RPG Pricing

[EvanMoore]

I seem to have been under the mistaken idea that price is a significant consideration in the selection of an RPG. After this latest trade show, I have the manufacturer, retailer and distributor ideas on RPG pricing, but I'm interested to know what roleplayers consider to be a reasonable price for the following:

320-350 pages.
Good to excellent artwork.
Softback.
Complete game--no GM book necessary.
(Let's presume this is something that interests you to eliminate that from the equation.)

Most of the people I spoke to told me $35. A few told me $30. No one suggested a price lower than that.

What do you think?

Evan

[Bethyaga]

I don't know what your finances require, but for a book of that volume, I would consider 30-35 to be just about right. Less would be surprising. $40 would preclude me from buying it unless I had some other compelling reason.

[EvanMoore]

Honestly, my thought had always been to release the book for $20. Then it grew beyond expectation and I thought $25.

After this week, with the realities of how much of a discount distributors must have in order to carry the product, I am looking at raising it to $30.

I think $35 is excessive.

I think $40 is grotesque.

Evan

[Bull]

This got discussed, sort of, at the EN World boards regarding the pricing of SW d20 and other D&D books, and I was stupid enough to get into it. My points were valid (even if most of the posters there are fucking lemmings), so I'll reiterate them.

$30.00 price point (For a core book, around 250-300+ pages) is fairly newish for the gaming industry. $20 was standard for a long time, and $25 was standard for the last couple of years. Larger books (300+ pages) tended to run towards $30.

WotC is trying to break that price barrier somewhat. The core books were initially $20, but they current print run is bumped to $30. Granted, you can still find the $20 easy enough. Their other books have been horrendously priced. $27 for that thin Psionics book, $35 for SW, and $40 for Oriental & Forgotten Realms (I think, one of those may have been $35). Expensive books. Nice porduction value, overall (Even if I loath the newer artowrk), but expensive nonetheless...

For gamers, a lot of purchases are "impusle" buys. Unless it's a major new game that gets a lot of hype, like Exalted, stuff you buy is often a matter of Word of Mouth and impulse, and for a lot of people, anything beyond $25-30 is too much for impulse buying.

Despite the fact that I've been playing a SW d20 game for a while, enjoying said game, and the fact that I love Star Wars (And had a sizable collection of WEG SW books before they "grew legs" after college ), I have yet to buy the SW d20 book. Why? The price. Iplant o get it eventually, but it's one of those "It's $35, there's a copy in the group, I'll hold off a bit longer" deals. There's always something else I'd rather spend $35 on.

$20 is a good price point to shoot for, if you can manage it. I understand where printing prices are, and I understand that for a small print run game, you can't price it too low. But for $35-40, it better look like the SW and D&D books (In theory ): Hardback, gloss color pages, and decent page count. Not to mention, the game can't suck.

Bull

[3278]

In my opinion, here's the process.

See new book at gaming store. Open it. Decide on quality of print, layout, art, and quality. Look at price.

Now, if I'm not pretty damned impressed by what I see, I'm not likely to spend the US$40. I'm going to be more likely to buy it if it's US$20. But if it's crap, I'm still not going to buy it.

What you're doing, largely, is betting that your content, art, and design is good enough to kill the sticker shock of 14-year-old boys. Or whoever your target demographic is. If the art isn't that good, or the layout looks amateurish, you're not going to sell it at US$40. For US$40, it needs to look /at least/ as good as the D&D Player's Handbook or the Shadowrun 3 main book. Which means advanced graphic design techniques, professional-quality artwork, and clear, readable layouts.

If Savage Realm is going to look like an amateur production, you're not going to sell it at US$40.

[EvanMoore]

Three-Two,
Since you brought it up, here's the scoop on the layout for Savage Realm.

For one thing, I'm using two graphic designers who have been laying out books for decades. One of them is remarkably good on the marketing side, the other is remarkably good on the technical side. Both are what I'd consider "gurus" as far as the software and such are concerned. They're also both "Mac-heads". <shrug>

The artwork is a mixture of free art and commissioned pieces. Most of the free art is from up and coming artists who are looking to show their talent. It's very good--but they are unknowns. The commissioned art (and we currently only have two commissioned artists) is from people who have worked in the industry before. The cost is high--but good artwork is worth the money you pay for it. One of the artists used to work for WotC and the other has done various pieces for various companies in the industry.

The production will be quality. I'm targeting a look something akin to a Robert Jordan paperback in style--that is, the cover art will wrap around to the back, the chapters will be punctuated with their own specific graphic, etc.

As a guideline for layout, I have given a copy of Shadowrun 3rd Ed. to both of the graphic designers as an example of "quality work".

I have my own ideas about a few things (namely that the bottom and top page graphics tend to distract the eye and provide no quality or design advantage to the product), but I'm also open to the suggestions of both the staff that I've pulled together and the input of others in the industry.

One thing I'd really like to do is to revise timekeeping in the world--but I still haven't heard back from that mathemetician dude that I met on ... <looking around> ...oh... Hey, Three-two, would you consider doing some mathematical stuff for us? <Grin>

The book is going to be between 320 and 350 pages. When it was still in the 250-275 page count range, I had wanted to do it for $20. That was quickly revised to $25 by the estimates from the printer. When I bumped it to 320-350 pages, I was faced with another necessary increase.

Personally--not speaking as a writer or a manufacturer, but as a consumer--I think $35 is atrociously high. I think $40 for anything that isn't hardback is highway robbery (and even for a hardback better have some significant quality aspects like glossy pages and color print).

We currently plan to have color artwork only on the cover and the website. Does anyone here purchase a gaming book because it has color art plates within the pages?

We are also not able to do hardback yet--but we are looking into it if we receive enough requests. If we can guarantee 1000 hardback copies would sell, I'll probably bite the bullet and have a special print-run made.

Oh, and if you're going to Origins or GenCon, we're going to be doing some ... well ... <grin> Just check our website for information and pictures. That will be unveiled later...

Evan

[3278]

One thing I'd really like to do is to revise timekeeping in the world--but I still haven't heard back from that mathemetician dude that I met on ... <looking around> ...oh... Hey, Three-two, would you consider doing some mathematical stuff for us? <Grin>

Sorry I haven't gotten back to you on that. Things have been pretty busy, as you can guess. I'd be pleased to, though.

[EvanMoore]

Trust me! I understand time constraints!

I got my passport back with my visa for Syria. I'm about to send it out again for a visa to Saudi Arabia. I've been told they (my day job) want to send me to South Africa for four weeks around May.

All this is right around the time when we're doing final edit on the book and preparing to send it to the printer.

I completely understand time constraints.

Oh, and I have to do my taxes, too...

Evan

P.S. Do you want me to send you the details in email and let you work on them at your leisure?

[3278]

P.S. Do you want me to send you the details in email and let you work on them at your leisure?

Please.

[EvanMoore]

What about color plates and glossy pages? If I can save you, the player, the GM, the readers, $5 a copy by not including color pages and glossy pages--yet still provide you with a quality book that won't fall apart in two months, is that worthwhile?

Or should I look at putting in 16 color plates and glossy the paper?

Evan

[Adam]

I personally don't care about colour plates and suchlike; I'll look at them once, but they won't influence my purchase decision. Layout errors or just crap layout is much more likely to get me to put a book down, compared to bad or little art.

[3278]

Fuck color plates. Totally unnecessary, and the damned things usually fall out eventually anyway. Fuck 'em.

[EvanMoore]

Hey, Adam, I went to the Fanpro booth at GAMA and asked in a fairly loud voice, "Do you people know Adam-fucking-Jury?"

Without a pause, they said, "Sure." and showed me the books you had a credit in. <grin>

Jus thought you'd like to know that the blue and green haired, tattooed, pierced and stenciled staff at the Fanpro booth know your ... "colorful" name.

Okay...

Timing...

We have two options, essentially.

1) Release in August without fanfare to a select, word-of-mouth/internet enabled crew and then release big with our distributors in February/March 2003 with multiple releases through till GenCon.

2) Hold off everything till February and release it all in one big push.

Either way, the printing schedule is pretty constant--it's just that option one allows us to build a bit of a fan base and (hopefully) pull in some income to assist in the publication of the 2nd and 3rd book.

Any suggestions or preferences?

Evan

[Adam]

Jus thought you'd like to know that the blue and green haired, tattooed, pierced and stenciled staff at the Fanpro booth know your ... "colorful" name.

Why wouldn't Rob and Gremlin know my name? I mean, I work for one of them, and the other one has hugged me!

1) Release in August without fanfare to a select, word-of-mouth/internet enabled crew and then release big with our distributors in February/March 2003 with multiple releases through till GenCon.

2) Hold off everything till February and release it all in one big push.

Either way, the printing schedule is pretty constant--it's just that option one allows us to build a bit of a fan base and (hopefully) pull in some income to assist in the publication of the 2nd and 3rd book.

Any suggestions or preferences?

2. Because if the first part of 1 doesn't work right, your game will be DOA in first quarter 2003.

[EvanMoore]

Why wouldn't Rob and Gremlin know my name? I mean, I work for one of them, and the other one has hugged me!

They were--by far--the most "colorful" of the booth staff at GAMA. <chuckles>

if the first part of 1 doesn't work right, your game will be DOA in first quarter 2003.

Given that suggestion, would you say not to release the first one *at all*--or go ahead and release it to playtesters and "advance copies" sold online?

Or simply hold off completely until February/March 2003?

Evan

[Adam]

They were--by far--the most "colorful" of the booth staff at GAMA. <chuckles>

Yeah, they're usually pretty colourful. Some of the guys from Concept Syndicate gave them a run for the money last year at Gencon.

Story from last year at Gencon. I've told it before, but suffer. I'm at the booth, usual outfit, jeans and shirt, hair down, just me. Someone comes up to me and goes "Hey, why aren't you in costume?" I look at the guy and ask "what do you mean?" He points at Rob and Gremline. "Like them?" "Oh. They're not in costume; that's who they are."

I nearly died laughing when he walked away. Almost as much as I laughed when some of the guys and gals were talking about Hello Kitty vibrators while I was trying to pitch the game to someone.

Given that suggestion, would you say not to release the first one *at all*--or go ahead and release it to playtesters and "advance copies" sold online?

Or simply hold off completely until February/March 2003?

I'd really suggest you talk to some of the contacts you made at GAMA about this, many of whom will have more direct experience in the release cycle than I do. My gut instinct and personal observations seem to be that games that release in two stages or have a noticeable lag between first release and support products end up meeting an untimely end because they don't regain the momentum they started with.

[Cash]

Can I tell you all about my character? When is Shadowrun d20 coming out? Who's this Rob guy?

[Bull]

*beats cash with a BABY*

And Evan: Shoot for $30 if you can pull it off. Without color pages like the D&D books, you'll have a hard tiem at $35, I think. Unless the "buzz" is great and "early release" stuff gets REALLY well received, you may be able to pull off $35, but know you'll be sacrificing some of the "casual" buys.

As for Color plates... To quote 32, fuck em, not needed.

Bull

[Adam]

I knew you were going to do that. buttmunch.

[Bull]

pppsst! Quote 3278 on that, not me.

But Adam... I did quote 32

Bull

[EvanMoore]

Just so you know, my thoughts are to price the books at $30 ($29.99).

If they don't pass the 300 page mark, then I'm inclined to put them at $25 ($24.99).

Color plates are nixed.

But, the color variants of the pictures will be on the website and in marketing documents and posters.

Evan

[Anaka]

I'd recommend $30, and edit like hell to make it fit in under that page count. It can be done. You won't easily sell for anything more than that in softcover, nor will the book be very structurally sound at that size.

I'd also recommend that you give serious thought to taking the money you were going to put toward color, up the price five bucks, and do the print run in hardback. WotC has really upped the bar on what people expect a core book to be. I don't think color on the interior is that important over all, but the hard cover for a main rule book--especially one as large as you're considering--will be a big selling point to your man on the street.

I'm assuming all that quality-type considerations are already taken care of, of course, as many other people have already mentioned it. From a strictly marketing standpoint, people like the heft, feel, and look of a hardbound book. Even if you go to softbound for later printruns, doing the initial in hardbound is a good idea. If you can afford it, that's my best advice.

[Paladin]

I have to agree with anaka about the hardbound run part. As a gamer who tends to transport his books via backpack(which I know I am not the only of), I have to say that My Hardcover books have faired better, and because of that, I am willing to pay that extra five bucks to see the book last longer. If you did that, you could also, if you wanted to, include those extra parts of the book that were good, but that you had to edit out. This will put incentive into buying the Hardbound, and who knows, perhaps there will be such a demand for it that you could run another printing of it.

Paladin

[EvanMoore]

I appreciate the urging for hardbound--and I must say, I really do want to make a hardbound run--however, there's more than just the per book cost that it incurs.

As it stands, I'm going with an on-demand printer. This means I pay a small amount for set up and initial print run--then the rest of the books are "on-demand". I can order them in small bunches--as few as one--or large piles--as many as 10,000+.

The advantage, is that I don't have to have any inventory.

However, the printer is not set up to do hardcovers.

My thought was to run the first three books as soft cover editions. Using the money we earn on selling them to pay for a "special edition"--which would have extra material, updated information, etc.--and find a ppinter where we can do hardcover.

I'm very picky about the printer. I've rejected a few because I didn't like their quality. So, I'm taking extra care to find one where the bindings are nice and sturdy, the quality of the print is top-notch, etc.

What do you think of that idea, by the way? Printing the first three books in soft cover, then using the income from those books to finance hard-cover editions with updated information--specfically the errata we will discover after the first release and some of the pieces we had to excise for space considerations.

I'm afraid it would look like we were trying to "milk" our players. That's something that terribly annoys me about the industry--the appearance that players are there to be "milked" for their disposable income. Any suggestions on how to avoid this appearance are most welcome.

One thing that I thought of that has been completely nixed is the idea of discounting--apparently, this really tees off the retailers when publishers offer discounts. I have thought, however, about providing some kind of "rebate". I might just print a coupon in the softback that says, "$3.00 off your purchase of the hardback edition with a valid sales receipt *from a retail store*". The key here is to be sure that the retail store is not slighted--that's where the bulk of the orders, marketing and product placement occur.

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions? Rants?

Evan

[Cazmonster]

As far as book pricing goes... $30.00 for an extensive softcover is cool by me. I dropped $25.00 for my small, rather thin harback of All Flesh Must Be Eaten. One Book games I'm willing to drop the extra five to ten bucks on, just because I'm also willing to drop big cash ($60.00) to get my precious 3rd edition D&D books.

Don't go above $30.00 if you can help it, because then you start heading for the evil realms of Games Workshop books.

Cazmonster goes to Nottingham to beat people up, mostly because there are no zoats.

[EvanMoore]

If I could sell the books for $20, I would!

If I could sell the books for $25, I would!

But, the reality of the industry is that I can't. Not if I have to give the distributors their 60-65% discount.

So, the retail price is probably going to be $29.99.

I am liking, more and more, the idea of putting a coupon in the book for the purchase of the hardback, however.

I'm also thinking of some other "value added" ideas that might work.

Evan

[Wildfire]

The softcover then hardcover sounds good as long as you have some kind of nifty extras with the hardback. Maybe get someone to try programming a basic character generator, print up a little poster, include a little B&W magizine of stuff from the website, some nifty artwork, stuff like that, and the coupon would help. Just don't advertise that there will be a hardback, as I for one would be the type to wait for the hardback

[Glyph]

Personally, I would be very upset if I plunked down my money for 3 sourcebooks, only to find out that hardbacks with "extra rules" were coming out. My advice is, if you do it, then make the extra stuff fluff, like the aforementioned poster map, CD character generator, etc. Otherwise, you will look like you are "milking" your customers. People should be thinking "I want to get this hardbound version with all of the cool stuff in it!" not thinking "Damn it, they expanded the combat rules? Now I have to buy the same books all over again!"

I am also cynical whenever someone offers one core rulebook for a game, esspecially a game that is tied to a specific setting. The best you can do is like SR3, where you actually could play with just the main book, only without all of the "cool" stuff from the later books. (One of the worst would be D&D, where you need at least 3 core books, and that is without even getting a campaign setting).

I don't really mind that much when I know there will be two more GM's secrets/expanded world info books coming out, but I do mind when the main rulebook does not have the basic information that I need. In other words, I don't mind if the main book has basic stats, character classes, dieties, basic culture, and other information on the desert nomads, and the later books go into more detail. I get annoyed, though, if the desert dwellers get a few short paragraphs, then the second book goes into meticulous detail, and the subsequent adventures dealing with the desert people all refer back to the information in the second book. Another thing: try to avoid sticking extra rules/errata in adventures, or even in the campaign area expansions. That annoyed the Hell out of me when FASA did that with 2nd Edition (sticking new Totems, Metamagical Techniques, extra rules, and whatnot everywhere).

[EvanMoore]

One of the basic tenets of our philosophy is that you need only one book to play the game.

In fact, we intend to give a "Primer" edition of the material--with core rules and whatnot--as a free download (about a 30-50 page book).

The expansion material is evolution of the world, not the rules. New skills will be added if we have a culture that has significantly different tech. New Qualities will be added. Even new races, cultures and careers.

However, the game mechanics will be unaltered.

In our "Way of the Mind" book, we will expand the rules on Ido. But we will not change them.

In our "Way of the Will" book, we will expand the rules on Qai. But we will not change them.

In fact, I'm aiming to have it as seemless that if something is mentioned online or in an adventure that comes from the Way books, you'll be able to figure out how to deal with it with only the main book. Those are the very mechanics I'm testing right now, in fact. (Well, not at this very moment, but over the course of the past couple weeks.)

We will be giving a lot of information in the first book--the expansions will not be necessary to play, but they will flesh out the races, cultures, careers and world a lot more. With the introduction of the Way books, we will probably begin our timeline. They will coincide with the first campaign release (under current plans).

Which brings up another question...

Should evolution of the game world universe be "real time"? That is, one month of time in reality translates as one month in game time?

I always thought FASA did a good job with that--wondered what you all thought.

Evan

[Cazmonster]

Honestly, a year by year evolution will most likely do, unless your world is far more complex than Shadowrun or the World of Darkness.

[EvanMoore]

Complexity?

Well...

Let's just say that it has the potential to be *very* complex. Essentially as complex as you want to make it.

The setting is dynamic.

We have some things that are planned to happen in the "near future" of the world. Some events we would like to have the Bards and players resolve. Various events that will shape the world.

And it does have a lot of bearing. Our fifth (or sixth, I forget) genre will actually be the future of Savage Realm--where the actions and choices determined for the world establish the dominant forces in the next timeline genre.

Evan

[Cazmonster]

Okay, so you're looking at something on the order of D&D's Forgotten Realms, give or take a couple of countries. Have fun with the new full time job.

[EvanMoore]

No doubt!

Now you know why I'm seriously hoping this thing either takes off like a rocket or dies on the vine.

If it takes off, I can afford to hire someone as a "line developer".

If it dies, I can convert it into an online world where people can make alterations all they want and I don't have to watchdog it.

Even so, it will take a lot of my creativity. Which is really fun.

<smiles>

I wonder where I'll go to look for line developers when the time comes....

...<glancing around...

...oh! Hey!

<grin>

Evan

[Adam]

Time to answer a question with a question:

Will a 1:1 ratio of Game Years to Real Years work for your game?

If you have a potential story arch that covers 50 years, it won't.

It works for Shadowrun. Would it work for a World War II era RPG? I'd wager no.

The main difference as I see it is that in Shadowrun, there's a not a lot of downtime in the metaplot - aside from the time when FASA was all messed up while releasing the SR3 rulebooks, there was always something going on in the metaplot, and something canon that the characters could interact with, not to mention non-canon diversions.

This /could/ be seen as a bad thing. Sometimes the 'fast forward' button seems to be pressed in Shadowrun, most noticeably with the Corporate War, but that was a business decision [The Corporate War had to be finished before SR3 was released, in FASAs eyes] as opposed to a storyline one. However, business decisions tend to take precedence over the story.

In World War II, from my recollection [It's been a few years since I've read anything about the war and I grew up in a generation that didn't care about it, so I may be off base, but I don't think I am...] had a fair amount of 'downtime', where nothing much interesting was happening on a global scale - there may have been fighting in some areas, but no major moves, deployments, or other such things that would cause a twist.

And I don't know about your gaming habits, but I could only roleplay "A Day in the Trenches" for so many sessions before wanting a change, so if I was gaming WWII, I'd want the game to be moving fluidly -- skipping over downtime as much as possible to get to "The Good Stuff". Covering a year a supplement with several releases a year would be a better way to handle something like WW2, IMO.

[spudman]

And I don't know about your gaming habits, but I could only roleplay "A Day in the Trenches" for so many sessions before wanting a change, so if I was gaming WWII, I'd want the game to be moving fluidly -- skipping over downtime as much as possible to get to "The Good Stuff". Covering a year a supplement with several releases a year would be a better way to handle something like WW2, IMO.

For something like WW2, I would have a core rulebook and then supplements covering certain campaigns and operations. Nothing would rock more than running "A Bridge Too Far" as part of a multibook "Operation Marketgarden" series. And then you could have sourcebooks covering other theaters (Pacific, North Africa, etc). So if your system doesn't cover a set timeline, use sourcebooks and supplements to "advance" the metaplot along in sections. That way, you don't have to maintain a terribly rigid time progression (one whole year's worth of product could be all the adventures and supplements covering Operation Overlord [D-Day], for example).

[Adam]

I'm pretty sure that's what GURPS: WWII is like, actually. It was probably not the best of analogies, but I think I made the point okay.

[spudman]

GURPS can blow me.

[Bull]

GURPS Blows everyone, SPud. I'm fairly certain it has some diseases, and it's just not that good at it anyways.

Bull

[Cazmonster]

The only interesting thing I ever found in a Gurps book was setting a cyber-style game completely in a magical environment, with muscle grafts being things from bigger, stronger creatures and the Matrix being the Astral Plane. It was at least amusing.

[Adam]

GURPS Techmancer, perhaps?

[Cazmonster]

Nope, It was GURPS Cyberpunk. Without the main body of rules, the book was mostly nifty pictures and ideas for other games.

Now I really wanna do a Magipunk game so I can get all hard in the face with some dragon muscle and maybe a troll's heart replacement...

[Adam]

GURPS Cyberpunk is quite antiquated as cyberpunk genre stuff goes, but is a lot more realistic with regards to pricing of cybernetics and suchlike compared to other mainstays such as Cyberpunk2020 and Shadowrun.

There's also Cyberworld, which is a world setting, and Cthulupunk, which is horror-ish cyberpunk. Oh, and Cyberpunk Adventures, including a contribution from a name some of you may recognize; Jak Koke.

[EvanMoore]

I tend to use GURPS more for "research" than anything else.

The game mechanics are way too generic for my liking. While I find generic mechanics nice when working on a game world, developing it as a level of "fairness", once it's developed, I tend to switch over to another game mechanic for play.

Until I developed Trinary, I switched back and forth between game mechanics. But, Trinary became so intrinsic and instinctive, that I seldom wander from it.

GURPS, however, is an excellent resource for any GM who is in the process of developing a game world or a concept adventure. They really do their homework down there in Texas. <chuckles>

Besides, who can not like a system where the owner of the company, the man who's name is on the books, excitedly tells you about the latest Car Wars supplements--with all their nifty intrinsic features--at the booth?

Just remember, Steve, Post Apocalypse. We've been waiting *too long* for GURPS: Post Apocalypse!

Evan

[Wildfire]

And that's why I find GURPS useless. I don't like the mechanic and I find all their info constains me too much if what I truly want is an original setting. Actually, I don't think I can say I really like any mechanic over others for balanced story/action games. Story games bring out the TriStat lover in me, but its not that great for anything but cinematic action-wise.

[Paladin]

GURPS= Champions.

All I gotta say. That and:

you know, I'm probably the only one still bitter about that.

Paladin