Is DND Still Worth YOUR Money?
Vložit
- čas přidán 11. 09. 2024
- With the events of the past year, a WOTC increase in price for DND books should come as no surprise. After all, Wizards of the Coast has done much worse with the blatant Magic the Gathering cash grabs, the OGL debacle, and even sending pinkerton thugs to a CZcamsr’s house!
And much of this on the heels of apparent comments made by Hasbro executives stating that Dungeons and Dragons is an “undermonetized” IP. Now that they’ve confessed minimal profits on the DND movie, they might be considering other ways to squeeze the most juice out of the community. But are they really?
Amazon Affiliate Links:
D&D 5e Player's Handbook: amzn.to/45bIgri
D&D 5e Dungeon Master's Guide: amzn.to/4354U2I
D&D 5e Monster Manual: amzn.to/3BzTF6N
D&D 5e Xanathar's Guide to Everything: amzn.to/3BElOcU
D&D 5e Tasha's Cauldron of Everything: amzn.to/3WiEhVD
D&D 5e Monsters of the Multiverse: amzn.to/3BC5Rnh
Critical Role / Daggerheart / Illuminated Worlds: / @criticalrole
Matt Colville / MCDM: / @mcolville
Kobold Press Black Flag: www.koboldpres...
Live Roleplay Dungeons and Dragons streams on Twitch every Wednesday at 7:00PM CST! Come hang out with us at / constructedchaos
Discord: / discord
Instagram: / constructed. .
Facebook: / constructedc. .
Patreon: / constructedchaos
Be sure to tell us what you think in the comments and please enjoy!
#daggerheart #dnd #dungeonsanddragons
I'm an economist. Here's an intro for the uninitiated: Supply and demand are directly tied to each other. In a typical Capitalist system, as more demand exists, more supply must follow. This is understood by everyone with a brain. The second level of this is production; as more product is created, price per item decreases. When demand is high, supply increases, costs reduce (on a very basic level, obviously you have to facilitate the shipping and distribution of larger numbers of product but that washes out in the net profits with enough sales which is why you scale supply according to demand).
Let's keep building: As a business expands and picks up traction, it will need more capital. It will have a soft cap on cash influx with demand and scaling, as demand is not infinite. The logical next step is to increase prices. This is normal and nothing to bat an eye at because the increase is subtle; virtually zero impact on sales. End result? Mission Accomplished.
But what happens when they need even more profit? More product, of course. Multiple streams of revenue, structured the same way. This is why you can't build a company on a singular product (excluding perishables and short-lived items of which this is not one. Even then, you will eventually max out).
Is this what happened here? Unlikely.
1) It appears more as if demand is at a low after recent debacles, and if they produced too much supply as far as demand goes, the book would have been sold cheaper or at the very least not twice the price.
2) Another approach is WotC may be attempting to near eliminate physical book sales as they are moving to a digital realm. Doing this is much less cost-heavy as they can keep money coming in and eliminate a major arterial bleed going out.
3) The third likely option is WotC is attempting to capitalize on a market because they can, rather than because they should. When you increase the cost of a product, you decrease the potential customers. What they are doing at this price point is likely hoping to bank in on the current base and sales, but they will more likely be selling even less and netting the same or less as well.
I don't think this is a company being comic-book levels of evil here, I just think they wildly misinterpreted potential market sales or, more likely, want to push people to the digital sphere so they can make that transition hyper-profitable.
While I could agree with you on the premise of it being worth $60, they were selling digital books for the same price before, and still are. Digital books should be significantly discounted being near free to publish, and the bundle would make much more sense at $45. If this was the price, they would have sufficiently gained a premium on book costs, and still boosted the potential buyer pool. This has the indicators of bad business moves, rather that evil corporation activities... At least as far as this aspect goes.
Wow!! Thank you so much for providing your insight here! What you point out does make a lot of sense aside from the fact that most other digital TTPRGs of this scale and/or complexity charge about as much as WOTC does for DND. In the end, this just seems like a market adjustment to me, adjusting for inflation (and probably not for shipping like they say). But you’re definitely more educated on the topic than I am so I won’t pretend to know.
As a bibliophile and lover of many RPGs, this is ridiculous. Many other companies offer MUCH higher quality books for cheaper (e.g. Evil Hat, Free League). Considering WotC is significantly bigger company so could get better printing/shipping deals than smaller companies this is a blatant cash grab. I have not bought a single WotC book since the OGL debacle, and every day this decision is strengthened by their moves.
How much do you think they should charge for dnd books?
@@ConstructedChaos Based on quality, content, around $30. Base books (e.g. PHB, DMG, MM) $50 is fine, but I want better quality pages, binding, hard covers.
@@gablott I'm confused here. The books are hard cover and have a lot of art, high quality printing, binding, etc. At $30, I'm not sure the company would be profitable at all. Even most of the comparable TTRPGs you listed charge much more per page for their work.
@@ConstructedChaos Event taking into consideration page count, art, Evil Hat still prices books at $30 with better pages, binding, covers, by a large margin, despite MUCH lower sold numbers. Wizards can print on bulk, and thus get better deals, and $60 is too much imo when compared to like products.
@@gablott looking at blades in the dark as a comparison at $30, I was surprised to see how long the book is. However, the book itself is smaller at 6”x9”, has only black and white pages with little to no art within, and charges $20 for the PDF alone.
This comparison supports some of your claims and conflicts with others. With a $20 pdf only price, I feel that WOTC digital prices are pretty on par considering their ability to integrate with tools like DNDBeyond and better features than strictly a PDF. The apparent $10/book print price is a bit surprising but they’re definitely saving money on black and white only as well as a smaller book size overall.
That said, I imagine that these books are priced lower than D&D because they need to be, sadly. I think many people need convincing to try something new. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, either. I’d rather pay them more.
However, the ironic part of this is that an increase in DND book prices will allow these other publishers to increase price as well while remaining competitive.
That said, I think you raise some valid points here and I appreciate you bringing that to the table. The fact remains that a $60 book today is the equivalent value of a $50 book 5-6 years ago.
Let's think, is a company known for ripping people off perhaps... ripping people off? I don't even buy D&D stuff after the OGL issues because I don't want to give them money. Anyone who works for them with a real love for TTRPGs should seek employment elsewhere, where they'd be more appreciated.
I totally appreciate and respect your outlook here! But it has to be said that D&D currently drives the market. Ironically, their raising prices allows their competitors to do the same. I'm with you on what they deserve after treating the fans of their products with such disrespect. But, at the end of the day, a $50 book 5-6 years ago is worth $60 today. Now, let's work on getting people the raises they deserve to match that change at least haha.
I’m just thankful that Amazon had the 60% off sale last year so I got 10 books for $200
Hell yeah! I remember that! I had most of what I wanted around that time, sadly. But, I am at least happy that I can continue supporting my LGS and get digital copies.
I hear that - got a gift set (3 core books and DM screen) for ~$32% off. I had to wait, but it was worth it.
I actually grabbed myself around 5 books or so of first edition Pathfinder for about $100 back in like 2018. Someone posted that Amazon was having a buy two, get one free sale in this gaming group I'm in. I was looking around and there was really only one game that I wanted out of all the options. After scrolling through all the games, I just so happened to catch a "see all under this deal" button at the bottom of the page just as I was about to close the tab. When I saw D&D 3.5 edition books pop up on the first page, I then saw there was a search bar for filtering and looked up Pathfinder. I got only one regular sized hardcover version out of the small stack I bought, and they also had individual sales on stuff both in and out of the buy one get one free deal as well that was between 15-30% off. I got everything I would need to start a campaign, plus some extra campaign setting stuff and extra classes and race related stuff as well. The only down side was I have only found two people who were willing to play who were new, and they only showed up the one time to make characters and then we never got around to actually starting the campaign. My friends from my new job who do play D&D don't want to learn Pathfinder, and feel that P2E is "too complicated" for them to bother wanting to learn after everything with the OGL happened.
Rising prices are a problem for consumers AND for sales. Choosing between frozen pizzas and a book (not to mention a video game) isn't really a choice. However, there are always people who will buy the book, so raising the price often boils down to a calculated risk whereby certain buyers are priced out while others will make up the cost with the higher price. With wages rising much slower than inflation (since the 60s, basically) I see complaints as legitimate, but the problem is systemic, not about books and games specifically.
100000% this. You nailed it, friend, and I completely agree. Though, I didn't delve too far into this side of things in the video since I thought it might be a bit heavy handed for a DND youtube channel haha.
Because they know their simps will buy them.
Capitalism at work haha
This is why I wait for third-party stores. Bless the bookstores.
Absolutely! Always support your LGS! That's where I get my copies from!
@@ConstructedChaos Except when I can purchase online for much cheaper than my LGS even. Sometimes I suck it up and put the money in my friends register, but not always!
The price increase wouldn't be so bad if their products were actually good.
That’s honestly fair enough, actually. I have some hope for the next edition since they seem to be taking much of the feedback seriously.
Also damn you for making me less mad at WoTC
LOL we should stay mad because we need to keep them accountable but we can't go to bat for the wrong reasons or we could hurt the cause overall!
Wait so they were $59.99($60) beof4re and their $69.99($70) Like AAA and AAAA video game which cost much more to produce and are not worth $70? What in the world is WOTC thinking? Like who would pay $70 for 3 core book when most TTRPGS cost $40 for one book if not free? Edit: AAA/AAAA are not worth $70 as they weren't failing before because of the retail price but because of other factors so included are cost so at $60 some games were not worth that and failed sure but great games that did fail did so for a whole host of other reasons... But yeah a TTRPG book of D&D quality and size does not cost anywhere near $70 to make much less X3 of them... And D&D does not have the development budget like any AAA/AAAA game nore has any edition failed for price alone... So yeah this was just greed like why else would they need to charge $210 for the core rules when all other TTRPGs change $40 or less?
Gotta watch the whole video! It's all about context. AAA video games cost more to produce but have a vastly larger audience.
@@ConstructedChaos That litterly makes no sense and besides I'm making an value argument not an is it expensive which all of the stuff you mentioned is. As someone can be making $12 an hour minimum wage in my state would have to work all day to aford them. Also why buy $210 of books branded D&D when you could buy one Pathfinder book at $40 or so? Which it has less audience then D&D despite being nearly idencal products so how does D&D costing as much as a Game's workshop elite versus box make any sense?
@@GreenBlueWalkthrough Pathfinder 2e core rulebooks are $60, friend. But, they are much more detailed and the rules are available for free online. But then again, the core rules for DND are free as well.
As for why play dnd over Pathfinder, you’re preaching to the choir! I love Pathfinder and I’ve been making tons of videos about getting into that system!
The books are NOT worth $60 dollars. I won't pay that much for them and neither will my group...
No 5.5 for me
That's totally understandable! Out of curiosity, what price would you like them to be?
@@ConstructedChaos Great question! I've thought about this alot lately. At what point does the inherent cost of source material price me out of Hasbro's game? I find right now, for me, the pricing is at the sweet spot. I'll buy a book just for love of pursuing thru it (Fizbans Treasury), even though it has no effect on my gaming. But at increased price point, I would never even consider it. The fact that I can purchase a complete gaming system at a much lower price actually has me and my gaming group looking at alternatives in light of recent scandals and massive price increases.
@@pukk9445 I think you've shed light on a larger issue that has been discussed in other comment threads but was a bit to heavy handed for a dnd channel to cover in a video. We have a systemic problem wherein wages are not keeping up with inflation. By example, the books are, indeed, worth $60 because that amount today has the equivalent buying power of $50 from 5 years ago. The problem is that people are not making 20% more money than they were 5 years ago. So, I can stomach and understand the price increase but something has to give on the other side of this issue.
@@pukk9445 Additionally, perhaps a higher price will compel others to look at new systems as well. And, I'm not at all against that!
IDK. i am really fed up with the attitude of WoTC. i refuse to buy their anything until they smarten up. they need us(the consumer) more than we need them.
Oh I’m with you there. They need to be kept in check without a doubt. But, it felt like this situation needed more context as the comparison isn’t exactly apples to apples.
these books are NOT worth 60 bucks lol.when i can do everything in the book by myself it doesn't have the same value as a video game where i cannot, no single person can, create. also each book is closer in content to a DLC not the main book. so its compared more to a 15 dollar game add on than HASBRO. HASBRO not WOTC HASBRO, toys owns dnd and wotc so its hasbro that your money is going to. bank of America recently warned investors to stear clear of hasbro toys based on how they are treating their dnd and mtg fans.
Would you consider purchasing the digital versions that have not had the price increased? I’m just wondering where your perception of value comes from. Would you purchase any TTRPG book at all for that matter?
@ConstructedChaos I would but self published ttrpg books for systems I'm not familiar with. I have every 3rd and 4th edition dnd book. And quite a few adnd books. I don't need any books for dnd anymore. I can do all of that my myself.
I often but 3rd party tools for my games though. Maps and such
@@jerseyboyce1 that’s totally fair. So you probably wouldn’t buy new DND books even if they were still $50, eh?
@@ConstructedChaos no thats still too much. maybe if they went back down to thirty bucks. and no problem with hem only being digital wich derasticlaly reduces the manufacturing costs. again i think it equates more to a DLC since, if you need the books you need at LEAST three of them. the phb the dmg and one monster manual
@@jerseyboyce1 well you’re thinking from the perspective of a DM. But, as I mentioned, the digital copies actually still haven’t changed price at all. Selling physical books for $30 per and also printing them for $20-$30 each is probably not enough to keep their team employed.
It’s so they can charge 30 bucks for the digital version lol
Probably so but I think that’s what they were charging before right?
Let's also talk about playability. The PHB was published 9 years ago and is still widely used by many people. There are very few video games that people still play at that timeframe. The ones still being played are the exception. You get so much more playability from 1 TTRPG book than 1 video game.
That's an excellent point as well! The only game with that much longevity in my library is Skyrim.... and I've purchased that game at least 3 times anyway haha.
@@ConstructedChaos hahaha, same here! I was just playing it the other day but then was like, "I'd rather play DND." 😂
I make no promises on my alignt
We both know you’re at least chaotic haha
have you seen alot of new shows? the witcher for example. those writers aren't overpaid. they are paid way too well for errant thoughts that would have landed them in the garbage pile 20 years ago.
Part of the reason many of these shows are shadows of their predecessors is because studios refuse to pay writers a proper wage. They are definitely underpaid.
@@ConstructedChaos you got it backwards man. The highest paid people are high paid because of their merit period a great writer can demand more money comma a crappy one can be replaced quickly
@@jameshuff6248 my friend, have you seen anything about the strikes going on with the writer’s union currently? Do you know why they’re striking? Lol
@@ConstructedChaos they did the same thing a few years back and a few years before as well. Are overvaluing themselves
@@jameshuff6248 No they didn't. You might be remembering the IASTE strike which covers some unionized set workers. This is the union that I belong to and, let me tell you, it didn't end well. Our union leaders basically just bent over and took a terrible deal that was being offered by the major production studios. I stand in solidarity with the WGA for this reason. These big companies are trying to take advantage of loopholes in old agreements via streaming services that results in writers being paid less than a livable wage. The issue is pretty simple. You're either on the side of the billion-dollar production studios with grossly overvalued CEOs or you're on the side of the people that actually make the content.
The book is not worth 60$ So this argument seems like your answering the wrong question or at worst purposely misleading. Asking the question of why are they the same price. Seems like a mislead when you acknowledged one is under priced and exploited. While also bringing light to inflation but inflation mainly only effects the "poor" (or for a better term) "the average consumer of their products" the peoples wages sure havent gone up proportionately. the companys only had to change a number from 40 to 60 and they rake in record profits. I realise this comment does nothing to help with the problem stated but ignoring it as if its not the core of the issue is the opposite of helping the situation. It is in a way you defending WOTC's greed.
I absolutely agree but didn’t go further into inflation as it felt a bit heavy handed for a dnd channel.
That said, I feel my point is well-founded that the books are, literally, worth $60 as a result of inflation. It doesn’t mean I like that fact and it doesn’t mean that I don’t want higher wages across the board.
This video was simply a dialogue about how this price increase is not the same as doubling the price of essential goods in grocery stores under the same guise and walking away with enormously increased profits even with inflation factored in.
That said, check in with me again when they go higher than $60 pretty soon. That would be an overcompensation especially if their writers don’t get a proper increase in wages.
Also it’s worth pointing out that I didn’t make this comparison myself. It was one I saw from another creator on Twitter and I made this video to illustrate how bad of a comparison it is.
@@ConstructedChaos I agree and that was really well stated thank you, sorry if my initial comment seemed a bit harsh. I feel if u eluded to inflation being the main problem but like shrugged and said something like but what can I do I'm just a guy. Or something like that, would probably have kept me from commenting at all cuz I did agree with most of what ya said.
@@alexgillespie3402 no sweat at all! I probably should have made that part clearer-especially since I’m currently a victim of the rampant unemployment that the government is using to “fix” inflation instead of actually fixing the real problem. Believe me, I’ve got some strong opinions on it hahahah
@@ConstructedChaos I'm sorry to hear that, but hey if u do post that rant on here I can guarantee at least one viewer for that video! lol
First!
Haha you did it! So fast!