D&D 5E The Printers Can't Handle WotC's One D&D Print Runs!

One of the reasons why the three new core rulebooks next year will not be released together is because D&D is such a juggernaut that the printers can't actually handle the size of the print runs!

Jeremy Crawford told Polygon "Our print runs are pretty darn big and printers are telling us you can’t give us these three books at the same time.” And Chris Perkins added that "The print runs we’re talking about are massive. That’s been not only true of the core books, but also Tasha’s Cauldron. It’s what we call a high-end problem."

 

[Velderan]

One closed the year before the pandemic. The other two tried to merge. That was denied because of monopoly. One of those two then shut down. The other sold off several or many of its largest printers.

The available printing capacity in the U.S. has gone down at the same time that the general costs of supplies has gone and more people are reading physical books than ten years ago.

And ocean freight is what it currently is, so printing in China isn't the cost savings it used to be which only exacerbates the US printing issue.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I used Paizo as an example because they likely have the 2nd largest print runs of books, so are probably getting better print rates than other publishers and even then needed to raise prices. The upcoming Rage of Elements rulebook is $55 print ($5 increase over their usual $50) and the PDF is still $20. The remaster core books? $60, no price on PDF listed yet.

Digital has a different set of costs associated. Assuming DDB still uses AWS for their hosting, if Amazon raises the cost on that service enough, you'll definitely see a price increase on DDB while not seeing a print book increase. If they were doing this purely because greedy corporation, they'd raise DDB prices as well because inflation would be enough justification. They're focusing on the area where costs have risen the most, period.

There is a beyond huge gap between 1st and 2nd TTRPGs, so big that D&D is many times bigger then the rest of the Industry combined. Double Paizo business and it still doesn't even sratch the surface of WotCs business.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

There's one other massive factor that @Henadic Theologian and @Micah Sweet are not paying attention to-

Hasbro (and to a much lesser extent Paizo) set the market rates for gaming books. They have market power. When they raise rates for core books, such as these, to acknowledge inflation, that creates a marker (an anchor effect) for consumers-

This is now the "price" moving forward for this type of book.

Why is this important? Well, if you're a smaller indie publisher, or an independent creative, you are a minnow operating in this market. You are not a price maker. But now? You are able to raise your own prices to at, or near, the prices charged by the market makers.

Given the notoriously poor margins in this industry, the ability to charge fair prices for work is always a good thing. No, Hasbro isn't thinking of the little guy when they raise prices to account for inflation. But the little guy in terms of others in the industry will benefit from their own ability to raise prices and remain competitive.

Other TTRPGs are niche markets, they don't really compete against WotC at all.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Which is why I would call Apple product overpriced but not price gouging. If you feel like WOTC's products are overpriced, that's fine. I associate greedflation with price gouging.

Of course capitalism works on a profit motivation. It's a terrible system. It's just better at many things (discussing exceptions is not appropriate for this forum) than any other system out there.

It is a terrible system, and publically-traded companies, like Hasbro and many others, make it exponentially worse. That it is systemic doesn't make any individual case not bad.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

One closed the year before the pandemic. The other two tried to merge. That was denied because of monopoly. One of those two then shut down. The other sold off several or many of its largest printers.

The available printing capacity in the U.S. has gone down at the same time that the general costs of supplies has gone and more people are reading physical books than ten years ago.

Sounds like a good time for WotC to jump back into the novel market given folks are reading fiction again.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There's one other massive factor that @Henadic Theologian and @Micah Sweet are not paying attention to-

Hasbro (and to a much lesser extent Paizo) set the market rates for gaming books. They have market power. When they raise rates for core books, such as these, to acknowledge inflation, that creates a marker (an anchor effect) for consumers-

This is now the "price" moving forward for this type of book.

Why is this important? Well, if you're a smaller indie publisher, or an independent creative, you are a minnow operating in this market. You are not a price maker. But now? You are able to raise your own prices to at, or near, the prices charged by the market makers.

Given the notoriously poor margins in this industry, the ability to charge fair prices for work is always a good thing. No, Hasbro isn't thinking of the little guy when they raise prices to account for inflation. But the little guy in terms of others in the industry will benefit from their own ability to raise prices and remain competitive.

True enough. A net negative for the consumer (ie, almost everyone here) though.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Other TTRPGs are niche markets, they don't really compete against WotC at all.

It's not about competition. This is econ 101.

I already explained this. Feel free to look up youtube videos explaining what "market power" and "price maker" mean- these are actual terms that mean things.

 

[Velderan]

There's one other massive factor that @Henadic Theologian and @Micah Sweet are not paying attention to-

Hasbro (and to a much lesser extent Paizo) set the market rates for gaming books. They have market power. When they raise rates for core books, such as these, to acknowledge inflation, that creates a marker (an anchor effect) for consumers-

This is now the "price" moving forward for this type of book.

Why is this important? Well, if you're a smaller indie publisher, or an independent creative, you are a minnow operating in this market. You are not a price maker. But now? You are able to raise your own prices to at, or near, the prices charged by the market makers.

Given the notoriously poor margins in this industry, the ability to charge fair prices for work is always a good thing. No, Hasbro isn't thinking of the little guy when they raise prices to account for inflation. But the little guy in terms of others in the industry will benefit from their own ability to raise prices and remain competitive.

Louder for the people in the back please!

If you don't like WotC books and think they're overpriced, that's your opinion but them raising prices 100% makes it easier for other smaller companies with much smaller margins to finally increase their prices to adjust for rising costs. I'm unlikely to buy WotC books atm since my current campaign is PF2e, but given I'd like Paizo to bring in more money to improve their crappy website and pay their union employees more money, I'm completely ok with them asking for more money per book so they can make addressing those things a possibility. I'd be surprised if Goodman Games, Chaosium, EN Publishing, and other publishers don't follow WotC's price increase with increases of their own.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Other TTRPGs are niche markets, they don't really compete against WotC at all.

To be fair, that's not really @Snarf Zagyg 's point.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

True enough. A net negative for the consumer (ie, almost everyone here) though.

I tend to view people getting paid fair wages for labor as a net positive for everyone. Henry Ford (who I normally don't like to attribute for anything good) did, at a minimum, correctly realize that workers are also consumers.