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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aramis erak" data-source="post: 8413965" data-attributes="member: 6779310">There are a number of factors people are prone to overlook...<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Like the super low bar to becoming published these days. If you are willing to use POD and/or PDF, no front money save the cost of software, and often use of software one already has for other uses (Pages and Word both are used often for generating the PDFs for some hobbyists - for simple layouts, pages can do a great job.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Like that many publishers are doing it as a hobby or a side job, and thus don't need it to deliver a "living wage."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Like that the Corporate publishers tend to be in major cities, and thus have higher costs than they would if located in smaller ones; Wizards being in Seattle roughly doubles the cost of living; what would be acceptable in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin,  is poverty line for Seattle. Hell, relocating an hour away from the Sea-Tac metroplex can cut cost of living 20% or so... (Comparison of Seattle vs LG,W: <a href="https://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/lake-geneva-wi/seattle-wa/50000" target="_blank">https://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/lake-geneva-wi/seattle-wa/50000</a>)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">That salaries have not kept pace with cost of living increases in most places in the US... (Most salaries have gone up about double since 1987, while the actual costs of living have gone up between double and quintuple, depending upon location)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">That most of the corporate works are done as contract freelance work, not as employees.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">That the retrogaming movements have caused many older games to be rereleased in PDF... often cheaply...</li> </ul>Given those, people generally have a smaller fraction of pay to spend on their hobbies, and while prices have gone up less than cost of living, prices have gone up more than available funds have....  plus, there are orders of magnitude more games available. And dead tree costs have gone up.Corporate game prices are actually down compared to 1987... not a lot, but down just a bit...The AD&D 2E PHB was $25... which, per two different CPI based inflation calculators, works out to about $61 ±$1... MSRP for 5E PHB is $49.95 (call it $50)... an $11 difference..the 1987 median personal income in the US was $26,464; the 2020 was $35.805. ¹ That's 135%; both inflation calculators displayed 140% increase in cost of living... doesn't seem like a lot, only 4% gap... but consider that the cost of publication has gone up for dead tree. Even for home printing... reams of paper that cost me $3 in 2010 are now $7 for the same brand, size, type and weight.Mr. Reynolds seems to have done reasonably well for himself, beating inflation a bit...¹ <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N" target="_blank">Real Median Personal Income in the United States</a></blockquote>

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