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I think rpg books are too cheap, personally. I'd much rather those companies were making decent profits, paying above average wages and building up capital to try more experimental products.
Collecting every book is a rich man's hobby. Buying single modules, though? Very cheap entertainment.
Slumbering Tsar might cost you a hundred bucks - you and four friends then get what - a few hundred hours of entertainment? Try and replace that with movies, books or something for the same price.
Yeah thanx Eric. A company has to make money and Paizo does offer free and cheap products. $100 for an RPG book is a bit crazy but I can see it for limited run items and the like, I just wouldn't buy it.
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Okay I am not seeing the whole costs too much aspect. AP costs 20 bucks a pop...which is what they cost 20 freaking years ago. And that 20 bucks is good for around 6 evenings worth of entertainment for 5+ people. That's less then 1 dollar a person per night. If you need help as a GM to get these AP collect a dollar a game night from each player and there ya go, you have the cost of the AP easily.
If your talking about the core books...well books like UM and UC are a compliation book. Those old D&D splat books give you about 1/4 what these books do at 20 bucks a pop. So 4 of those for 80 bucks vs one of these at 40 with a hard cover. Once again, seem this is getting cheaper then the old way. The amount of money I invested in any edition of D&D books (not including 4th because I stopped bothering with D&D at that point...but my friends who continued are sure as hell jeolous of how low my library of PF book is) vs PF very much favors PF in terms of economical.
Is it a hobby that is dominated by those with a good educational background and stable economic situation? Yes, I'd probably say so. I think it always has been though.
Does it have a high cost on money? Meh, depends on how you want to play. The books themselves aren't that much more expensive now than then, and a lot of the material is free (even if you don't like having the computer when gaming, a lot of stuff like spells and classes you can just write down what is relevant - you don't need to have UM at hand if the only thing used from it is two spells and a magic item).
However, the game is a lot more reliant on miniatures now, and though they aren't a must, they still are important for many people's way of imagining stuff. And miniatures are expensive, regardless of who makes them. Tokens aren't that expensive but still can be very noticeable in your wallet if you don't own a printer.
Just saying it's free because you can copy the relevant info from a public library's computer though... I don't really agree. Many poor people don't have like 10 hours a day to put to something like that; you basically need the core book at hand unless you know it by heart, and many people have a hard time reading that much from a screen (me included). It might work for some, but it's not a stable solution for everyone. It might be possible, but for many people it ain't going to be enjoyable, which destroys the whole purpose of it.
Personally, I think that if you don't like using the computer when at the table, you need the core rulebook, notes on splat abilities and spells used, and the adventure you're going to play. Also you probably need tokens and dice. This is kind of a base-line - yes, you could do cheaper, but this is kind of the basic for what is practical when you want to play. In my country, that'd be something like $80 if it's a bought single module (the core book i think costs something like $50-60 here). It's not easy to get second hand.
I know many people who can't afford it "just like that", but I know many who can and aren't rich.
That is, if we're talking about the hobby of playing RPG's. If we're talking about the hobby of collecting RPG's, it's like collecting most things - something for rich people (or at least those with a good economy).
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Written 11 years ago, but still relevant: Rant: "RPG Products Are Too Expensive!"
Written 11 years ago, but still relevant: Rant: "RPG Products Are Too Expensive!"
I've had to do orders and pricing for a job before, so while much of that just seems like common sense ( the rule of halves especially) it is really nice to see it all laid out by someone who does it for a living SKR. Thanks =)
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You mean people don't buy the older playstation games when they are $20 back then and then play them for hundreds of hours but I am atypical in that regard.
Video games seem semi immune to inflation probably based on a limit in consumers mind of what they are willing to pay for a game. They have gone up in price I suppose but here they have more or less remained constant for 20 odd years although they were horribly overpriced in the 90's. RPG books have gone up a little bit but are probably cheaper than what they were when I started in 94. A genesis games was $70-$75 USD locally in 1993 dollars so IDK what that would be these days.
Beer has almost doubled in price, spirits have remained almost constant although the bottle size has shrunk by 15% or so. With higher incomes alot of stuff is relatively cheaper now than what it was in the 80's.
Video games seem semi immune to inflation probably based on a limit in consumers mind of what they are willing to pay for a game. They have gone up in price I suppose but here they have more or less remained constant for 20 odd years although they were horribly overpriced in the 90's. RPG books have gone up a little bit but are probably cheaper than what they were when I started in 94. A genesis games was $70-$75 USD locally in 1993 dollars so IDK what that would be these days.
Beer has almost doubled in price, spirits have remained almost constant although the bottle size has shrunk by 15% or so. With higher incomes alot of stuff is relatively cheaper now than what it was in the 80's.
Don't get me started on cigarettes. Especially in New York...
Video games seem semi immune to inflation probably based on a limit in consumers mind of what they are willing to pay for a game. They have gone up in price I suppose but here they have more or less remained constant for 20 odd years although they were horribly overpriced in the 90's. RPG books have gone up a little bit but are probably cheaper than what they were when I started in 94. A genesis games was $70-$75 USD locally in 1993 dollars so IDK what that would be these days.
Beer has almost doubled in price, spirits have remained almost constant although the bottle size has shrunk by 15% or so. With higher incomes alot of stuff is relatively cheaper now than what it was in the 80's.
Not sure where you where living, but snes/genesis games around here in the early 90's were 20-30 bucks.
It is more expensive now, cash wise, but a good portion of that is inflation and a shifting of where the actual profit in video gaming comes from, and it is shifting even more these days than it has in the past 5 years.
*EDIT:
Odraude, not sure about in New York, but I know here in Texas a huge chunk of what I pay per pack is actually taxes. It is, to put it mildly, somewhat silly. Thank god there isn't a sin tax that gets attached to gaming, or I'd be in serious trouble.
I live in New Zealand. Genesis games (megadrive) games were $150 NSD (around $70) with the cheap ones at $60 NZD (30 odd bicks or clsoe enough).
PS1 games were actually alot cheaper and now games are slightly overpriced. Paizo has the best pricing structure I have seen in RPGs. Not to many expensive sourcebooks to get, cheaper options with 32 and 64 page books, APs and free PRD. Uness you have the gotta get em all mentality PF is cheaper to play than most RPGs.
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use your google fu it can be your best friend
Video games seem semi immune to inflation probably based on a limit in consumers mind of what they are willing to pay for a game. They have gone up in price I suppose but here they have more or less remained constant for 20 odd years although they were horribly overpriced in the 90's. RPG books have gone up a little bit but are probably cheaper than what they were when I started in 94. A genesis games was $70-$75 USD locally in 1993 dollars so IDK what that would be these days.
Beer has almost doubled in price, spirits have remained almost constant although the bottle size has shrunk by 15% or so. With higher incomes alot of stuff is relatively cheaper now than what it was in the 80's.
Not sure where you where living, but snes/genesis games around here in the early 90's were 20-30 bucks.
It is more expensive now, cash wise, but a good portion of that is inflation and a shifting of where the actual profit in video gaming comes from, and it is shifting even more these days than it has in the past 5 years.
*EDIT:
Odraude, not sure about in New York, but I know here in Texas a huge chunk of what I pay per pack is actually taxes. It is, to put it mildly, somewhat silly. Thank god there isn't a sin tax that gets attached to gaming, or I'd be in serious trouble.
Florida's bad, but New York is really anti-smoker from what I hear. Prices are high (or possibly very taxed).
Florida's bad, but New York is really anti-smoker from what I hear. Prices are high (or possibly very taxed).Video games seem semi immune to inflation probably based on a limit in consumers mind of what they are willing to pay for a game. They have gone up in price I suppose but here they have more or less remained constant for 20 odd years although they were horribly overpriced in the 90's. RPG books have gone up a little bit but are probably cheaper than what they were when I started in 94. A genesis games was $70-$75 USD locally in 1993 dollars so IDK what that would be these days.
Beer has almost doubled in price, spirits have remained almost constant although the bottle size has shrunk by 15% or so. With higher incomes alot of stuff is relatively cheaper now than what it was in the 80's.
Not sure where you where living, but snes/genesis games around here in the early 90's were 20-30 bucks.
It is more expensive now, cash wise, but a good portion of that is inflation and a shifting of where the actual profit in video gaming comes from, and it is shifting even more these days than it has in the past 5 years.
*EDIT:
Odraude, not sure about in New York, but I know here in Texas a huge chunk of what I pay per pack is actually taxes. It is, to put it mildly, somewhat silly. Thank god there isn't a sin tax that gets attached to gaming, or I'd be in serious trouble.
Yeah, I pay the store 4.50-5.00 for a pack of my smokes, something like 2.00 of that is taxes to the state and federal governments. Like I said, so happy there is no sin tax on gaming.
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I'm guessing there's a select few high-price books that have caused this thread to occur. I will definitely agree that $100 is far too much to pay for a single RPG book (Tome of Horrors Complete; Rappan Athuk Complete).
As a FGG superfan, I'd like to address this. First let's look at the Tome of Horrors. It's ~750 monsters. That's approximately the equivalent of the first two Bestiaries and half of the third. Looking at it that way, it' s a bargain.
Now for Rappan Athuk. It's over 600 pages of adventure (Pathfinder version). That's roughly double the amount of adventure that you get in one of Paizo's 6-volume APs, which cost $20 per volume.
Not sure where you where living, but snes/genesis games around here in the early 90's were 20-30 bucks.
As I recall, the biggest video game title in the world at the time it came out was Super Mario Brothers 3 (Great game by the way), and in some places it was going for as much as $100. This was most certainly a supply and demand issue however.
Kthulhu, some folks agree it isn't to much, even if we can't afford even the PDF's at the moment, for others, it is to much.
Rappan Athuk and Tome of Horrors are not exactly needed to play PF. You may want them and part of that want is gonna be based on the priced. And since they don't have print runs as big as other large books like core PFRPG $100 isn't that bad for a 750 page book.
Hell even the beastiary 1/2/3 shoul be more than enough. Unless you are a hard core completionist I'm not sure what the issue is. BMW's are expensive as well but I don't need one.
I'm guessing there's a select few high-price books that have caused this thread to occur. I will definitely agree that $100 is far too much to pay for a single RPG book (Tome of Horrors Complete; Rappan Athuk Complete).
As a FGG superfan, I'd like to address this. First let's look at the Tome of Horrors. It's ~750 monsters. That's approximately the equivalent of the first two Bestiaries and half of the third. Looking at it that way, it' s a bargain.
Now for Rappan Athuk. It's over 600 pages of adventure (Pathfinder version). That's roughly double the amount of adventure that you get in one of Paizo's 6-volume APs, which cost $20 per volume.
I agree that the amount of content is worth the price, but paying that amount all in one go for a single book is still too much for me. Not to mention that I think the Pathfinder Core Rulebook is already too large to be convenient in use; these two books are larger still. For me personally, I'd rather pay a little more over time to get the books split into, say, three $35-40 volumes. I'll likely pick up both as PDFs at some point in time, though.
Edit: I've only spent that much money on a single RPG product once. That was for the boxed set of the Ptolus Campaign Setting, which had awesome production values in addition to a wealth of content. I think there was something like 10-12 softcover books, map packs and the like in addition to the (also too large) main campaign setting book. But that pretty much eliminated my budget for nonessential purchases for several months.
I'm a poor man, and I get by with pdfs, borrowing books and material off friends and a large network of spies.
How much porcelain gets broken at the end of the day?
On monster manuals there is an old trick you can do. Browse them in a shop, memorise some of the stats of the best monster and then go home and re-create the monsters. You can make them better, but yes, the shocking truth is you don't need much to run games. You can wing it, you can invent and design your own stuff. It worked for the originators.
On the other hand, you can buy, between the group if necessary, the Core book and Bestiary and some dice, make up your own adventures and play for the rest of your lives.
That's one of the problems with RPGs as a business. You have to keep selling stuff that people don't really need to stay in business. Which leads to bloat. Paizo's model of focusing on the campaign world and adventures is a good one.
Learn whittling, make your own dice, lol. Perfect for a ranger character.
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I understand why the perception is there that the game has grown expensive, although others have demonstrated that the basic costs have pretty much just kept up with inflation, and for those truly on a tight budget, much of the material is free online.
For those, like me, who buy most of the books and other materials and have an extensive miniatures collection and other playaids, it is indeed pretty expensive. But that's my choice. I'm blessed to have a pretty good and secure job, and I can afford to be a little extravagant on my hobbies if I want to.
Back before the Internet when I was a student and constantly broke, we still made do and had a lot of fun by sharing books, scrounging materials, using peanuts and soda bottle tops instead of miniatures, etc. I think it's still possible to do the same.
I like all my stuff, and think it enhances the game for me. but it's really not necessary.
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I am the person that my parents and grandparents complain don't spend enough money and yet I don't think rpg books are too expensive. they are a durable good that lasts a long time.
The quality of some of these books are getting insane. While I usually go digital with Pathfinder, I picked up the hardcover for the Advanced Race Guide. The color illustrations in that book can really get a player psyched to try a new race.
Even still, I really do miss the days of 20$ core rulebooks with awesome black and white artwork. In fantasy RPGs, those days are long gone ( no offense to Palladium Fantasy players).
I bought my first AD&D book in 1984. It was the AD&D Dungeon Master Guide and it cost $20.00 U.S. dollars. This was a HUGE amount of money at the time. Using an inflation calculator, that book would cost $44.15 today.
Right now I can go on Amazon and buy the Pathfinder Core Rules Book for $31.49
This book is superior in quality and content when compared to the old AD&D Dungeon Masters Guild.
So not only are products today a much higher quality and value, but they are basically less expensive as well.
RP gaming has always been a relatively expensive hobby.
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@Kthulu: Agreed. My AD&D DMG is still in good enough shape that when I was last flipping through it (yesterday, as a matter of fact) it in no way felt like it would fall apart. The art was still amazing with DAT, DCS, Darlene, Will McLean, the primary inspirations for my life-long love of fantasy gaming. And the content? Wow! The old DMG is also responsible for an awful lot of my broad range of knowledge. I <3 my old AD&D stuff.
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There is no hobby that I know of that can be as dirt cheap as tabletop RPGs. Yes, there is an investment at some point, but even there, there today exists free alternatives to bought rulesets. Nor are these free alternatives in any way inferior in quality.
Even if you pay for it, just the basic cost for, say, core rulebook and bestiary, can be divided by several players and literally years of playing time. Cost per hour really is dirt cheap.
Compared to the 80s and 90s, the stuff we get today is MASSIVELY higher quality with better paper and often full colour illustrations. Dig up some of the old modules and take a look. We have a tendency to forgive stuff we liked a lot, which blinds us to the faults that it had. AP modules are really quite astounding.
What hobbies are you comparing it to?
Yeah I guess I didn't really think of that. I was thinking compared back when I was a teenager with no money I guess.
Expense is relative to income and that is case by case.
I'm finding it hard to keep up with just the Paizo purchases I want but it has nothing to do with Paizo's pricing. As my life goes on, so do my expenses. I've added things that take precedence over gaming books. That being said, I still manage to keep up fairly easily.
1) We share books when we can in our group.
2) We hit Half-Price books (used books stores).
3) We use Hero-Lab and PDFs first then save for the book.
4) If one of us is shopping for a book and we have a coupon or there is a deal to get another at a discount, we get a second copy at the discount then split the difference with the friend(s) we bought it for.
5) We go without. I don't own things I'm not going to use.
6) Gifts. I maintain wishlists for family and friends. They all know that I accept gift cards with a huge smile!
7) I write my own adventures or modify old ones (I have almost every Dungeon Magazine).
8) Check out Craigslist and garage sales. I've found tons of great deals at garage sales.
9) Barter. I sell off stuff I'm not using anymore to buy stuff I will use. For example, I have no intention on going back to 2nd Edition. Why keep the stuff on my shelf? It's take up space. I don't need the nostalgia. I have my memories. I can take those books and sell them to buy other books.
10) Pick up some extra work for some extra money.
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Yeah I don't really find the cost of RPG books to be that high, I just compare them to the cost of my text books.
Hard cover full colour 400 page books about math theorems that haven't change in ages are like $200. Fun and interesting RPG books that didn't exist like 10 years ago are capping out at around $60. Seems like quite a deal to me.
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MSRPs over time:
AD&D 2E Dungeon Master's Guide (192 pages)
Price in 1989 dollars: $18.00
Price in 2003 dollars: $26.71
Price in 2012 dollars: $33.59
AD&D 2E Player's Handbook (256 pages)
Price in 1989 dollars: $20.00
Price in 2003 dollars: $29.68
Price in 2012 dollars: $37.32
D&D 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide (320 pages)
Price in 1989 dollars: $20.18
Price in 2003 dollars: $29.95
Price in 2012 dollars: $37.67
D&D 3.5 Player's Handbook (320 pages)
Price in 1989 dollars: $20.18
Price in 2003 dollars: $29.95
Price in 2012 dollars: $37.67
Paizo Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook (576 pages)
Price in 1989 dollars: $26.79
Price in 2003 dollars: $39.75
Price in 2012 dollars: $49.99
Considering what it costs to do other things, like hunting, snorkeling, skydiving, etc. playing games is actually pretty cheap. Though See has shown that the books are around the same price from decade to decade, I'd still play pathfinder, because it's nearly twice the book for 1/3rd more, it looks better than the others, and it's literally the most advanced rules set.
Yeah I don't really find the cost of RPG books to be that high, I just compare them to the cost of my text books.
Hard cover full colour 400 page books about math theorems that haven't change in ages are like $200. Fun and interesting RPG books that didn't exist like 10 years ago are capping out at around $60. Seems like quite a deal to me.
Yeah textbooks are more rip off because of market power for one class. Heck undergraduate econ has not changed that much from the 70s in an intro textbook. I still recognize most concepts in Paul A Sameulson's old textbook yet they still came out with new editions.
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MSRPs over time:
And since the Pathfinder CRB is essentially a combination of the DMG and PHB, it's even more of a bargain.
I think we've done enough to show that gaming is about the same cost. Instead, I feel we should try and show good tactics in saving money on roleplaying games.
For example, what I like to do is get bundles of small d6s or those glass beads and have that as my tokens for medium and small sized creatures. For large sized, the tops of those Chessex dice holders are about the same size as a 2x2 square. Anything larger will probably require an actual miniature, but chances are the party is fighting one, so you'd only need to buy one.
I think we've done enough to show that gaming is about the same cost. Instead, I feel we should try and show good tactics in saving money on roleplaying games.
For example, what I like to do is get bundles of small d6s or those glass beads and have that as my tokens for medium and small sized creatures. For large sized, the tops of those Chessex dice holders are about the same size as a 2x2 square. Anything larger will probably require an actual miniature, but chances are the party is fighting one, so you'd only need to buy one.
I think that it would be interesting to have a thread called "Gaming on a Budget."
On monster manuals there is an old trick you can do. Browse them in a shop, memorise some of the stats of the best monster and then go home and re-create the monsters. You can make them better, but yes, the shocking truth is you don't need much to run games. You can wing it, you can invent and design your own stuff. It worked for the originators.
Of course with this new thing called the internet you could also just go to the PFSRD and copy the monster stats you wanted in a relaxed enviroment at home. ;-)
As for "Gaming on a Budget" , When I first started in on RPGs back in '79 we just took a sheet of cardstock, cut out squares and wrote the name of the thing on the square. It was only later when I got a better job that we began to use minis in any serious way. I can not tell you how many times we were attacked by pennies, coke bottle caps, checkers, or other such terrible monsters. LOL
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Back in the Jimmy Carter administration, when I began playing D&D, the original three books needed to play the game were the Players Handbook, the Dungeon Masters Guide and the Monster Manual. I don't remember how much I paid for them (and they are currently packed deep in a stack of moving boxes, so I'm not going to dig them out) but I do recall that as a struggling college kid trying to work my way through college, buying those three books was one of the most extravagant purchases I made in a long, long time. It literally meant not going to movies or eating out or buying a new pair of jeans for a couple months. At that time I could not afford a car and was going to work and school on a beat-up old ten speed bicycle.
I doubt that most college kids today would have to make that sort of sacrifice to buy the current Pathfinder books even if they decided not to use the online free resources.
A single trip to the movie theater for my family (me, wife, son, daughter) can easily push $100 or top it. A single trip to a theme park is pushing $400 before you add in food and trinkets. A round of golf for just one person can easily be $50 at a nice golf course. If I want to go shoot my guns at a shooting range the shells alone can easily push $50, not counting the entry fee. It costs me $7.25 per person for an afternoon of swimming. To fill up one tank of gas is about $50.
Is this game "expensive"?
Not by any rational measure.
Now, you can MAKE it expensive. I do, unfortunately. But I spend the vast majority of my gaming dollars on miniatures, terrain, dice and other game aids. I've built a computer gaming table, I have about a hundred pounds of hydrostone terrain made from Hirst Arts molds... I've probably got about $1,000 tied up in this game over the course of my life. Maybe $1,500.
For comparison my last fly rod cost me $325, I have a telescope I spent $4,000 on, my golf clubs alone set me back $650, I've spent $1,500 this year alone on guns....
As a hobby, especially for the time spent on it, RPGing is an absolute bargain. Even if you are insane like me and have a chest full of minis and terrain, plus a special table you built yourself.
As for "Gaming on a Budget" , When I first started in on RPGs back in '79 we just took a sheet of cardstock, cut out squares and wrote the name of the thing on the square. It was only later when I got a better job that we began to use minis in any serious way. I can not tell you how many times we were attacked by pennies, coke bottle caps, checkers, or other such terrible monsters. LOL
I never had any minis until I started collecting Pathfinder Battles. I used d12s. It's not like there's any other use for them in game since it's not large-sized damage with a longsword anymore. :)
The players use the d12 from the set they're rolling with so it's easy to tell the PCs apart, and you can turn up the numbers from 1 to 12 to keep track of which goblin/orc/whatever has taken what damage. Since we all have way more matched sets of dice than we can ever roll at a time, I never worry about having enough tokens, and using an abstract representation was less immersion-breaking to me than the other DM who had minis but never the right ones he needed to use so it was all, "Pretend this snake is an orc, and pretend this water elemental is a troll."
Then, there was the time I had the party ambushed by a whole tribe of over a hundred orcs and used pennies. They were panicking when I just kept filling squares on my magic-marker-on-paper map with pennies. (Quarters were the leaders.) ;)
Between open rulesets, cheap PDFs and the Internet full of free stuff, I believe the hobby is cheaper than it ever was.
This. Before the internet and free rules online you had to at least purchase the PH and DMG.
My original gaming setup was what you would expect from a dirt-poor college kid. I had the three main books, which was by far the largest investment of money, and I had a set of dice and I think I had five or six miniatures, some of which had been gifts from friends and family members.
Everything else I used was cobbled together and was either free, or very nearly free. Coins, pebbles, washers, beads and even candy were our "miniatures." At one point I used M&Ms as monster minis and whoever killed the monster got to eat the M&M.
For my campaigns I drew all the maps myself on sheets of graph paper, or for my most important maps, I would sacrifice my expensive high-quality typing paper. My GM screens were notebooks I had scavenged from the trash bins of the college (you'd be amazed what college students will toss in the trash as they head out from school for the summer).
I played that way for most of my early gaming career, until I got married had kids and hung up my GM hat for a while. When I re-entered the hobby in the Clinton years after I had a good job and a solid career, that's when I started buying minis, dice, terrain and other stuff.
But in some ways those early M&M battles were some of the best times I ever had playing the game. So one thing I do know is that fun is not proportional to money spent.
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Thanks to all for responding. I refuse to accept low standards for myself or the easy route, as I have set my standards high that's why I have a library of books in my house because I chose to pay for good deals and affordable prices.
Just for fun, I took a look at some of the items sitting on my shelf.
Paladium RPG, 4th printing, 1983, 274 pages of B&W, soft cover. $19.95
Robotech RPG, 7th printing, 1990, 110 pages of B&W, soft cover. $11.95
D&D 3.5e CRB, 1st printing, 2003, 320 pages of color, hard cover. $29.95
D&D 4e CRB, 1st printing, 2008, 320 pages of color, hard cover. $39.95
PFRPG Core, 1st printing, 2009, 576 pages of color, hard cover. $49.95
So. Are prices going up? Yes. Are you getting more for that money? Yes. Is Paizo's pricing cheaper per-page than buying either 3.5e Core & DMG or 4e Core & DMG? Yes. Does Paizo offer free alternatives that have never before existed anywhere near this scale? Yes.
I have learned not to ever trust a computer as I have had mine crash a few times losing everything I built up on it for years.
As an aside, I'd suggest that you - and pretty much all other computer users - learn enough to back up their data, so "a few crashes" doesn't turn into anything more than inconvenience. But this isn't about expense.
I also enjoy writing with pen and pencil rather typing stuff out, I am more creative that way. I'm speaking on behalf of all prices I see on this website, and like I've stated when will it stop?
It will never stop. Inflation doesn't work that way. Milk costs more than it did 30 years ago, water costs more than it did 30 years ago, and payphones aren't $.25 a call anymore. Fortunately average wages have gone up and overall standard of living has gone up for most people.
I feel some companies(Frog God) may be taking advantage of the Kickstarter also because alot of these kickstarter's these companies get more than they asked for in the first place. What are they doing with this extra money, and why have another one so soon after getting so much extra cash?
Interesting point-of-view. There's an interesting answer to that. In general there are two costs associated with an RPG product; development and production. There's a fixed cost of $X to actually write a product, edit it, commission artwork, pay for page layout, and other technical costs. Then there's a per-unit cost to physically make each of the books involved. The fixed cost won't ever be reduced by more people jumping into a Kickstarter but the fixed cost if spread over more customers becomes lower. The per-unit cost may be reduced if a print-run hits a large enough number that a print-shop offers a discount but I don't know that any of the Kickstarter projects have hit such numbers. We're still talking about a thousand or so books, tops.
So. There's an interesting thing I've seen happen whenever an RPG Kickstarter reaches its minimum-funding figure. All of the sudden the company involved starts offering FREE BONUS STUFF. It's really weird. "Stretch goals", they're called but you should call it FREE BONUS STUFF because that's what it is.
The company involved (say... Frog God Games) sees that while they originally required $100/book when they were expecting to be selling about 100 of them, realizes that the fixed cost portion becomes one tenth its original size (per customer) when there are 1,000 customers. So. That might "free up" a bunch of per-unit profit, right? 900 of those books don't have any fixed-cost overhead associated with them the margin is increased.
Well, that's when Frog God starts making DM screens and additional modules and a metric butt-tonne of goodies that are FREE BONUS STUFF. And everyone gets it. So... suddenly that freaky makes-SuperSlayer-suspcicious profit stuff goes out the door in the form of FREE BONUS STUFF that THANKS their customers for TRUSTING them.
The Reaper Bones minis Kickstarter I think says it all. Were you happy spending $100 to get 33 minis? Well, since so many people like you were happy, let's just make that something like 210 minis. For no additional expenditure. Also known as FREE BONUS STUFF.
All of this is an explanation of how nobody is ripping you off. If you pay attention, none of the RPG companies are getting rich. You don't hear about Lisa and Vic's yacht. You don't hear about Dreamscarred press buying a small island because they managed to sell two hundred copies of their hardcover rulebook. You don't hear that Reaper is buying Apple after taking in literally millions of dollars in pledges for Bones minis.
No. This is a small hobby and everyone involved is making modest profits - if they survive. Yes, every dollar out of your pocket feels important because it's your pocket, and that dollar could have bought you a fifth of a frapalatechinomocca foo-foo coffee. But nobody's screwing you.
I was trying to shop here the other night but I simply couldn't find a product that I thought was price fair so I canceled my order. In the end it just angers me, and I feel this is a hobby that is getting too expensive regardless of the cheap freebie shortcuts.
To be blunt, I'm sorry you have an incorrect perception of the reality of the situation. Frog God gives us the Tome of Horrors Complete, a 900 page book for $100. Paizo gives us the essential rules for less than any previous edition (accounting for color printing). Reaper give us the cheapest per-mini pricing ever. Adventure modules are no longer crappy black & white poorly-edited things that someone just smooshed out.
And you're angry.
Again, I'm sorry. Because evidently you are less fiscally lucky than the vast, vast majority of us. But more so because you're unwilling to take advantage of the unprecedented massive access to free RPG materials. It's like... back in the days when I was a kid and I had to make paper polyhedral dice because I couldn't afford plastic ones, only if I'd said "I don't like the way they're hollow, so now I'm angry."
Hopefully something in this wall of text will illuminate the reality... PFRPG has the absolute lowest entry requirements ever, and even if you insist on optional printed materials it's still massive value per dollar spent.
I remember at one point we used GI Joes to represent our guys when I was younger. Mind you, I was like 10 at the time, but we made it work. Kids these days have it cheap and easy as long as they can access the internet. They don't have to plead whine beg and all that to get the newest splat, they just need to wait for one of the SRD sites to get it up( yeah, little more complicated I know, and yes, no fluff, but cm on now.)
Man I feel old now.
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If you have the ability to post on the Internet about how expensive a luxury item like roleplaying games are, then I submit that you're pretty well off, in the grand scheme of things.