D&D 4E So why does the 4e DMG costs the same as PHB?

[Piratecat]

The 3.5 PHB2 is 100 pages shorter than the PHB.

Why does it cost $5 more?

Inflation (paper costs have risen) + economies of scale. They'll likely be printing 3-4 times more PHs than they will DMGs. That equates to cost savings.

(Edit: Whoops! As Nikosandros said just before I did.)

 

[Nikosandros]

Inflation (paper costs have risen) + economies of scale. They'll likely be printing 3-4 times more PHs than they will DMGs. That equates to cost savings.

(Edit: Whoops! As Nikosandros said just before I did.)

Yes, I did, but I actually kind of argued against my previous post... as RangerWickett said, the DMG is very likely to sell less units than the PHB, so that might also be a factor in the higher cost.

 

[thalmin]

The prices for the 3 core books were established a few months ago when they were first announced. At that time they were listed as having the same page count. Page count of two of the books has since been changed, no word yet if the page count for the DMG is accurate.

EDIT Correction, I misremembered. Books had same price but different page counts, as we are discussing.

 

[Incenjucar]

Often, books in a series simply cost the same regardless of size. This is true of some graphic novels, for instance -- Sandman books all cost the same in my experience but have vastly different page counts, etc.

 

[Nikosandros]

The prices for the 3 core books were established a few months ago when they were first announced. At that time they were listed as having the same page count. Page count of two of the books has since been changed, no word yet if the page count for the DMG is accurate.

Wasn't the first announced price lower as well?

 

[LightPhoenix]

Often, books in a series simply cost the same regardless of size. This is true of some graphic novels, for instance -- Sandman books all cost the same in my experience but have vastly different page counts, etc.

I do not work in a bookstore, with books, or anything like that. Heck, I never learned to read.

Regarding this point though, I've heard it explained that there are certain sizes and shapes that are all lumped into the same category, based mostly on standard bindings. I highly doubt that a 96 (or something like that, too lazy to check) page difference puts them in the same category... but I don't know. Based on that alone, the original point does have some merit.

Of course, there is economics... which I think people have covered. That argues the other side.

There's also the possibility of WotC cutting the cost to the PHB to match the DMG to draw in new players. While that may be the case, my argument against that is that more people DMing means more groups, and ultimately (hopefully) more people playing. You don't want to penalize people taking up the leadership role, and making the books equal in cost (with different page counts) does that. Sure, a group with multiple games might share a DMG... but I think (ie anecdotal opinion) the trend is for one person to buy one book. That is to say, chipping in on books probably happens on occasion, but ultimately it doesn't happen very often, and that sharing is much more the norm. So, whoever is the DM usually ends up paying double (DMG & likely PHB), leading to a higher entrance cost and thus less people doing it. Knocking down the cost of the DMG based on the number of pages should mitigate that, and it only makes sense in terms of spreading the hobby. It would be less of a hit and easy to rationalize if the books were the same size... but according to our (possibly incorrect) information now that's not the case.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Heck, the DMG should be the cheapest book.

More people running games means more people playing games.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Wasn't the first announced price lower as well?

I don't believe so. Amazon guessed at a price, though. Could that be what you're thinking of?

 

[Gundark]

It's almost 100 pages shorter than the PHB.

Why does it cost the same?

As much as you might want have an answer from WotC, you're not gonna get one (I havn't read thru the whole thread so I might be the fool). I've had the same issue with why the books cost so much more in Canada compared to the US (in some cases a $10 mark-up), considering the dollar in both countries are virtually the same value. Still waiting for something from WotC on that one.

The answer I'm thinking (as to the silence) is that the people make these decisions (the price) are not frequenting these boards. I mean I highly doubt that Mike, Scott, or anyone set the $ value of the books.

 

[KidSnide]

At least in my observation, DMs tend to have a stronger commitment to the game than non-DMing players. Of course, there are plenty of totally hard-core players too, but in many groups there are some players who don’t purchase a lot of supplements. Instead, their decision is simply whether or not to buy a PH, and that decision is based on how useful it is, how much they like D&D, and whether they can afford it.

To WotC, these players aren’t the core audience per se. In a gaming group of 6, WotC makes much more money on the 2 uber-geeks who buy ten books each than the 4 other players who buy 1 or 2. But WotC (A) holds out hope that some of these casual players become mass buying uber-geeks and (B) realizes that, for many of us uber-geeks, we need some casual players to get our games together. (Well, maybe not PirateCat – I suspect he would still find players even if his whole campaign moved to California.)

Because casual buyers tend to only buy the PH, PH sales are made up of a higher proportion of casual buyers than the DMG or MM. This probably means that PH sales are more prone to decrease with higher prices. In economic terms, PH demand is probably more elastic than DMG/MM demand. If WotC also believes this, they would price the PH relatively lower than the DMG or MM. Also, casual gamers help the rest of us play more, which makes us more likely to buy tons of supplements. Therefore, casual gamers have an indirect positive effect on demand. (A network effect, in economics.) Lastly, we shouldn’t neglect the PH’s role as a marketing device for the rest of the product line.

Economies of scale are relevant, but I think these factors probably dominated WotC’s decision to price the PH lower (per-page) than the DMG or MM.