This is one of several thoughts/suggestions regarding the upcoming fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons (5e). Relevant news items: nytimes and wizards.
Using the last page of the book (or, like in City of Splendors, a whopping 3 pages) for advertisements is a cheap move. So is using a big font, or wide margins. So is putting watermarks and/or edge-art on the paper (in a completely transparent effort to justify wide margins) …and then complaining about costs, so that you can jack up the price of the books while simultaneously giving us less campaign material.
Stop being a cheap whiny jerk.
We want inexpensive books which are filled with useful campaign stuff. You want to maximize profits. Both of these are logical, and neither of them is going away, so you need to find a combination that works for both of us. Because —duh— your bottom line is not our responsibility.
My suggestions: cheap paper, cheap printing, no watermarks, and no interior artwork. Spend the budget for each book on the text of the book. Be nice to your authors and they’ll keep writing for you… kinda weird how that works out, isn’t it. Do not jerk us around with a 12 point font or 1”+ margins. Don’t blow your budget on crappy art. That painting may be beautiful, in person, but reducing it to 8.25×10.8 and xeroxing it onto a page kinda kills it, and more to the point… it takes away from the verbiage without adding anything to my game. And that’s why, no matter how good the art is (and much of it isn’t) it becomes an annoyance when it’s inside a sourcebook.
Expensive books cut down on your profits… fewer people buy them, because it’s far more economical to borrow our friends’ books. Even those who do buy the books often wait a month or three after the book is released, so that they can see what everybody who bought it thinks about it before spending their own hard-earned dollars.
You want to attract young players? Even half a second of half-drunk thought while half-awake would tell you that charging 30-40 dollars per book is not the way to do it. 12 yr olds don’t have jobs, and most of them aren’t living in Hollywood with rich parents who encourage them to play D&D. Kids are buying your books with their freakin’ allowance. I know, because I did. That means they’ll only be able to get a book every couplefew months, if they can save up that much before blowing it on the movies or ice cream. The story doesn’t change much in high school or college, although cigarette and coffee habits are too-often added to the expense list and college textbooks are pure insanity. Over 600 bucks for one semester; true story. And after college, folks with kids are pretty much doomed to a tight budget.
Summary… do I spend this 40 bucks on the new D&D book, or do I keep my WoW subscription for the next 3 months and just borrow my friend’s book when I need to make a new character? Or *gulp* do I ask out that pretty girl in math class? You are hewing, assembling, and nailing your own coffin. Reduce the cost of playing the game, while increasing the quality of your product, or go the way of the dinosaurs.