Other imports, depends what the thing is. Basically as you'd expect - made in China, cheap, made in Europe, expensive.

Aussie rpg companies haven't done much, because they don't exist - too small a market, and flooded with foreign products. It's like asking about Aussie police procedural dramas. It's $200,000-$1,000,000 to produce an episode of a new cop show here, versus $20,000-$50,000 to just buy an episode of CSI: East Boondocks.

Aussie cop shows exist, but only because we have laws mandating minimum Australian content on television. We have no such laws for rpgs.

Am I correct in assessing that the point of the OP is that RPGs used to cost relatively much less than other games, whereas now they cost much more in relative terms than other games, and that this is a major problem?

If so, I agree.

RPGPundit

Quote from: everloss;476066anyway, being poor isn't as difficult as you guys make it sound. With my shiity wage I can afford to live in a roach-infested double next to an elderly hoarder in the highest-crime rated section of the city, buy a monthly bus pass every month, eat most days, and pay for an internet connection.

My gf with her professional secretary job can basically afford to pay her student loan, pay her compact car payment, afford clothes for work, gas, and pay me a whopping $125 a month or so to contribute to the house/food/utilities costs.  It's crazy.

Quote from: TristramEvans;476074Which is why many who can't afford college are basically doomed to a life bordering on indentured slavery in the retail or food service industries I guess.

Actually, I'd say that education, food, fuel, and housing costs have all skyrocketed to the point where nearly everyone has a life bordering on indentured slavery.

Quote from: RPGPundit;476390Am I correct in assessing that the point of the OP is that RPGs used to cost relatively much less than other games, whereas now they cost much more in relative terms than other games, and that this is a major problem?

If so, I agree.

I definately would agree with that as well.  I never would have been able to play D&D more than once (the first exposure being by a much older son of one of my mom's friends) if not for the fact that the old D&D boxed sets were in toy stores priced at a point where my grandmother could buy me the expert set.  I didn't understand the whole basic/expert thing at the time, causing a bit of a delay in actually being able to play, but the book was still inspiring.

Later, I never would have been able to get friends into the games if they weren't all packaged in easy to afford boxed sets that you could find in toy stores.  My gaming didn't really take off until I bought a friend the basic D&D set from our local toy store (in my small town of 2,000 people that was an hour away from any major cities).

The problem now is not only the lack of the games in actual toy stores, but also that we only end up with "starter sets" that are often still too pricey.  We need to return to having complete games inside a package that is still in the low buy-in range.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;476162This is where I disagree.  I don't think offering a part-time (or even temporary) position is immoral.  I think it's a part-time or temporary position; it's not supposed to be a career.  

If an employee is only working part-time, then an employer is already paying them less and, in most cases, is not required to provide any medical benefits. As for it "not supposed to be a career"...the companies themselves actually disagree with you.

Ads for employment at McDonalds don't say "hey , would you like to work temporaily for us part time and make less than you do babysitting while your exposed to harmful conditions and do the work that a bunch of people making 20 times what you do aren't willing to do themselves?"

Nope

"Career Opportunities" indeed.



And that's common for every company that makes billions on the backs of the minimum-wage poor workers. And those are the "good" companies that don't set up factories overseas to pay children .50 a day to make their crap.

There's nothing wrong with a job being part time or temporary. That doesn't mean the employees are only worth a few dollars more than illegal immigrant plantation workers.

Quote from: RPGPundit;476390Am I correct in assessing that the point of the OP is that RPGs used to cost relatively much less than other games, whereas now they cost much more in relative terms than other games, and that this is a major problem?

If so, I agree.

RPGPundit

Where do you get this idea? A number of those on the list don't exist in their current format or a far more - e.g. the console cost and several 'geeky' hobbies (comics, console & online gaming) absorb far more money on a regular basis than tabletop rpgs.

I think what's interesting is the cost of the cd player. Consumer electronics have tumbled in price in terms of like for like, but I note that the cost of a standard laptop seems to stick around the £400 mark here and all the extra capacity gets absorbed by expectations and the requirements of software.

I just don't see cost being the main reason for a decline in tabletop rpgs when the kids at school still have parents buying Games Workshop products - not really a competitor for rpgs in 1983 but a product that has continued to grow as a brand through all the cycles that rpgs seem to go through.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;476214Other imports, depends what the thing is. Basically as you'd expect - made in China, cheap, made in Europe, expensive.

Aussie rpg companies haven't done much, because they don't exist - too small a market, and flooded with foreign products. It's like asking about Aussie police procedural dramas. It's $200,000-$1,000,000 to produce an episode of a new cop show here, versus $20,000-$50,000 to just buy an episode of CSI: East Boondocks.

Aussie cop shows exist, but only because we have laws mandating minimum Australian content on television. We have no such laws for rpgs.

Well, if I could chime in, although it's an article of faith that Australian consumers Are Being Ripped Off on DVDs, Video Games, music etc., while in raw-exchange terms it might look like a rip-off, in Parity Purchasing Power terms it's not clear that Australian consumers are being ripped off at all. Differential pricing in different markets is done by a number of different industries. There's nothing intrinsically illegitimate about it.

Yes, Australia is a small market, and if it's the only market for a new Australian cop show, the economics don't work compared to importing. But trade works both ways, as you know. We have Australian soaps like "Neighbors" which are highly profitable -- the overwhelming majority of Channel Ten's profits from that show are from overseas sales. It's certainly true that no Australian show can be viable without being designed with a view to overseas sales, but that's also true of American TV! The American TV and Film industry also now makes the majority of its revenue on most products from overseas sales.

Australian RPG companies don't exist -- but there aren't many RPG companies at all in the world in general. Please note that Battlefront Miniatures, who make the very popular Flames of War series, are a New Zealand company. It's perfectly possible to be based in Australia, producing a traditional PnP RPG for the global market. Please no more economic nationalist flagellation about how Cheap Imports Are Destroying Australian X, Y and Z.

D&D basic sets should cost the same or less than the basic Monopoly game.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;476502D&D basic sets should cost the same or less than the basic Monopoly game.

RPGPundit

Which appears to be slightly less than $20 according to Amazon.

Quote from: RPGPundit;476502D&D basic sets should cost the same or less than the basic Monopoly game.

RPGPundit

Then you would need to reduce the rules to fit on one sheet of tri-folded A4 paper

1 board, bunch of paper money 1 sheet rules, 1 set property cards, bunch of plastic houses, 6 game peices and a dice.

Gamma world starter set ($29.19 on amazon)
• 160-page book with rules for character creation, game rules, and an adventure
• 2 sheets of die-cut character and monster tokens
• 2 double-sided battle maps
• Cardstock character sheets and mutation power cards
• Mutation power card deck
• Loot power card deck

I'm still at a loss as to what real difference a cheap and nasty or even loss-leading D&D box set would really make.The kids at school, even in a relatively deprived former coal-mining town, as featured in Brassed Off, still have far more disposable income in general than I ever had and actually part of the attractiveness of things is actually that they aren't cheap...whether it's mobile phones, consoles and games or clothing. Labels are important, certain one in particular and rpgs are not one of those particular ones.

Quote from: Joshua Ford;476565I'm still at a loss as to what real difference a cheap and nasty or even loss-leading D&D box set would really make.The kids at school, even in a relatively deprived former coal-mining town, as featured in Brassed Off, still have far more disposable income in general than I ever had and actually part of the attractiveness of things is actually that they aren't cheap...whether it's mobile phones, consoles and games or clothing. Labels are important, certain one in particular and rpgs are not one of those particular ones.

Totally agree.
As was hashed out in the White Wolf killed Gaming thread there are simply a lot more things that scratch the geek itch for folks these days.
Find out how many kids are actually playing boardgames at all. How many 11 year olds get out the Monopoly board and play with their friends and not their parents? What do 11 - 13 year olds actually do?

I have run games for kids as young as 5 or 6 and they love it and a friend of mine uses D&D to teach english and Chinese to kids in that age range but I suspect that the joy the kids get is coming largely from the fact that the adult is running a structured game for them.

Before you think about prices and sweet spots, before you think about rules and mechanics you have to work out what the market is or if there is one at all. Personally I think that the MMO market, X-box live and all that have already taken your target market and given them a similar experience (at least on the surface) with way more convenience and less 'homework' and as you can see the price is not the governing factor in that equation.

So before you start to worry about whether a D&D boxed set should be $50 and be packed with plastic minis and floor tiles, $30 and come with 2 100 page rulebooks running characters upto 5th level or $20 and have a 10 page rule book and some sort of prebuilt intro adventure with floor tiles and paper minis, you really need to decide if there is a market there at all and what the target audience actually want to do with their free time.

I still hold that the best bet for an entry level RPG is the Harry Potter franchise but unless JKR dies in a car crash that isn't going to happen. And I suspect that even that would need to have an online (wiki/chat driven with die rollers) version pushed through the new Potter website to have any real impact on the hobby.

Quote from: jibbajibba;476509Then you would need to reduce the rules to fit on one sheet of tri-folded A4 paper

1 board, bunch of paper money 1 sheet rules, 1 set property cards, bunch of plastic houses, 6 game peices and a dice.

Gamma world starter set ($29.19 on amazon)
• 160-page book with rules for character creation, game rules, and an adventure
• 2 sheets of die-cut character and monster tokens
• 2 double-sided battle maps
• Cardstock character sheets and mutation power cards
• Mutation power card deck
• Loot power card deck

By that standard, if you did a D&D starter set that had a 160 page rulebook and some character sheets; didn't have the power decks, battle maps, or tokens, you should probably be able to get it out for under $20.   Add a basic set of gaming dice, and you could justify it being $25.

RPGpundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;476662By that standard, if you did a D&D starter set that had a 160 page rulebook and some character sheets; didn't have the power decks, battle maps, or tokens, you should probably be able to get it out for under $20.   Add a basic set of gaming dice, and you could justify it being $25.

RPGpundit

Honestly, are you channelling Koltar? The price isn't the issue for the majority of teenagers in developed countries. Trust us. They'll spend twice that on a computer game that will be played out in a few weeks. A 160 page rulebook when so many games are pick up and play these days (even wargaming has simplified considerably) is not appealing to a novice.

I managed a little RC D&D with my brighter students at the school club, but they soon wanted to get back to wargaming for the tanks (interesting - most would far rather play WWII than WH40K), some boardgames (Shadows Over Camelot, Memoir '44, Talisman) or even a bit of Diplomacy or Macchiavelli (I'm going to run an ongoing game throughout the term with a wall map in my office).

I have do someone doing educational games one day a week and after school he runs 4E D&D with a very small group after school (I bought a couple of the boxed sets for £12 each myself). They love the counters and boards.

If you're trying to get the new adults in, then something more akin to a boardgame is a possibility I suppose, as they seem to be having a resurgence but I really fail to see how any starter set that doesn't have have the right IP (and Harry Potter is an excellent example of that) is going to make a real difference with any age group.

RPGs aren't going to die any time soon but they've had their moment in the sun and are a niche, in with wargaming, stamp-collecting and any number of other hobbies.

Quote from: RPGPundit;476662By that standard, if you did a D&D starter set that had a 160 page rulebook and some character sheets; didn't have the power decks, battle maps, or tokens, you should probably be able to get it out for under $20.   Add a basic set of gaming dice, and you could justify it being $25.

RPGpundit

But that is just a book in a box though right. I mean having some character sheets that I could download the template for off the internet or just photocopy out of the back of the book and a 5 dice doesn't seem to justify the box somehow. Also where is you value addes IP. A book can just be ripped of the net. That is why new games have beenie tokens, power cards etc becuase that stuff could be replaced but with much grater effort.
Interesting new Manopoly sets have credit cards and a card reader caculator instead of paper money.

Quote from: RPGPundit;476502D&D basic sets should cost the same or less than the basic Monopoly game.

RPGPundit

Basic economies of scale say no, that can never happen.

Basic Monopoly sets are dirt cheap to produce - simple components, R&D costs paid off decades ago, but most importantly it's been a consistent high seller for decades, so Hasbro can order the components in ludicrous quantities, making them incredibly cheap. Investing money in producing Monopoly sets is practically guaranteed to bring in a great return on the investment.

D&D has more complicated components, so those will be more expensive to produce, but it also hasn't been a consistent high seller for years - so the print runs are smaller, which means that they can't take advantage of the same economies of scale Monopoly sets can. It is possible that the market exists, of course, but it's an incredibly risky way to invest money if you don't have that evidence. (The 80's don't count, because you're not trying to sell D&D box sets to the 80's. If you are, then you have a time machine, so why are you piddling about printing RPG's?)

(As very rough figures, the RRP of 2010 Gamma World is $40, and Monopoly Classic is $25; assuming 50% cut at each tier of the three-tier distribution process, that means it costs $10 to produce a GW set and $6.25 to produce a Monopoly set.)

Now, you can cut corners on the D&D set - artwork, reprinting rules from your edition of choice, etc - but the more corners you cut, the less appealing you make it to the market, so the less you are likely to sell.

I don't think you could really do a solid, long-term playable game set for much less than the $35 Pathfinder set, and I'm still slightly amazed they got it that low. That's probably the best we'll see for a very long time.