prices getting a little nuts?

[monkius]

Recently I have been at two different FLGS, browsing to see what it is new. The last several times I have seen things I was interested in, but I ended up walking out without purchasing anything. Why? Because the products were priced higher than I was willing to pay.

With marriage and kids, time for gaming is a lot more scarce than it used to be, but my wife and I are both still interested in gaming. I have three floor to ceiling bookshelves full of games, gaming books, and such. I would often buy stuff that I was interested in, even though I knew I would never actually play it. It is always nice to tap into some books for ideas on how different games handle situations.

$10-$20 for a book I am interested in is almost an automatic sale with me. But recently the prices have started getting out of hand. When books started creeping up to $30, I wasn't happy, and had to decide if I really needed it. The answer was usually no. It has gotten so bad that I usually check the price on the back before I look at what is inside. With some of the prices I am seeing now, I see the price on the back and just put the book down without even looking at what is inside . . .

Not to pick on any particular companies / products, but two I remember recently are the Babylon 5 book for $45 and the Stargate book for $50. If my friends and I were going to spend weeks playing one of these games, we might get passed the price. I doubt it, but you never know. But if I am just going to buy the book to read for ideas, it just isn't going to happen at that price.

At that high of a price, you are getting into the ballpark of an entire season of the show on DVD. Usually with ~20 episodes and 15+ hours of entertainment.

As I said, if my group was going to actually play the game, then it might be worth it. But I am most likely never going to play Babylon 5 or Stargate, and at those prices, it just isn't worth it to me.

I know I can get those books cheaper online, but I like to support my FLGS and impulse buying things there that interest me is something I have been doing for a long time. I used to buy things that interested me, but with today's pricing I only buy what I need.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I've got the same issue with the upcoming Coman from Mongoose which will clock in, at I believe $49.95.

I'm hoping that they do what Guardians of Order did and make a black and white version for $29.95.

Based on Slaine, I'm sure that the $49.95 will be worth it but it's simply out of my league.

 

[Cergorach]

After reading your argument i went into my sleep/work room and pulled out the old AD&D 2E PHB. Hardcover, 256 pages, 2 color printing with a couple of full color prints, $20, printed in 1989. Now we fastforward to the present, D&D 3E PHB. Hardcover, 320 pages, fullcolor throughout, printed in 2003. That's almost 15 years later, an increase of 64 pages, an inprovement to fullcolor, and 'only a 50% price increase. And this is for a core rule book.

Campaignbooks are a bit different (B5 and Stargate are campaignbooks). Forgotten Realms Campaignsetting, Boxed Set, +/-300 pages, B&W, couple of maps, $30, 1993-94. Forgotten Realms Campaignsetting, Hardcover, 320 pages, full color throughout, map, $40, 2001. Almost 10 years, a huge improvement (from B&W to color), and only a price increase of 33%.

B5 is 304 pages, HC, full color and 45$ (true, a bit more expensive than average). Stargate is 486 pages, HC, full color and 50$. That's the old PHB and DMG combined in one book, fullcolor and only a price increase of 25% after 15 years, that's pretty damned well. I know that a lot of products in other areas have almost doubled in price in the last 15 years.

I don't think that the prices are the real problem, but your financial situation, you can't expect to raise a family and still spend a fortune on books.

If price is a problem, buy online, many online stores give a 20% discount (or more) on products...

ps. Buying game books only to mine them for ideas is a luxory that many a family man can't afford...

 

[monkius]

My wife and I do quite well for ourselves financially, so it is not a financial limitation. Instead it is that $50 is way too high for impulse buying of gaming books.

Over those same visits I mentioned above, my wife has been buying LOTR cards. She has bought the starter set ($20), two more started decks ($10 each), and a booster pack ($3). All told, $43 total. I asked her if she would have bought all the cards she has now in one box if it cost $43, and her immediate answer was no. But she still is planning on buying more cards...

Another example is the MechWarrior figures. I have never played the game, but ended up buying 10 of the booster packs ($10 each) before I finally decided I had enough of them. Before I stopped I would buy 1 or 2 packs at a time, and ended up spending $100 dollars on them. Would I have bought them if I had to spend $100 in one chunk, no.

And I know you can get books / gaming stuff cheaper online. I buy lots of things online, but I prefer to buy from my FLGS if I can. They give you the option to browse through things and provide a good selection.

Plus, when I go to the gaming store, I am there to look at things, and more than likely buy some gaming item(s) that I didn't know about but decide that I need I as a customer, however, prefer to do that in $10-20 chunks. I may buy 2-3 of those $10-20 chunks at a time, but I don't like buying 1 gaming thing for $30-60. Even though it is the same amount of money . . .

What I am saying is that is does not matter how much gaming goodness the company packs into 300-500 pages of a book. If it costs over some amount (I would argue $20), you will lose sales because it is over one of those impulse buying points.

 

[Cergorach]

Then we are totally different people, i look for value for money.

I buy a box of 48 MWA boosters (at 33% discount) because i figure that i'll probably spend $300 on it anyway, so why not buy more for less in one go?

$15 buys you a 64 page product, although good for an impulse buy, not good for your core users. The core users would rather spend double and get quadrupel. $20 gets you 96 pages, and if your lucky 128.

I think the $25 price range is really interesting because it gets you a solid book into your hands, either from AEG (Word books or Spycraft, etc) or even an hardcover (Fantasy Flight 176 page HC).

I think it's about point of view. With the introduction of the Euro a lot of folks also have trouble with assigning value to amount x Euro. Times change, values change, it only seems that people don't (or don't want to in the case of money). Mark my words, with dollar getting less valuable than the Euro, a dollar will start to buy you less.

What does $10 => 32 pages buy you?

I would say that if the price to content ratio is to low you would also loose customers. $15 for 64 pages is still acceptable, $10 for 32 pages is not...

just my opinion though...

 

[Crothian]

50$ products are rarely impulse buys, that is try. But I don't think that will hurt the products at all. THese books are very well written, great quality in art and layout, and are easily worth the price tag. Impulse buying is for the small stuff, so I doubt the companies are expecting much of that on this better books. Personally, I'd suggest stop impulsing buying. Research the books first. Read the review here and on the other sites. Start a thread asking for opinions. I haven't impulsed bought an RPG book in over 2 years, but that hasn't stoped me from buying anything.

 

[Cergorach]

Crothian, admit it, you just buy everything D20 ;-)

 

[Darrin Drader]

Not to pick on any particular companies / products, but two I remember recently are the Babylon 5 book for $45 and the Stargate book for $50. If my friends and I were going to spend weeks playing one of these games, we might get passed the price. I doubt it, but you never know. But if I am just going to buy the book to read for ideas, it just isn't going to happen at that price.

You know, every tim e the price issue comes up, my response is that you just don't understand the economics of the situation. First of all, any book printed in full color costs the publisher an arm and a leg. Second, hard covers are also quite a bit of money for the publisher. Finally, both of the books mentioned above are licensed products. I've heard numbers for the Babylon 5 license tossed around that are in the neighborhood of $100,000. That means that over the life of the product line (or up front, depending on how Mongoose arranged it), they have to pay Warner Brothers that amount for the right to sell games based on that setting. Now, for a roughly 300 page book at approximately 800 words per page at 5 cents per word, you have to pay your game designer roughly $12,000. Add to that editing fees, which are about a third of that ($4,000), typesetting (another $2,000). There will probably also be misc costs of around $3,000. Then you've got your printing costs. I'm guessing that Mongoose will be able to move a total of 20,000 of these maximum and the printing costs for full color plus hardback would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 each. Add to that the fact that they sell their books to the retailer for 50% of cover prince, and lets crunch the numbers here:

$12,000 design
$4,000 editing
$2,000 typesetting
$3,000 misc
$200,000 printing/shipping
$221,000 total

Now, assuming that they sell 20,000 copies at $22.50, they make $450,000. Subtract your costs and the profit on this is now $229,000. Not bad, but you have to take into consideration that the company still has to keep more products in development and they still have to pay Warner Brothers $100,000 for the license. Also, they're taking a pretty serious risk. What if they can only move half that number? If that ends up being the case, then we're only talking about making $225,000 - just barely enough to cover their costs, let alone paying Warner Brothers their due. In other words, even at 10,000 copies sold, with a $45 retail price tag on each book, and sales that are about 3 times the expected sales for most D20 books that are published, they've actually lost money.

All this means that you, as a consumer, have the right to purchase or not purchase based on price, but I disagree that the price to value ratio is out of whack. Personally, I own all the B5 books Mongoose has released thus far, and I will continue to buy them as long as the quality remains high.

 

[Cergorach]

Erm... you missed something, art! not all the images in the book come direct from the series. Also, 20k of bab5 books is a LOT.

 

[Darrin Drader]

Erm... you missed something, art! not all the images in the book come direct from the series. Also, 20k of bab5 books is a LOT.

Good point about the art, and I agree, 20K is a lot for any standard D20 product, but it isn't completely unheard of (I'm under the impression that Arcana Unearthed has sold these kinds of numbers), and they're likely to sell slightly more because its B5. Still, that's why I fell back to a 10,000 copies sold scenario, which isn't nearly so rosy.

The bottom line is that I might be overestimating the amount of money they are actually making.