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| Yeeeesssth my preeeshuuus... Looower da priiiices! |
Here's their argument:
“For every copy an e-book would sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if priced at $9.99,” the company wrote. “So, for example, if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same e-book at $9.99. Total revenue at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000.”Which makes me wonder how much money GW is leaving on the table...
...when they price their eBooks so high.
Certainly they haven't gotten very much of mine. I did buy the Kill Team update, because it was only $12-ish, and I wanted to see if they had improved the rules any (they didn't). The sloppiness of that one book by itself put me off buying any more.
It's not the cost, it's the value. The releases are of poor quality, and every release has a substantial probability of erasing the value of the last $200 worth of product you purchased.
ReplyDeleteIn order to compete on value with their competitors, they would have to cost their products so low, that GW would go bankrupt in a month because of all their overhead. They need to substantially increase quality, and reduce cost moderately. Early 5th edition was a sweet spot in terms of value and cost. They need to get back to that point for starters.
I don't disagree, but GW also has to compete with every other entertainment product too. If my choice is between a GW rulebook and a DVD or Blu-Ray, that's one thing. But if the choice is between a rulebook and a just-released XBone/PS4/PC game, that's going to be hard for anyone but GW's most rabid fans to consider.
DeleteUpping value and lowering prices moderately is just a starting point towards recovery. The prices, even in 5th, were still too high to interest more than a small handful of new players. I think all of us have had friends that got excited about the game, only to sour real quick when they saw the price tag.
Eh, it's all academic for me at this point. I won't go back to GW products until they staff the design studio with developers I can trust to maintain the game, and replace upper-management with people that don't have disdain for their own products and customers.
DeleteFor myself, GW would have to slash its rules prices by 3/4, and their models by about 1/3 to really get me interested again.
DeleteWhen I want to buy a codex relevant to me I don't begrudge the cost of a rulebook. I think it compares well to what one would pay for a video game and I'll get just as much, if not more entertainment out of it. However, should I wish to look at a Codex that is not relevant to me I'd certainly appreciate a cheaper option because I'm only interested for reference.
ReplyDeleteDigital versions should be where this is considerably cheaper but I feel this for all e-publications. Printed books take up warehouse space, cost resources to produce and transport. Additionally they fall out of fashion, get re-printed and therefore the covers our out of date which requires the books to be sold off to discount book stores or even pulped at a loss [not to mention the transport costs back to these facilities]. Also there is a healthy market in 2nd hand book sales, people getting their book without the publishers/authors seeing any revenue for this.
Digital books require server space, which costs but in no way as much as the storage of books, transportation costs are zero [ish] they can be easily updated and although there is a problem with file sharing amongst digital copies there is DRM to prevent onward sales in a 2nd hand capacity.
Altogether digital is considerably cheaper so I don't understand why we're not seeing that saving passed on, particularly with Codex additions, like the Iyanden supplement which is £30 for the supplement and £24.99 for the iBook edition. You still need the Eldar codex to use them and that's £30 or £29.99 for the iBook, where's the value in that. Re-price Iyanden at £14.99 and you have the right price in my opinion, you may even picky up those who've been priced out of the market.
Just as a note, but there are two types of eBooks out there, Interactive/Enhanced and regular, at least for the Space Wolves dex. While the Interactive edition still costs $5 more than the hardback (Interactive: $55, hardback: $50), the regular eBook is only $35, which is about what they were when I started playing, if I recall correctly.
ReplyDeleteThen you started playing recently. The codices were $27 when I returned to the game in '08.
DeleteThe codexes themselves are way to expensive (20 dollars when I started). Maybe the production values are better now but I was not buying them for the production values. The digital ones are also overpriced but what gets me is the cost of the datasheets and such. Those should be priced so low as to barely register as purchases. So low that you save a credit card so that 1 click buy works to avoid the hassle of entering it for a a quarter to one dollar purchase.
ReplyDelete