Thursday 11 May 2017

Forever in Blue Jeans, or: How much is too much?

How much is $10 in real money? £7 or something?

DIY D&D is a small niche market inside what is itself a small niche market inside what is itself a small niche market. So you get prices which tend to fluctuate quite a bit, as you do in all small and relatively unstable markets (check out the exchange rates of the infrequently-traded currencies of African countries to get a sense of this). There is some great stuff put out for free. And some not-very-great stuff put out for quite considerable prices. And everything in between.

However, I feel like going out on a limb and saying: this stuff, considering what it is and what you get, is by and large cracking good value. To go to watch a film at my local independent cinema costs you a tenner to get in the door and easily £20 a head when you add in snacks and beer. For 2 hours of typically mediocre entertainment (blasted out at excruciating volume) preceded by half an hour of shit adverts. I pay something like £80 a month for the privilege of watching Sky Sports, which I reckon over the course of that month is probably less than 10 hours' worth of entertainment. A night out at the pub easily costs you £40. So how is $10/£7 for an interesting, creative and totally playable DIY D&D module anything other than brilliantly good value?

(One of the only things I can think of that you can buy and which is better value is printed books - I just got Mason & Dixon for 1p plus P&P off Amazon.)

The next time you see somebody complaining about the cost of a DIY D&D product, punch them in the face for being wrong.

18 comments:

  1. I agree. Not only in DIY D&D but in music and art in general.
    I think art is so subjective that sometimes it seems unfair how it is priced.

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  2. This is an argument I have been making for a long while. However...

    Let's play the Devil's advocate for a bit. What if you don't really get that much value out of a gaming product?
    1) I can guarantee most game books are never used at the table. That cuts down their utility to "inspiration" and "bathroom reading".
    2) Many game books are not good. How many mediocre products do you find before you happen upon one that makes you passionate about enjoying them to their full value? Reviews can help - maybe. But that's still a maybe.
    3) Many game books are competing with each other. If you have two or three supplements, they are worth a lot for potential use and novelty. But when you have several years' supply of them, diminishing returns come to play. Your tenth, twentieth or fiftieth functionally similar supplement adds little to the table.

    Of course, sometimes you hit solid gold and that gold is worth every penny and then some. How many times has that happened? That's the real question.

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    1. True, but I think all of most of those points could apply to any other form of entertainment - cinema (films are often rubbish), night out at the pub (those aren't always fun), many books are mediocre...etc.

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  3. @ Noisms:

    In most things, I am not an advocate of violence. But with this post, I agree: people who bitch about pricing for RPGs need to be punched in the face (at least figuratively).

    Most of our works are UNDER-valued, if anything. Look at all the free product and PWYW (i.e. "Free") product available. Even when it's NOT used "at the table" it STILL can provide inspiration, steal-worthy ideas, or simply hours of entertaining reading.

    I'm starting to think nerds make the worst capitalists.

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  4. How many drinks is 40 quid anyway? Or does that night out include food?

    This is going to get into the 'real' exchange rate. Or at least get us close to it, until the dollar and the pound are replaced with long island iced teas.

    Anyway, that's like $51. I don't think I could walk home after $51 in drinks in Atlanta, but I am a lightweight and ATL drinks are relatively cheap. $6 pints of good IPAs.

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    1. If you're out with 5 friends or colleagues a round of drinks will easily be £20 and you'll generally end up buying two rounds over the course of a night... That's how it works here anyway!

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  5. $10 today is equal to $4.50 when I graduated highschool a little over 30 years ago. The job I had those days paid $15.75 an hour in modern dollars. $12 to $15 rpg books back then would be rquivalent to $25 to $33 today.

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  6. In the U.K., in a lot of places you're paying £4 a pint. Factor in taxis and a kebab and I'd say £40 might be too little for a lot of people.

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    Replies
    1. Yeah, you can easily spend more obviously. I prefer cheesy chips myself.

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  7. It's true, but it's not only about the actual value/effort/quality of the product, it's about marginal utility: if you price too high for the market at the moment you sell, you sell less overall and end up with less sharing, and less profit. It seems indeed that the sweet spot is low, but many, many sales at a low price are better than a few sales at $40, and a potential flop. Look at VotE, their only hope now is the ENnies.

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    1. You really think VotE is a potential flop??

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    2. It is clearly on Drivethrurpg at least, I have no idea of what the print sale figures are so I'm left to guess. I guess it is, yes, else we would have heard about its success much more.

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  8. Beer at the theater? What limey talk is this? We get giant tubs of sodey pop in the US and count ourselves fortunate.

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    1. There are movie theatres that serve booze here in the US.

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  9. How do you judge that its a flop? It's currently #16 on bestselling titles on Drive Thru, but i'm not sure what that means as far as numbers sold.

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    1. Silver seller in 3 weeks. My two latest were Electrum in 2 days, and weren't big successes.

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  10. Silver seller in... 3 weeks? My two latest releases were Electrum in 2 days, and they weren't big successes.

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  11. It's hit silver. Every one of those medals on DTRPG is harder to get than the last. Done pretty good.

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