My guess would also be no due to the fact a certain percentage of buyers (of which I am one) would always wait for the compilation instead of buying the orginal soft cover book. Example, I would love to see a Races of Golarion book especially if it included all of the errata since the original soft cover book.
I have a feeling that the answer is no, since there aren't hardcover reprints of the APs(aside from RotR AE), but it can't hurt to ask. I'd just much rather have a handful of hardcovers than have a ton of softcovers. If only for the fact that hardcovers are typically more durable and can take much more sustained use before falling apart. But it's also be nice to just have just a single reference book for multiple things, so long as those multiple things make sense to be in the same book.
And I think the answer will be 'no' for the same reason that Paizo (quite rightly, IMO), won't even entertain a discussion about further AP compilations. Once the possibility is even raised, existing stock is dead in the water for a percentage of buyers, and holding dead stock is anathema to a healthy business.
Wait till it's all sold through, is my guess.
Well there's always that "first to get it" thing, as well as collector value; I'm so lucky I managed to get my issue of Pathfinder AP #1 in a local gaming store for retail price, after looking up online a couple days later and seeing it selling on Amazon/Ebay for $100 or more.
There's also things like errata to consider in considering this argument; do Pathfinder customers wait to purchase a rulebook or splat-book, under the assumption that they won't buy it until the errata comes out online or through a new edition?
We can also look at this from a separate market of videogames; there are indeed people who wait for the price to go down, wait for used copies to come out, wait for the "Gold" edition with all the DLC included. But most don't, and the model seems to be working.
Perhaps a difference between markets could be put forth in terms of consumer behavior and otherwise, but this is just what it seems like to me.
-------
Although, they could always try starting a kickstarter (or similar model) for a compilation, adding the cost of writing off "dead stock" to the required budget line. Perhaps even including that dead stock as a tier reward :O.
I've pondered from time to time having fan-made collections that collate several resources on a certain topic into a concise reference. But, I highly doubt this would fly legally so it'd be a completely personal thing which makes it almost not worth it and it makes no business-sense for Paizo to do.
As noted in many other threads, Paizo has no interest in creating compilations that would compete with their own books that are still in print.
I'd also buy in.
A few updated and edited compendiums would be awesome.
|
I highly recommend people read this thread by Vic Wertz.
It does a very good job of explaining why reprints are bad business for Paizo.
That's great, but we end up with splat rules from here to breakfast time and having to go fishing about for stuff. Can't they just make 'the ultimate book of crunch' or something and consolidate them?
|
What I would really like to see is a hardcover Guide to Varisia. There is so much information on the province scattered across so many different books it would be great to see a revised campaign book dedicated to the setting (with some new stuff as well the old to fill in the gaps).
Seconded. I too would like to see a hardcover guide to Varisia.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
While I can't argue with their rationale, that's sad news to hear.
Personally, a lot of their splat books aren't worth cover price. Especially (for me) the adventure paths. But, bind them together into a full-size hardback, with any errata and revisions, and I'd pick them up at that point.
Consider Skull & Shackles, at 20 bucks a pop, that's $120. I like Paizo, and I love their products, but that's like buying all three bestiaries. Plenty of people cannot call that competitive pricing.
But, bind them together in a decent hard-cover, price it at $40 to $50, after the softcover is out of print, of course. Now you'll bring in a whole second market of people who could not claim that an AP is worth the same as all three bestiaries. Sales that never would have happened. And I'll have a new book and adventures to pillage for my own games.
I'm well aware there are people who consider the $120 money well spent, but I think most of these people will be buying them as they come out.
Seriously? $120 for 600 pages of material is not competitive pricing? Granted, I respect that it may be outside the price range of some consumers. That's fair. But the AP books are definitely worth their cover price and then some. $22-23 dollars for 100 pages of gaming material with solid production value is a steal, especially after considering the inflation of the current market. Not to sound like a grognard (though I will) but I remember paying $16-18 for 50 page modules and around $27-28 for 100 page modules during 2nd edition.
And even if they did bind them into a hardcover (which they won't) they still wouldn't hit the lower price-tier target market as the price of an AP hardcover would be more like $60 to $80 to keep things viable, not $40 or $50.
Again, I totally respect that, for some people, Paizo's target pricing doesn't work. Fair enough. But to make a statement like:"Plenty of people cannot call that competitive pricing." is not fair. If plenty of people don't call that competitive pricing, they should. Paizo's pricing is the most competitive pricing D&D has had in decades.
Although, a reprint of out of date and out of print old stuff with a fresh breath of life might not be so bad, even if only in PDF edition.
They do actually reprint a lot of stuff from the AP's, they just don't reprint everything in one bundle.
I mean Ultimate Campaign will have updated mass combat systems and kingdom building rules, all of which are from APs. And quite a few monsters have ended up reprinted in Bestiaries. Just two examples.
|
|
A couple of things here. First you personally can bind the books in to a hardbound book if you choose to do so. Just go to a book binder and I am sure they would be more then happy to do so for you :)
Secondly there is a wonderful new software coming up called Realm Works. It is by Lone Wolf Development. They have developed this as a generic campaign manager and this software would be a good thing for those that want to have all the rules and information in one solid place. You personally can enter all the information in to the software and be able to access it nicely the interface of the software.
Check out the software here Realm Works Kickstarter and information :)
Seriously? $120 for 600 pages of material is not competitive pricing? Granted, I respect that it may be outside the price range of some consumers. That's fair. But the AP books are definitely worth their cover price and then some. $22-23 dollars for 100 pages of gaming material with solid production value is a steal, especially after considering the inflation of the current market. Not to sound like a grognard (though I will) but I remember paying $16-18 for 50 page modules and around $27-28 for 100 page modules during 2nd edition.
And even if they did bind them into a hardcover (which they won't) they still wouldn't hit the lower price-tier target market as the price of an AP hardcover would be more like $60 to $80 to keep things viable, not $40 or $50.
Again, I totally respect that, for some people, Paizo's target pricing doesn't work. Fair enough. But to make a statement like:"Plenty of people cannot call that competitive pricing." is not fair. If plenty of people don't call that...
Depends. I'm a programmer so I regularly buy 600-page to thousand page tomes that cover a specific area of knowledge and would consider $80 for a book on the high side. The economics of the APs as single booklets is more viable as it's not $120 I have to shell out all at once though.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, Contributor
|
Materials from APs, Campaign Setting, and Player Companion books get adapted for hardcovers all the time. They just aren't re-printed as pure compilation works. For example, when writing the Advanced Race Guide, I used the various Paizo softcovers as reference works and quite a few feats, spells, and racial abilities are adapted directly from those sources. I know other authors for that book referred to existing works as well.
What you aren't going to see is "Ultimate Re-Print: A rehash of stuff Paizo has sold before". I can't speak for all the authors, but I tend to try to re-use only the best and most favored bits of an existing work. That way people who enjoyed previous works are rewarded by getting new content that works well with their existing inventory and new buyers get a skimming of previous works which hopefully includes at least the best of what was printed before.
Paizo also tries to keep the campaign setting separate from the setting neutral books. So while you might see some things ported over to hardcover, you are never going to see feats which are closely tied to the campaign setting.
Also, obviously if a work is printed after the appropriate hardcover, the process works in reverse. If Paizo releases Grippli of Golarion, it's going to have at least some content from the ARG and expand on the best parts.
Depends. I'm a programmer so I regularly buy 600-page to thousand page tomes that cover a specific area of knowledge and would consider $80 for a book on the high side. The economics of the APs as single booklets is more viable as it's not $120 I have to shell out all at once though.
Oh, I definitely agree that APs as single booklets is more economical. That's what I was defending. As for $80 for a 600-page tome, I've seen costs for books around that size fall on either side of that mark as well. I've paid $120 for 400-page non-fiction books and $60 for 800-page books. So yeah, prices vary.
Also, just to clarify from my previous post, I am not questioning anyone's standards on what is considered the "high-side" of cost. Be it $20 or $200. What is considered "costly" is a personal standard unique to every individual consumer.
However, I did (and do) want to make the distinction about what is "competitive pricing" versus "acceptable pricing". The acceptable price range is what falls within a person's standards for cost and can be very subjective from demographic to demographic. Again, not judging anyone's opinion about acceptable pricing (well, unless it would be truly outlandish). The Competitive price range is something else entirely and in that area I think Paizo is one of the best in the business if not the best.
Now, it's often the case that people say "competitive" when they mean "acceptable" in which case I try to enlighten.
How many times do you play an adventure path as the GM for a single group?
Me? I buy the whole AP and usually play it once with a single group. Though RotRL is now an exception. I'm currently running a second group through that one. But every other time, only once.
If I were doing PFS or convention play, and repeatedly playing the same adventures, sure, your argument would hold water.
Well, no, my argument is that Pathfinder modules are competitively priced. Which they are and then some.
As it is, an adventure path is money I would spend to only ever use once. Compare that to bestiary 1, 2, and 3. I use them almost every session, of almost every game. I cannot see an adventure path as equivalent in use (read: money) to the bestiaries. I know there are people who, for various reasons, will dissent.
You're correct that APs are not equivalent in use to the bestiaries but they're not trying to be product substitutes for each other so that's not even an issue. Bestiaries and modules do have different value but they're different kinds of products.
The question you need to ask is not "are APs as valuable as hardcovers?" The question is "are APs as valuable as other modules, either from Paizo or different companies?" The answer to that question is yes, very much so. And for their price and production values, they are more than competitively priced.
Nevermind you can't even compare hardcovers to softcovers anyway due to very different economies of scale and production costs. Which Jeven already mentioned.
I gave no weighting to the term "plenty of people". I frankly don't know the exact percentage of people who won't pay $120 to go through Skull & Shackles. I do know that these modules collect dust at every gaming store within thirty miles of me. I do know I've never found a group playing them. I do know that, when it comes up, cost is the only reason I've ever heard for not purchasing them.
Therefore, my direct experience is that "plenty of people" in the roleplaying scene, at least in my area, do not buy APs, explicitly and exclusively due to price point.
I'm not trying to start a fight, I'm not trying to say that no one buys APs. Obviously plenty of people do so, else they'd either price them down or stop producing them.
Well, it's definitely the majority that purchase them since Paizo's business model relies on AP sales and not hardcovers. i respect that you're not trying to start anything and neither am I. I hope I'm not coming off as confrontational. If I am, I apologize.
But yes, some people don't buy them because of the cost but this demographic doesn't buy a lot of modules because of the cost, which brings me to my last point.
I'm merely expressing regret that I'll likely never be one of them, due to the fact that I can't justify spending the same money that the entire collection of bestiaries cost me.
And to address that specifically, the only adventures I ever bought from D&D were either stand-alones (you weren't buying into a 6-book series) or iconic adventures/stories like Castle Ravenloft.
Which is what I was getting at. It's the acceptable price that you take issue with and that's totally fine. Everyone places utility and value on products differently and the price they are willing to pay is going to vary based on the value they think they'll get out of the product. That's cool.
But what I'm saying is that Paizo's competitive pricing, which is the price of their modules relative to all other products in the industry, is more than fair. In fact, it's the best competitive pricing I have seen for D&D in 30 years. The prices are really, really good.
Your issue is with how modules are priced in the first place compared to hardcovers. Which is an industry standard and publishing issue, not a Paizo thing.
|
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, Contributor
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
As it is, an adventure path is money I would spend to only ever use once. Compare that to bestiary 1, 2, and 3. I use them almost every session, of almost every game. I cannot see an adventure path as equivalent in use (read: money) to the bestiaries. I know there are people who, for various reasons, will dissent.
A $20 AP provides 5-7 people with 20-40 hours of entertainment depending on your pace. So $0.20/ hour for entertainment. Compare that to other forms of recreation:
For more perspective, a group at a typical game session burns $5-10 worth of gas getting to the session and consumers $10-30 worth of food. Even bus fair to the game session is $3 which is more than any single player's contribution to the AP purchase price for a session.
I can't see how using any metric $20 for an AP book is expensive for the value received. Even if you just buy it and spend 3-4 hours browsing through it, it's not ridiculously expensive, that's roughly what a movie trip is going to cost you.
|
How many times do you play an adventure path as the GM for a single group?
and this is where your thinking runs flat. You're only thinking of them as adventures. Let's take second darkness.
how many times have I run it for the group? NoneBut I have:
read it once.
used the article on drow for 3 other golarlion games
used the article on fleshwarping for crimson throne
set a one off home game in riddleport using both the riddleport and golden goblin articles
Read the god articles and passed out the god articles to players to read when running other APs at least 5 times
Got 30 new monsters from the back section
Used the art to describe characters in other adventures/Aps that didn't have art
If I just counted the value an the adventure, did I waste my money on one read through and a few peices of art? Maybe. But if you look at the value of everything else, I got almost 200 worth of use for my $86
White Wolf did this. They first produced, say, the various tribe books for Werewolf the Apocalypse. Then they produced a series of books where they had reworked the material ever so slightly, giving two tribes per book. Then, to finalize the deal, they produced a new series of books, with reworked material and THREE tribes a pop.
No thank you.
|
I just wanted to toss out.....yes I buy them for the articles......the art work....the short fiction....the "bestiaries" ... and yes the main adventure.
I buy the adventure paths to run for and or play in with my friends. I also buy them because i find them to be an enjoyable read.
I enjoy reading through them and mining them for ideas for games i might run myself. So I don't just get 1 use out of them.
I also think they are reasonably priced. Although, i understand, well The Block Knight and Dennis Baker said what i was thinking of saying with much more eloquence.
I guess to sum things up I can't wait for the Grippilies of Golarion!