I was think about the cost of PDFs and it came to me on how much, or better yet how many pages of content do you expect for the monthly cost of $10? Is that 20 pages of content for $10 a month? or is that 50 Pages? How about 100 pages? Now I know some of you will say, "I want as much contact as I can get", but what is a reasonable amount in an actual number? Please feel free to comment in detail if needed. Thanks!
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Well, I guess that depends on the quality. For $10, I expect at least good quality, if not stellar one - FMG's Way of the Wicked for example is totally worth the 10 bucks and clocks in at about 100 pages in color with original artworks per issue. I'm willing to pay more, but at $10, most pdfs are considered beyond my impulse-buy range. RiP's BoFN or HHG's Mor Aldenn are also in that range and have in common that, at 10 bucks, they deliver premium products.
My impulse-buy-cap is at around $5, more for some companies.
In the end, good editing, professional design etc. is more important to me than +/- $1 buck.
How much does the average MMO cost per month?
Well, I guess that depends on the quality. For $10, I expect at least good quality, if not stellar one - FMG's Way of the Wicked for example is totally worth the 10 bucks and clocks in at about 100 pages in color with original artworks per issue.
100 pages of content is about 50K words so I have to figure for a typical freelancer that would be about a 6 weeks worth of work. So for this question I think that might be unrealistic schedule to keep up with as a month project.
I'm willing to pay more, but at $10, most pdfs are considered beyond my impulse-buy range. RiP's BoFN or HHG's Mor Aldenn are also in that range and have in common that, at 10 bucks, they deliver premium products.
For ease of the discussion all things being equal, let's say these are 4-star End reviewed product that has a material released every month via a subscription service. How many pages would you feel OK with receiving?
My impulse-buy-cap is at around $5, more for some companies.
Funny, mine is only $3.
In the end, good editing, professional design etc. is more important to me than +/- $1 buck.
True, but for this topic we just want to focus on quantity. Thanks!
I look at it this way, for $13.99 a month(ish) I get a new AP issue of the quality Paizo puts out. They're 96 pages of misc. material. For $10 a month from a 3PP, I'd require at least meeting that number of pages to get me to even consider looking into it realistically.
For PDFs, I think that for $10 - particularly if this is looking like a recurring monthly charge (e.g. for a subscription) - then I wouldn't want any less than seventy-five to eighty pages.
On the other hand, Paizo's adventure path PDFs are about $13 for almost exactly the same number of pages, but the interior quality is so high that it's warranted - at that level having the page count drop by about a fourth for a like reduction in cost is worthwhile.
Does the use of color over B&W effect your decision on page count and cost? Basically put, you are willing to pay $13.99 for 96 pages of color, would you pay $8 for 48 pages of B&W monthly content?
As Endzeitgeist noted, Fire Mountain Games' Way of the Wicked books are one hundred pages every month for $10.
Personally I don't see them doing this on a monthly basic for a long term, due to the fact that adventures normally sell at 1/6 compared to campaign sourcebooks or player guides.
How much does the average MMO cost per month?
The ones I've played had a monthly fee of about $12 per month.
As Endzeitgeist noted, Fire Mountain Games' Way of the Wicked books are one hundred pages every month for $10.
Actually, I believe it's every other month.
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It saddens me that the metric here is "pages per dollar."
Is a map worth more or less than a page of text? If the page has a large image, does that increase or decrease its worth? If the text is riddled with errors and poor writing, should that change its value? What's the value of fiction vs a new class/archetype vs an adventure?
X pages of well-written prose with a clean layout and decent art is worth far more than X pages of grammar and spelling mistakes that looks half-assed and slapped together. Removing "quality" from the equation makes any discussion on the topic futile. If you're fine paying $10 for 1000 pages per month, I can crank out a LOT of Lorem Ipsem with stick figures. Sign up now, and I'll tell you where to send the checks.
As Endzeitgeist noted, Fire Mountain Games' Way of the Wicked books are one hundred pages every month for $10.Personally I don't see them doing this on a monthly basic for a long term, due to the fact that adventures normally sell at 1/6 compared to campaign sourcebooks or player guides.
If this is the real aim of your question, I would have hoped that a Third-Party Publisher wouldn't take such a cheap shot at a peer. Jealousy and bitterness does not draw customers.
I was willing to pay 4.95 in 1999 for a copy of Dungeon magazine; in 2012 dollars, that's $6.84. I counted one at 70 pages of content (excluding ads, letters, etc).
I counted a 1987 issue of Dungeon at 61 pages of content (excluding ads, letters, etc) for $7.60 in 2012 dollars, and I was willing to pay that.
So I'm willing to pay around 9-12 cents a page...say 10 cents. So for $10.00, I expect straight-up 100 pages of solid content.
I'll also be honest: I expect to pay less for a PDF. If you don't have to go through the print-wholesale-retail hoopla, you should be able to do it cheaper, and I expect those savings to be passed on to the consumer. But then, production values on those old mags was fairly low, so if these PDFs come with some very nice art, I might call it a push.
Note: If this was going to be a subscription based idea I'd want significantly more content because I wouldn't be able to purchase the content at will, I'd have to take everything that came out.
This is a good point; I never subscribed to Dragon/Dungeon, I purchased off the news stand if I judged it to be a worthwhile purchase. If you subscribe, you should get a break off "cover price" because you're committing to multiple purchases.
It saddens me that the metric here is "pages per dollar."
Is a map worth more or less than a page of text? If the page has a large image, does that increase or decrease its worth? If the text is riddled with errors and poor writing, should that change its value? What's the value of fiction vs a new class/archetype vs an adventure?
X pages of well-written prose with a clean layout and decent art is worth far more than X pages of grammar and spelling mistakes that looks half-assed and slapped together. Removing "quality" from the equation makes any discussion on the topic futile. If you're fine paying $10 for 1000 pages per month, I can crank out a LOT of Lorem Ipsem with stick figures. Sign up now, and I'll tell you where to send the checks.
I find this comment somewhat obtuse. The metric is "pages OF SOLID CONTENT per dollar", not pages of just anything. Quality should be a given. I will not buy 1 page of anything if it isn't quality, so I naturally remove quality from the equation.
It is extremely hard to set objective price tags on some of this, because people want different things in terms of "content"...whether or not maps and art are worth as much as rules or setting info is entirely up to the reader. However, quantity is fairly objective; 100 pages is 100 pages. So when people say they will pay X dollars for Y pages, add at the end, "...of decent quality stuff that I want to use".
If you're saying people should elaborate on the last, you have a good point. But speaking for myself, I like maps, art, crunch, and fluff...I'd be fine with a mixture of all of that, not too heavy on any one thing...maybe a bit heavier on crunch. A good ratio for me is:
10% maps
15% art
20-30% fluff (setting info, adventure seeds/ideas, interesting persons, etc)
~50% crunch (mechanics, new spells/equipment/classes, finished/statted adventure scenarios)
It saddens me that the metric here is "pages per dollar."
Is a map worth more or less than a page of text? If the page has a large image, does that increase or decrease its worth? If the text is riddled with errors and poor writing, should that change its value? What's the value of fiction vs a new class/archetype vs an adventure?
X pages of well-written prose with a clean layout and decent art is worth far more than X pages of grammar and spelling mistakes that looks half-assed and slapped together. Removing "quality" from the equation makes any discussion on the topic futile. If you're fine paying $10 for 1000 pages per month, I can crank out a LOT of Lorem Ipsem with stick figures. Sign up now, and I'll tell you where to send the checks.
As we stated above: For ease of the discussion all things being equal, let's say these are 4-star End reviewed product that has a material released every month via a subscription service.
As Endzeitgeist noted, Fire Mountain Games' Way of the Wicked books are one hundred pages every month for $10.Personally I don't see them doing this on a monthly basic for a long term, due to the fact that adventures normally sell at 1/6 compared to campaign sourcebooks or player guides. If this is the real aim of your question, I would have hoped that a Third-Party Publisher wouldn't take such a cheap shot at a peer. Jealousy and bitterness does not draw customers.
Well first and foremost I don't understand where you think I am taking a "cheap shot" at a peer. It is a fact that adventures sell less than sourcebooks due to the fact adventures are focused on selling to one person (The GM only normally) while sourcebooks sell to several players at a table. This has been proven by Paizo, WOTC and just about every RPG company in existence. Second of all, I am a HUGE supporter of 3PP and have always been. The more that do well, the better chance we all do well. I don't understand where your hostility at me is coming from, since there never was any from me.
Honestly, to me, the quality of the content, and if the content is something I actually want, means more than page count.
That is one of the tougher positions since this is a subscription you have to take everything sight unseen. You might get four good solid months of content about Monks, Rogues and Half-Orcs
For $10.00 I'd like to have at least 2 of the following (doubling up is fine):
Full Base class that goes from 1 - 20. Look to SGG and Rite as examples here.
Full length adventure: Look to Raging Swan's publications here.
Theme book: A book of exciting themed monsters or feats or a location or something of that nature. (Probably wouldn't want to just double up on a book of this nature, its usually pretty short, so maybe triple up if this is the only kind of content that month.)
Note: If this was going to be a subscription based idea I'd want significantly more content because I wouldn't be able to purchase the content at will, I'd have to take everything that came out.
Thanks for the comments.
I would have hoped that a Third-Party Publisher wouldn't take such a cheap shot at a peer. Jealousy and bitterness does not draw customers.
Well first and foremost I don't understand where you think I am taking a "cheap shot" at a peer.
I generally stay out of other publisher's discussions, but I'm going to speak up in this case.
I don't see Louis' words as a cheap shot. Adventures generally do not sell well. Sure Paizo and Goodman games and a few others did really well selling regular adventures, but frankly, they're the exception, not the rule. For every 1 company that is still around today that made regular adventures their main product, how many of them failed?
FMG may end up being one of the exception. They have a good product that is filling a niche that Paizo is not. Can they do it again? How about a 3rd time or a 5th? That awaits to be seen. We all hope they do, but us publishers know that the odds are against it. Real life gets in the way. Something happens and you don't make your deadline. Before you know it, your next several products are pushed back.
Paizo, for example, didn't put out anything in March this year. That was after starting S&S late. So now they've got 2 AP volumes coming out in July and Aug. And they have a full time staff.
Like I mentioned above, FMG filled a niche that Paizo did not. There are generally 2 reasons why a niche is unfilled: 1) no publisher gave it serious thought before or 1) its been tried and it flopped. People wanted an all evil game and FMG gave them that. They sold over 1000 copies. That's awesome. What if the next one does only 100? That happens. Alot.
Louis wasn't taking a cheap shot at FMG. He was expressing the self doubt that all us publishers see about ourselves and our fellow publishers in this industry. We all know we're just 1 bad illness, 1 unwanted assignment at the day job, 1 serious relationship/medical issue with the spouse/kid/parents, 1 really expensive project that totally flops, etc away from going out of business.
I have quite a bit more to say about this topic, but I'm afraid I have plans and will be out all day, so let me just briefly mention this:
1) We publish roughly 100 full color pages EVERY OTHER MONTH. That is our business model for now and it is serving us well.
2) I don't feel that Louis took a cheap shot at us or anyone. So no apology is necessary as far as I'm concerned.
3) I'm gratified so many fine fans consider us a model of content production. We hope to continue to exceed your expectations.
4) I'm very pleased with how "Way of the Wicked" continues to sell. It didn't hit a thousand copies and stop. Our rate of sales continues to accelerate. After all, we started this process as complete unknowns and still have a long way to go in terms of market penetration.
5) I have no plans to stop. We haven't missed a deadline yet and I don't see us missing one in the foreseeable future. Book #4 of "Way of the Wicked" will definitely be out by the end of June.
Thanks for all the interest, everyone.
I'll post more later,
Gary McBride
Fire Mountain Games
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For me, it depends mostly on the content (especially if it can fill a niche that nobody else is filling), with some heavy weight given to the publisher (some scratch my itch, some do not). That said, there aren't really too many publishers that I would really do a subscription model for (and most of them aren't using Pathfinder, at least not solely).
For example, from LMPj, there are some products I like (Obsidian Twilight/Apocalypse being the standout), and some that just don't grab me (NeoExodus...not saying it's bad, just that nothing about it has really grabbed me and said "You must buy me!").
If Frog God Games has some kind of subscription model, I'd be on it in no time. (Well, I guess they technically did with Slumbering Tsar.) Hell, I'd subscribe twice over, once for Pathfinder, and DEFINITELY once for Swords & Wizardry.
And then there are publishers where I've gotten burned, and am unlikely to ever give them any money without immediately recieving the product in return. Won't name any names here, but I was looking forward to wandering through a post-apocalyptic world.
Looking at Fire Mountain Games...they've got me, at least through the end of Way of the Wicked. After that, well, we'll see. If their next product interests me, then it's very probably, since WotW has been pretty awesome thus far.
So yeah...they key to getting my $10 would be for your product to impress me. Hell, if it impresses me enough, you might get more than my $10...it's not quite sane how much I pledge for Rappan Athuk. But damn it, you can't put up a bonus like copies of the original notes and expect me NOT to grab at them.
I have quite a bit more to say about this topic, but I'm afraid I have plans and will be out all day, so let me just briefly mention this:
1) We publish roughly 100 full color pages EVERY OTHER MONTH. That is our business model for now and it is serving us well.
So we could say that you do 50 color pages monthly if you had too.
2) I don't feel that Louis took a cheap shot at us or anyone. So no apology is necessary as far as I'm concerned.
Thanks.
4) I'm very pleased with how "Way of the Wicked" continues to sell. It didn't hit a thousand copies and stop. Our rate of sales continues to accelerate. After all, we started this process as complete unknowns and still have a long way to go in terms of market penetration.
So based on your sales you believe you reach a level of "market acceptance" in terms of the product you produce?
5) I have no plans to stop. We haven't missed a deadline yet and I don't see us missing one in the foreseeable future. Book #4 of "Way of the Wicked" will definitely be out by the end of June.
That is good to hear. Thanks for the comments.
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Honestly, it would depend on what the content was. If it is a random assortment of material I may or may not use, then I would expect a lot of material. If it was for a specific type of material (say an ongoing Adventure line similar in nature to the APs, or a collection of new beasties, etc), then I would be satisfied with less content as the content I receive would be in a specific vein I was looking for.
5$ for a short pdf relevant to my interests, 10$ for 100+ pages, double that for a reputable publisher like SJG, John Wick, Robin D. Laws.
10$ a month means I'll expect a lot. On the subscription model, it's more important to me that you don't waste my time with crap than having enough pages.
I suppose I'm one of those few who doesn't even consider page count when deciding to buy a product.
The only thing I look for in a product is:
A) Does the description of the content pique my interest. This is super subjective, and doesn't really tie to any individual publisher (though I have recently subscribed to Kobold Quarterly after buying three issues in succession).
B) The price point. My impulse buy "cap" can be as high as $10 depending on how excited I get from reading the description and reviews and if I have the funds. I will typically make an impulse purchase of $2.99 or less if it just sounds mildly interesting, especially if I am bored at work (yay desk jobs!).
Things that I personally get excited for:
- Druid options
- Ranger options
- New classes that aren't beating a dead horse (like a new artificer, ugh)
- New races (I've yet to be satisfied with any lycan/minotaur/plant race I've seen, and they are high on my list)
- Ghost themed stuff (admittedly, I don't know if there is anything like this on the market, but I'd like to see some, with PC options as well that aren't just for 'killing' ghosts or undead)
Being on a college student's budget but being absolutely terribad with money kind of skews my data. Sorry if this isn't helpful.
EDIT: Fixed a tag.
For me it is not just about page count. I would like to be advanced 2 or 3 levels without it feeling forced. Decent art would also be nice. If I am paying 13-15 I want really good to great art. If the 3pp feels like art is really an issue I can accept B&W or very little art except for where it helps me to see the important NPC's and maps. The story has to be there though. If the quality of art drops to B&W and a only neccesary images I won't go above 8 bucks though.
To all the people pointing out that "page count isn't important" or "it's not just page count" or (particularly) "I don't even consider page count"...please keep a couple things in mind.
1.) The OP specifically asked for what kind of page counts people expect for their money.
2.) As I said, page count is not the primary factor for anyone...but all things being equal, what kind of page count feels right, or is necessary to make the purchase feel reasonable/worthwhile?
3.) I have an extremely hard time believing that page count isn't important to people.
Seriously, would you pay $10 for a 10-page booklet, even if it was an awesome scenario and included a couple pieces of first-rate art by your favorite artist? I'm guessing no...because 10 pages simply is not enough to provide $10 worth of content. I'd argue that 20-30 pages really isn't enough, for me.
I could be wrong, and further, I fully accept that tastes vary. But I have a hard time grasping the concept that people really don't care if a booklet is 40 pages or 80 pages. That is a big difference. To me, it's the difference between feeling like I bought a decent product and feeling like I got ripped off, in some cases.
If I have to put a number on it, I think it's about 20 cent per page, and I expect about 20% of a publication to be useful, so it's really more of a dollar per GOOD page.
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Well though it would be based on quality. Taking that aside I think the lowest total would be 50 pages but then I would expect very good art and outstanding product, like Paizo level. The more pages the lower the quality could be.
As thinking of it as the 4 star review End gave to some stuff. I would say it would need to be at least 75 pages to make me even consider it and at that point I would be picky and only buy something that really appealed to me. A 100 pages at that would make me less picky etc.
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A lot of people disagree with that. Super Genius Games puts out their bullet points, which are 1 page for $1 and they sell well.3.) I have an extremely hard time believing that page count isn't important to people.
Seriously, would you pay $10 for a 10-page booklet, even if it was an awesome scenario and included a couple pieces of first-rate art by your favorite artist? I'm guessing no...because 10 pages simply is not enough to provide $10 worth of content. I'd argue that 20-30 pages really isn't enough, for me.
True but the big advantage of that is, it is priced so low(most don't consider a dollar much money) that I imagine it sells a lot on impulse buys and most people really don't think about the cost to page ratio.
It is a lot easier to see something neat and spend a buck for it, than see something and spend 10 for it. Which honestly is silly but how most people work. I know I have bought not just gaming books but other things I was only mildly interested in because they was cheap and skipped some stuff I was very interested in but I just couldn't justify the huge price tag on them.
Well though it would be based on quality. Taking that aside I think the lowest total would be 50 pages but then I would expect very good art and outstanding product, like Paizo level. The more pages the lower the quality could be.
Given the paizo modules are 32 pages for $10 - is there a premium based on publishing history?
(I'm just curious, I'm not involved with a 3pp or anything).
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Well though it would be based on quality. Taking that aside I think the lowest total would be 50 pages but then I would expect very good art and outstanding product, like Paizo level. The more pages the lower the quality could be.Given the paizo modules are 32 pages for $10 - is there a premium based on publishing history?
(I'm just curious, I'm not involved with a 3pp or anything).
Part of Paizo's cost is tied up in art too. I wouldn't expect a 3pp to have the same talent level of artist. I was more talking using the normal fare of 3pp art, the text quality and quantity content numbers. Based on the art and quality content in most of LMP's previous 4 star products.
To be clear I think Paizo has some of the best written stuff and best art in the industry. But even then I have been less than happy with some of Paizo's stuff, they turn out far more good than bad by a wide margin but even they stumble from time to time.
Plus part of this is a subscription based. Which means you are agreeing to pay a monthly fee sight unseen. For me that raises the requirements for it. For me to agree to 10 a month sight unseen i would expect a constant higher value, than what i might pay for a one off product.
I could be wrong, and further, I fully accept that tastes vary. But I have a hard time grasping the concept that people really don't care if a booklet is 40 pages or 80 pages. That is a big difference. To me, it's the difference between feeling like I bought a decent product and feeling like I got ripped off, in some cases.
To say that page count literally does not enter the equation does not count as valid data for the 'survey?' I have never looked at the page count of a product I am thinking about buying. It just doesn't matter to me. I would much rather buy from a publisher whose main concern is content, not page count.
Not sure if this is applicable to your question, but I would almost prefer being able to pick and choose between three 25 pg pdfs for $4 each than one 75 pg pdf for $10. Which is to say, I'd prefer to pick and choose which type of content I purchase. So having minilines, each with a different focus such as an encounter, a new town, new monsters, etc would be great for me. But again, that's a personal thing.
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A lot of people disagree with that. Super Genius Games puts out their bullet points, which are 1 page for $1 and they sell well.3.) I have an extremely hard time believing that page count isn't important to people.
Seriously, would you pay $10 for a 10-page booklet, even if it was an awesome scenario and included a couple pieces of first-rate art by your favorite artist? I'm guessing no...because 10 pages simply is not enough to provide $10 worth of content. I'd argue that 20-30 pages really isn't enough, for me.
While that;s true (and thanks for the shout-out), I'm personally of the opinion that 1 page for $1 is very different from 10 pages for $10. The reasons for this are twofold.
First, there's the question of how much of the content you're going to be able to use. With our Bullet Point line, if you decide you are interested in our topic, you know you're getting nothing but material that applies to that topic. If we do #1 with a Bullet Point: 7 Halfling Combat Stiles Based on Craft (baking), most people know immediately whether that interests them or not. At one page, they don;t need to worry that we have some space taken up with in-game fiction, some with a random-halfling-combat-pie-flavor-generator ("bruisenberry" being the most popular), and some with bakery-related monsters. It's going to be just 7 Baking Fight Styles, and that's it. I know a lot of gamers expect to get use out of no more than 10%-20% of a given product, and end up thinking of BPs as being x5-x10 more useful than normal because they know exactly what they'll get.
Second, there's an impulse buy factor. At $1, I suspect we get a lot of people willing to shell out the rice just to see what we have done, and they don't feel that means they can't buy some other thing they like. So the $1 ends up being "outside" their normal game budget, because it's so little to spend.
Don't get me wrong, we are very happy with how well the Bullet Point line does for us, and I'm regularly getting requests to do even more BPs. But I think they are an exception to the normal expectations of page count/dollar.
I suppose I could always release a similar, tightly-focused, 10-page product for $10 and see if it sold as well, but my gut instinct is that'd be a massive failure.
If I'm spending $10 for a pdf, it should have at least 50 pages of damn good content about something I care about.
Currently, I am subscribed to Paizo's AP and Player Companion lines. For me, that's the limit.
HOWEVER, I absolutely love the Campaign Setting line, and even though I can't subscribe to the line, I try to buy as many of those books as possible, when I have the money. Right now, there's 10 of them I plan to pick up, at some point, including most of the upcoming ones.
I would feel the same way for any 3PP that put out something of similar quality. I might not subscribe, but if the books are outstanding month in, month out, I'll eventually buy them.
Case in point, there's several I plan to get in the very near future, but at the moment, money is slightly tight.
I was willing to pay 4.95 in 1999 for a copy of Dungeon magazine; in 2012 dollars, that's $6.84. I counted one at 70 pages of content (excluding ads, letters, etc).
I counted a 1987 issue of Dungeon at 61 pages of content (excluding ads, letters, etc) for $7.60 in 2012 dollars, and I was willing to pay that.
So I'm willing to pay around 9-12 cents a page...say 10 cents. So for $10.00, I expect straight-up 100 pages of solid content.
I'll also be honest: I expect to pay less for a PDF. If you don't have to go through the print-wholesale-retail hoopla, you should be able to do it cheaper, and I expect those savings to be passed on to the consumer. But then, production values on those old mags was fairly low, so if these PDFs come with some very nice art, I might call it a push.
It's funny if you look back to the early 2000, PDF per page pricing was based off of 10 cents a page. Now PDF per page pricing on the average runs between 15 to 28 cents a page. LPJ Design released Armanda with 28 B&W pages for $4.99 (roughly 18 cents a page) while our Machinesmith PDF was 18 full color pages for $2.75 (roughly 15 cent per page) and they are selling at the same per date rate.
It's funny if you look back to the early 2000, PDF per page pricing was based off of 10 cents a page. Now PDF per page pricing on the average runs between 15 to 28 cents a page. LPJ Design released Armanda with 28 B&W pages for $4.99 (roughly 18 cents a page) while our Machinesmith PDF was 18 full color pages for $2.75 (roughly 15 cent per page) and they are selling at the same per date rate.I was willing to pay 4.95 in 1999 for a copy of Dungeon magazine; in 2012 dollars, that's $6.84. I counted one at 70 pages of content (excluding ads, letters, etc).
I counted a 1987 issue of Dungeon at 61 pages of content (excluding ads, letters, etc) for $7.60 in 2012 dollars, and I was willing to pay that.
So I'm willing to pay around 9-12 cents a page...say 10 cents. So for $10.00, I expect straight-up 100 pages of solid content.
I'll also be honest: I expect to pay less for a PDF. If you don't have to go through the print-wholesale-retail hoopla, you should be able to do it cheaper, and I expect those savings to be passed on to the consumer. But then, production values on those old mags was fairly low, so if these PDFs come with some very nice art, I might call it a push.
Figuring for inflation, that's actually right around the same rate. 10 cents in 1999 dollars is roughly equivalent to 15 cents in 2012 dollars (factoring for inflation).
What I find interesting is that the price was 10 cents back then (seeing as I typically paid less than that for print copy). Do you think around 2000, people were paying a premium for PDF content due to the convenience (rapid distribution, just download and go)? Are people still willing to pay that premium?
I'll be honest...I'm not. Though I will also admit I may not be your target audience, and I know that I am pretty tight with my gaming dollars. I really doubt that I'd pay $10 a month for subscription material, unless I had considerable confidence that I'd be getting a good amount (100 pages) of high-quality material that I could use, every month.
Part of me unconsciously factors in the fact that I expect a part of anything I buy to not be useful to me (based off past experience with just about EVERY game product I've ever bought). This may be why my page count is higher than most.
I could be wrong, and further, I fully accept that tastes vary. But I have a hard time grasping the concept that people really don't care if a booklet is 40 pages or 80 pages. That is a big difference. To me, it's the difference between feeling like I bought a decent product and feeling like I got ripped off, in some cases.To say that page count literally does not enter the equation does not count as valid data for the 'survey?' I have never looked at the page count of a product I am thinking about buying. It just doesn't matter to me. I would much rather buy from a publisher whose main concern is content, not page count.
I don't know if it 'counts' or not (that's up to the OP), but I'd say it doesn't help him answer his question of how many pages people expect. Unless there are a lot more of them like you than there are like me.
And once more, you are misrepresenting my stance. I have repeatedly said that I do NOT value page count more than content/quality. But I absolutely value higher page count over lower, assuming the content is good.
If a company doesn't put out good, high-quality content, I won't buy 1 page or 1000 pages of their drek, regardless of the price per page. My discussion of page counts is ONLY for high-quality material, so trying to argue that "quality is important" is a non-sequitur. Of course it is! But it has no bearing on HOW MUCH high-quality material is worth $10. If I am reading you correctly, the answer is 'any amount'...which just sounds crazy to me.