Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 1632332" data-attributes="member: 151">I didn't mean to imply that they couldn't, merely that if you went to a store that was charging $100 for the Eberron supplement, the person running that store won't long be in business.  You seem to be implying that two things are happening: that someone is reaping huge profits from the consumer by massively marking up material and that there is virtually little to no cost associated with getting an RPG product in your hands beyond the printing cost.      Well, are you comparing small-press low-grade operations, turning out 50 to 100 copies against WotC's production run in the 10s of thousands?  The cost of paper sky-rocketed in the early 90s, shooting up to over $1000/short ton for pulp.  It has leveled off considerably since then, dropping down to anywhere from $450-$600/short ton over the last two years.  In comparison with pulp costs of the late 70s, where it was much, much lower.  Most of the recent decrease is a direct result of the popularity of the web, and the dramatic decrease in popularity of newspapers.    The pre-press technology puts the tools in the hands of the small shop...but if you're going to do a high-glossy chemically-treated paper print on a book that runs 320+ pages with a hard-back binding with full color throughout...you're still going to a printer, and paying his prices.  Not to mention all the other changes in how to publish a book, these days.  Quick: count all of the major distributors to comic book stores.  Take your time.  You'll only need one finger.  There's lots of things like this to consider.     Heh.  Pop off to the store and get me a copy of "Star Ace".  If you can score a few of the modules, that's cool, too.  I'll take a copy of any of the Tekumel sourcebooks, while you're at it.     You claimed that a car worth $3K in 1985 shouldn't be worth $13K or what have you, now.  Which do you mean: that a car that was new in 1985 shouldn't be worth $13K today (which clearly wouldn't be the case with anything but a rare, classic car) or that a new car of approximately the same class shouldn't cost $13K today because in 1985 it only cost about $3K?  I'm getting the impression that you think that RPG products are marked up as high as cars are, which clearly isn't the case.  There is ample testimony on the boards from store owners, publishers and authors to the contrary.  Heck, two of them replied to you directly about it.  As for Japan's cars getting more expensive, I think you're dramatically simplfying the equation there.  Japan has not only been going through a huge economic downturn for years, but they're going through tons of cultural changes.  You'll see the same trend occur for the rest of the 'little dragons' of Asia, eventually.  Kia, Hyundai and Daewoo are cheaper, but I don't think you'll find many folks who think that they're comparable in quality.  Especially not Consumer Reports. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

Verification