Quote from: ArrozConLeche;1008800Holy shit, yes. Chaosium has the same problem.

Or perhaps the companies aren't the problem...

Pricing is not JUST a calculation of "cost". The cost of paying authors, editors and illustrators far exceeds any "cost" associated with printing. Hell, the printing part is easy. Toss in taxes, tariffs, payroll, logistics, utilities, warehousing... Don't you believe in supporting companies so they can thrive? If every venture into the gaming industry is a zero sum game, how long do you think we'll have gaming companies?

I probably have $1000 in GURPS PDFs and hardcovers (easy, probably much more). There is not a single publisher who creates this quality. I always find errors (spelling and grammatical) in most works and I have a hard time bumping into them in a GURPS book. Not only that, but the GURPS books are aimed at roleplayers, not just GURPS gamers. They have tons of useful advice on how to emulate genre, mood and bring adventure to every corner of the universe you can think of. They are considerably "universal" in their application. I can use plenty of GURPS in other games without much trouble.

Every GURPS PDF I own is well worth the price. Even better, my support of GURPS helps keep a crack team of freelancers GURPSing all the livelong day!

You get what you pay for. GURPS focuses on quality writing and quality rules that work well. They have high standards. GURPS is not the Chevy Volt bro, it's the Mercedes Benz.

At some point, publishers will price themselves right out of market. It will no longer be a viable side-hustle much less a intelligent business opportunity. Instead we'll just have enthusiasts producing quick vanity projects. Having witnessed the metric ton of crap sauce the d20 boom produced, it's easy to see where that leads. It takes considerable focus, time and effort to produce a quality RPG product. Most hobbyists don't have the dedication, time, skills or resources to make that happen.

I support the games I love because they are good. I'm happy to pay a reasonable price to keep those companies healthy, thereby netting me more quality works.

It's the same philosophy as the village economy. I'm a programmer and software tester. I also design websites. I'm pretty good at it. I can easily command $50/hour in my job, and twice that freelancing. Instead of inventing my own game, or trying to compete in a crowded market, I am WAY better off supporting a company that is not only dedicated to making games, but is really good at it. Instead of wasting time making my "generic heartbreaker", I can instead build a website for someone and then spend that on awesome high quality books. Then run a game with an awesome high-quality game. I work hard to make some cash and then patronize awesome hard-working fellows with that cash.

Even better, because I can make GOOD cash, I can afford higher quality works. Which then encourages more creators to make high quality works to sell to me.

We create the marketplace. Our buying habits drive demand. What demand do you want to encourage?

Well, it was about time:)!
But the pricing is still the same. I guess I'd have to wait a bit longer.

Trechiron, that's true from one point of view. From another point of view, GURPS is a system with two $50 corebooks;). And no, the research that went into those might be considerable, but they aren't orders of magnitude better than all the competition.
The competition that sometimes has cheap or free corebooks.

In other words, what you say is not the logic of economy. The right question is, what can you get for the same price?
Well, you could get one of FFE's CDs with a whole edition of Traveller, sourcebooks, adventures and all.
Or you could get EABAv2 for less than a single corebook costs. And that's a system that's quite comparable to GURPS, system-wise. I'm not even sure the comparison would be favourable to GURPS, much as it's like a "first love" to me, being the first RPG system I actually liked:p.

Now I only have to decide whether I want anything at that price. But I can at least get Technical Grappling now:D!

But it's definitely going to be supplements, not corebooks;).

Quote from: estar;1008805They are looking at it from the standpoint of cost.

And profit, obviously.

Neither of which are my concern as a consumer.

Quote from: trechriron;1008814Don't you believe in supporting companies so they can thrive?

Nope.

Quote from: trechriron;1008814If every venture into the gaming industry is a zero sum game, how long do you think we'll have gaming companies?

Could not care less if they all went out of business tomorrow.

Quote from: trechriron;1008814You get what you pay for.

A common misconception promoted by the seller to fool the buyer. A fool and his money are soon parted.

It's just a reality of commerce that an electronic file can't be priced as highly as a dead-tree book. It's crazy to me that big companies don't get that.