people were asked to provide their own number -- what do you think Product X is worth? You aren't willing to pay $95 for CD; what WILL you pay?

And here's the interesting result: The people with higher numbers in the first part of the experiment offered consistently higher values for what they saw products as being worth in the second part. Someone who had -95 as their SSN last digits might say, "Well, maybe I'd pay $20 for a CD," while someone whose last digits were -22 might say "Hmm, CD? that's only worth $15."

The economist didn't offer the hypothesis that there is in fact an occult numerological relationship between SSN assignments and peoples' willingness to spend money, which immediately leapt to my mind . Of course the message is that people don't generally have an abstract sense of value; they rather perceive prices in relation to other prices in a range of what they expect to pay.

Hence, Ryan is spot on about the $5 range for the typical RPG product. What's more, WHERE that range falls is probably remarkably arbitrary. When I first visited game stores in Europe, I was amazed at how expensive the books were, or so they seemed to me. Yet European gamers were buying just as much as US gamers -- they pretty much just had a different expectation of what RPGs cost (one that included higher taxes and import expenses), and were still quite eager to buy books and be involved in the hobby.

When we published Touched by the Gods, I was astounded we could do that book as a hardcover and charge just $23.95; coming at it from the production cost side, I was thrilled to offer such production quality for what, to me, looked amazingly cheap. But a lot of gamers were comparing it to the Creature Collection (a thicker book, but also a book that was probably selling 4-5 times as many copies) or even the Player's Handbook and declaring that TBTG was clearly overpriced.

Twenty years ago, we were buying 112-128 page RPG hardcovers for the equivalent of $30+ today (adjusted for inflation), and not making a peep about it. Why? Well, that's what the rate was. There was no memory of the "good old days," when RPGs were only $2 or something. And, perhaps very importantly, there was not a generation of publishers whose idea of what pricing was acceptable was based on their own "sense of value," established years before. (It's hard, as a publisher, to charge $10 or even $12 for a 32 page module, as you should, when you have it set in your mind that those booklets are worth $5.95, since that's what you paid for them when you were a teen.)

 

[Voadam]

The economist didn't offer the hypothesis that there is in fact an occult numerological relationship between SSN assignments and peoples' willingness to spend money, which immediately leapt to my mind .

So that's how you find out somebody's true name in the modern world!

Damn, that means since I sent you my SSN as part of the contract working for the Penumbra Bestiary, you can summon and bind me at any time!

 

[Hatchling Dragon]

I used to be the type that bought whatever new book was out for my current favorite, but doing without disposable income for far too many months has made me a lot stingier with my cash.

Now I'm always finding myself asking: "Will I actualy get any use out of this?", and being honest in my answers (which ain't easy, I luv books) means I just don't buy much of anything anymore.

If I were to get into more groups that met on a regular basis I'm sure this would change slightly, but it wouldn't be a big change due to lack of money for such purchases.

Oh to be a teenager and living at home again, no bills meaning that all of my money is disposable income!

Hatchling Dragon

 

[Gary N. Mengle]

Personally, I like to support both the publishers of RPG products and the stores that sell them. I frankly dislike the "only buy at a discount" attitude - invariably such people tend to then complain because they don't like the way their game is supported. IMO you waive your right to bitch if you aren't supporting the industry. Vote with your dollars.

Which is not to say I spend frivolously. I pick and choose carefully, especially regarding d20 product, of which there is a great deal of dubious quality. Thus my D20 shelf remains under control (meaning that is is only one shelf.) Every so often I will purge the crap product that I've bought.

The fact of the matter is that $40 is the typical price for a hardcover core book today. If you want to be involved in the hobby, that's what you need to spend.

On the other hand, I think that the explosion of D20 product has taught a valuable lesson to a lot of people (myself included) who had trouble learning it before: you don't need everything. It is now impossible to buy, much less use everything, so almost no one tries. Instead people are picking and choosing what they buy and use, which is far more sensible.

 

[MThibault]

The economist didn't offer the hypothesis that there is in fact an occult numerological relationship between SSN assignments and peoples' willingness to spend money, which immediately leapt to my mind . Of course the message is that people don't generally have an abstract sense of value; they rather perceive prices in relation to other prices in a range of what they expect to pay.

This might be the reason why the mere existence of a higher-priced option significantly increases the sales of lower-priced options. It sets a higher frame of reference in which the lower-priced products can be judged to be "reasonably" priced or not.

Interestingly, it doesn't seem to me that anyone in this thread is setting hard lines on what they are willing to pay. My impression is that there are two camps: 1) Will buy what you think will scratch your itch and price isn't much of an issue, and 2) Will buy things on sale.

Now the second group looks like it is price sensitive, but perhaps it is *bargain* sensitive. No one has said, "I would buy it new if it the MSRP was $10 cheaper." They would probably still look for the bargains on Ebay or wherever, and try to get an extra few dollars off the MSRP. Those are two different decision making processes.

Price sensitive (for my purposes here) is having a hard price-threshold over which you will not purchase a product (with perhaps different thresholds for different types or sizes of products). Bargain sensitive is only being able to make the transaction if the price paid is lower than the initial price offered.

The first category of people are not the early adopters (Digital Video Cameras are still priced over the hard threshold) but once the regular price deflates then they will buy one if they feel a want or need for one. The second category of people are third wave purchasers who wait until the used equipment and in-store sales bring the price down an extra increment.

After a quick scan back on this thread I haven't seen anyone say: "I won't buy any product over $15". But I've seen lots of people say, "I wait until I can find it used or on sale."

Interesting. Do you think that this is an erroneous observation?

 

[Michael Tree]

Whether or not the price makes a difference in whether or not I buy a certain book depends a lot on how much I want the book.

When I really want a book I'll buy it regardless of the price, and if a book doesn't interest me, I won't buy it even if it's 50%+ off.

However, when I'm on the wall about a book, the price can make a difference. I was a bit leery of buying Mutants and Masterminds at full price, as I don't expect that I'll use it any time soon, but when I saw it on buy.com at 30% off I ordered it on the spot. Similarly, AEG's Magic isn't worth the full cover price to me, but if I ever see it at 20-30% off I'll probably buy it.

 

[Turjan]

Am I price-sensitive? Don't know, a bit, maybe .

Here in Germany, d20 products are quite rare. Therefore, you have a hard time to look for a FLGS that sells any d20 stuff at all. Amazon.de offers only WotC books. So there's no real alternative to the FLGS in this case, and they charge about 20-30% more than the recommended full price, plus there are no sales at all. This makes RPG's an expensive hobby.

On the other hand, we have a different expectation on book prices over here. Shops are forced (by law) to sell German language books for the price the publisher wants. No exceptions. Only discontinued or used books can be sold cheaper.

I'm very happy that, recently, I found a small shop on the coast that sends out d20 products for full list price ($=€) and without additional shipping costs. Although they have difficulties to get some stuff, it's quite handy.