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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 507397" data-attributes="member: 151">Re: Re: Value for moneyWell, yes and no.  Wrestling with the kids is more than just pure entertainment: it's contributing to their health and mental well-being, and yours, too.  Playing D&D and the purchases necessary is more comparable to seeing a movie than playing with your kids because the former are pure leisure activities for most, and the other is a much more complex social interaction.  The costs associated with each are involved, but the former are fairly direct, while the latter is somewhat directly unquantifiable.  Seeing a movie in the theatre has a specific cost and anticipated return.  You pay a fixed fee, and anticipate being told a story for a fixed time, and hoping that it will be enjoyable.  It is a commercial transaction.  Purchasing D&D rulebooks is a similar transaction.  You are purchasing a ruleset for reading and usage purposes, with the expectation that the application of said ruleset will provide a fair degree of entertainment.  The realization of these expectations is what determines the success of a particular movie or RPG, but they follow generally similar models.  Wrestling with kids or playing hide and seek does not.  The comparison in time is fair inasmuch as people often seem to have blinders concerned with the ROI involved with such activities.  I enjoy going to the movies, but once the experience is over, it's pretty much over, except for reminiscing.  A rulebook purchase, however, is only the beginning of the activity, an actual means to an end of entertainment.  Reading the books themselves is an enjoyable activity, let alone actually putting the rules into practice.  Look at how many people purchase modules purely to read them.  What movies do, however, is provide a service that I can't provide myself...sometimes an intangible result of an enjoyable story that I would not have thought of.  This is no different than if I compared D&D to a novel, which has a much better ROI than a movie, but lacks its visual, somatic and auditory components.  People consider $8-$12 reasonable fare to pay for a new anticipated movie, though they may begrudge such a number, and often will see a film for less at a matinee.  During the summer, many folks may see a movie a week, and think nothing of it.  If they purchase soda and popcorn, that number may double.  If you prefer, you could compare D&D with a DVD player or VCR, which also has a ROI closer to that of the D&D core rulebooks.  They both also give entertainment value over the long haul, but few people complain about purchasing a $65 DVD player (which will require additional spending to actually make use of) or $79 for a VCR (which again requires another service and additional equipment to actually use).  This is because of perception, not actual value.  That is the issue that is actually being argued about.  I rate the value on a dollar-to-hour ratio of my limited free time.  Super Mario Sunshine, for example, is a good deal at $49 (though I got a bundle system).  The amount of hours I'll play it for and derive enjoyment in so doing make it's value superior to me than, say, seeing the Spiderman movie.  But I still went to see the Spiderman movie, and didn't begrudge the price.  As you point out, it's what the market will bear.   Many people will also think nothing of spending $8-$12 on a printed module, for only 24-36 B/W pages, but will bemoan spending $30 on 320 color pages with hard bindings on better paper stock.  I just think people just tend to forget what a good entertainment value RPGs actually are. You are correct that it's not a one-to-one relationship, per se.  Playing Ballerina cards with my daughter is more valuable to me, than say, playing a game of Dance Dance Revolution or reading Heart of Nightfang Spire, irrespective of actual cost.   But I think folks have a skewed perception of actual versus perceived value.  YMMV.</blockquote>

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