Re: [DL] Canada prices (Shane or John)

[Ross Coburn <coburn@sympatico.ca>]

on 9/27/00 2:06 PM, Hank Woolsey at hwoolsey@precisiongraphics.com wrote:

> Hi Ross.
> 
> I'm curious about your above-quoted statement.  What other games are
> cheaper?  I don't mean to question your statement's veracity - I'm
> curious.  In the states, 7th Sea and L5R release comparable books
> (page count-wise).  They routinely are hte same price as Pinnacle's
> products.  Atlas Games tends to be a little more expensive, and I
> haven't bought any Chaosium in a long time.

OK, lemme think a bit.  I don't happen to be standing in Le Valet d'Coeur
(great game store, by the way), so I'm going by memory here.

Firstly, I'll mention the new Wizards stuff.  D&D3 is cheaper of course, but
then they're selling the three rulebooks off at below market price.
however, before that, most of the stuff they'd produced (plus the Marvel
SAGA game, which I can speak of, and Alternity, which I have priced but
never purchased) are perhaps 33% less expensive.  You can get a full-colour
Alternity PH/'DMG' in hardcover for the price of Lost Angels, for example.

White Wolf is, as far as I am concerned, the production value/price point
leader in the industry.  Vampire Revised, a big ol' hardcover with
(generally) far better art, indexing, layout and typography than anything
PEG has produced goes for at least $10 less than a comparable PEG hardcover.
Their ~128 page softcovers are also a good $10 less each.

Chaosium is about the same price for older material, closer to PEG's
price-point for newer stuff, but I have to hasten to add that their quality
level is so far above the rest of the industry that they're worth every
penny.  Writing, editing, nifty stuff...  If the rest of the industry had
half of Chaosium's quality standards you'd rarely if ever hear me complain,
esp. since in the last few years Chaosium has learned a few things about
graphics in presentations.

7th Sea will never see a cent from me, as (in my opinion) they so thoroughly
screwed the pooch with that product (in terms of finding some kind of
balance between fantasy and history, as well as their lack of understanding
of anything remotely nautical, not to mention the generally high luridity of
the game line) that it's not worht it at any price (which seems to be about
the same as PEG, maybe a dollar or two higher).  L5R doesn't interest me for
different reasons, though I understand that it's a decent offering, and also
seems to come in at about PEG level.

Palladium, whom I despise (no offense intended), costs far less.  So does
SJG/GURPS.

Star Trek is vastly overpriced (at about $10 MORE/hardcover than the
expensive PEG stuff, and the softcover stuff is ridiculous) as well, but I
can understand this given that they undoubtedly have to pay a steep
licensing fee.  (If it just turns out that they're that greedy, well, I
don't care but I can tell you no less than a dozen propective players who
don't have my disposable income have stated that the price is why they won't
get into it.  Small sample, I know, but I only know so many prospective
Trekkies.)

Who am I missing here?

And once again, I have to say that price factors into perceived value for
me, it doesn't determine whether or not I'll purchase a given product.
Unless I'm waiting eagerly for a particular product, I tend to make
occasional (monthly at worst, sometimes every two weeks) trips to the
aforementioned game store, where I tend to drop from $100-150 on average.
Meaning, I get 4-5 books, and they cost what they cost, unless it's really
ridiculous.  But when I get them home, the books with the solid binding,
creatively legible layout, compelling art and clean writing seem like so
much better a buy than the (otherwise interesting) book that falls apart, is
filled with placeholder art, big and/or garish type and any number of copy
errors.

 
> Shane and John - I tagged this to you because I'm curious as to
> whether PEG sets Canadian prices or lets the distributor do so.


As for setting prices, while Shane is likely the guy to answer it, I have a
few thoughts on the matter.

One thing is the poor Canadian-US exchange rate of course, and who knows,
shipping might come into it too (although many game companies have their
stuff printed here in Montreal and shipped south), but my FLGS has a policy
of selling game books for the US cover price +20% in Canadian dollars, which
always ends up being less than the sugested price (D&D3 would be $31
Canadian, Le Valet d'Coeur is selling it for $24).  Now they're about the
biggest game store I've seen, anywhere, so they do a good deal of business
and may be able to afford this, but generally speaking, if it says $20us,
most Canadian stores sell for $30 Canadian.  I've never noticed a Canadian
'sticker price' on anything but the Wizards stuff though, not that I've ever
really looked.  (It's the price on the sticker the store puts on that
matters, after all.)


Ross Coburn
coburn@sympatico.ca