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Anyone below that 30.01-40 range should be slapped and those above like $80.

It just costs too much to ship that sort of thing around anymore. I think $60 for your 300 pager seems fair. 40-50 for a lighter 200 pager.

Don't think the rule books should be free..... That's just not business. At the end of the day, yes it's required to play the game but it should stil cost something!
Seeing as it is in dollars and not GB sterling ill have to say about 30-40 as that's what I'd pay for a rule book here. My only criticism is that thy never print enough limited edition! Scrap the limited bit and just do a rule book & a fancy rule Book with pull outs etc etc.
gets to me that every time I go for a release, I don't have the money to buy a limited rule/codex and when I an afford it, their all gone!
To top it all off some **** is selling one on an auction site for double the value!
Scrap limited print and out more content into your rules and codex!

Voted $60 - approx what the Infinity rules cost here in NZ converted to USD. Seems very fair given the size, hard cover, and colour images etc in it.

Hard to say. I'd probably pay $60-80 for a giant tomb if I actually wanted to read it all, but I think they should also produce a softcover "stripped down version" that's just the rules without all the fluff/background/hobby advice and sell it for $30-40. That's what keeps putting me off the 40k book, I already know the 40k universe. I don't want to pay $80+ for a book that's 2/3s "filler" that I already know.

Or even better make the base rules free online and let you buy the book for the art/fluff (although I doubt that is a sustainable model, although I did buy Eclipse Phase after reading the entire rulebook off the developer's website in pdf format, so you never know).

Every few months or weeks or days, this topic pops up. Yes, we as consumers want to pay less for products we want. Yes, we as rational human beings see the value of the book. In the end, it will always come down to supply and demand. We demand product. They create the supply, at their deemed value. Either buy it or don't. I'm honestly tired of seeing this keep popping up, moderators. It diminishes the value of your site.

Anybody who says less than $75... Seriously? Have you ever bought a physics textbook? They're like $150! These books are expensive as heck to produce and print. It's not like they're going to be best sellers. Then there's what 8-ish languages?

I'm okay paying 60-70.00 dollars for a large full color hardback rule book. I think that 40K codex prices are too high, and that they should be more in line with the Warmachine army books.

Has anyone looked on Amazon at current "Coffee Table Books" prices? (less than $40, averaging $25)
That is how much a 300 page hardcover book should cost.
Coffee Table books pay for licensing, writers, photos, editors, researchers, art, and etc. just like a Rule Book.
A Coffee Table book is also good forever, whereas a Rule Book is only good for an average of five years or LESS.
.
Stop being manipulated into thinking rewritten, cut and pasted fluff, accompanied by NINE pages of rules is a book worth more than $40. It is not.
.
Laughable...

I think the base rules should be available online as a free .pdf, or there should be a "Games Workshop SRD" that compiles all the base rules and FAQ's into a handy reference document.

They did this for Dungeons & Dragons (Pathfinder), and there was not any significant loss in sales of the big rule book.

As for the cost of the big rule book in hardcover, $40.

Wow... everything is cheap in America, here in England we have to pay £50 for the rulebook, which must be about $70, you self-entitled bastards, you!

$30 are a reasonable price for e.g. the GW-Rulebook.
You have to consider these books are not handwritten by monks,
they're mass products printed somewere in china in huge runs.

Mantic sells theirs for £25 or $40.

I have paid $200 for 200 page physics text books in the past. Im more that happy to pay around $100 for 200-300 pages of badass colour pictures and rules.

I think it really depends on the content not just the size. I think my biggest issue with the 40k rulebooks is not that they are expensive, but that they are mostly padding.

If the 7th edition BRB had the same scope for content as 2nd edition then it would include:

- All the basic rules
- Background for all races
- Bestiary for all races
- Detailed wargear book (with pictures)
- Army lists for all races
- Campaign missions
- Common vehicles

If the rulebook included all of that then it would probably be worth what they are currently asking. 2nd edition omitted special characters, and alternate marine armies (such as BA and SW) which I think is fair enough (even as a BA player).

As it stands now I think the BRB is worth about £20... Though even that is expensive for the amount of content.

You know, when I Google D&D monster manual, I can amazon it for $22-35 US depending on if you believe MSRP. That's about a third of the content for the main rule book. Triple that and you get 66-105 US for a primary rule book, which is right where GW is. Seems right in line price wise.

The things that seem to fall out of that model are the codices. Those are 100 pages and about 70% of the price for 1/3 the content. The supplements are even worse. They should probably consider a shift back to soft cover for those. That said, we buy them anyway. The special editions seem to sell out pretty well too, so the community is really making its own bed. Nothing left to do but sleep in it.

Is the 200-300 pages pure rules or does it include fluff and art work?? If pure rules i question if a game whose rule book is that big is worth my time to start no matter the cost for rules alone. Art and fluff is great to have but not really needed with codexs and web sites.

Id like to see a $50 cost for 40k core rule set and $30 for a codex.

The rule book for MLB is 240 pages: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1600789455/ref=mw_dp_mpd?pd=1 and costs under $10.

A rulebook should cost X where X = (((Wages of people doing the work + cost of materials to do work + miscellaneous costs to support those doing the work) / number of books you will sell) + cost of materials to print book ) * reasonable profit margin.

For a 40K rulebook, I would expect the number of people who will purchase it to be about 7 times higher than the number that will purchase a codex but the amount of effort to create a codex to be about the same magnitude less, so a hardcover codex (similar cost of materials to produce the book) to be about the same price as a rulebook.

That being said, if we could get a bunch more people to start playing 40K, I expect we could get a rulebook down to the $50 range, but at the moment the pricing looks about right.

Well considering Paizo and WotC can sell their bestiaries, player's handbooks, and other similar products (Pushing 400 pages sometimes) for $50 I think that is a reasonable price for any 'main rulebook'

200-300 pages, hardback, in color. I voted $60-$70, considering there are probably costs involved that we don't know about, and of course the all important profit margin. Remember being told in school that if you lose any of those hardbacks they'd be expensive to replace? You also have to consider the following:

Even their model prices, be they ridiculous to us, are to keep them in this constant state of expansion. Every new unit is a new plastic mold, and I'd imagine they'd need to add a new industrial machine to put them in for every number of molds. Taking that cost into consideration, along with the whole "the products that sell need to make up for the products that don't" element, with of course the large amount of people who are paid full-time jobs through this... The prices actually make sense.

Ya'll are crazy for being willing to pay the same for a GAME rulebook as an OVERPRICED college textbook.

60 bucks. GW's codex are fine in price, but the rulebook peaking 80 bucks is ridiculous.

 doktor_g wrote:
Anybody who says less than $75... Seriously? Have you ever bought a physics textbook? They're like $150! These books are expensive as heck to produce and print. It's not like they're going to be best sellers. Then there's what 8-ish languages?

Hey, they are game esentials... Rulebooks should be cheap and paperback. I don't mind that they make a hardcover, but it should be optional...
Probably these books have a lot bigger production run then physics textbooks... How many 40K players arte there world wide????
And most languages are used in several country's.

And they replace them every few years... This should also be a consideration...

We need rulebooks, and those two extra books should be seperate... I do not want to pay for those, as I do not need them....
The rulebooks do not need that much fluf, if at all.. No full collor... Just the rules.... That's what we need....
Like those little books in the starter sets....

We need to ask. Do we want a future for our games, do we want kids to buy a rule book with their pocket money and learn a new exciting game or do we want the games we love to become exclusive clubs for middle class 20 and 30 year olds? GW have already answered this for themselves and that's ok I get what they are doing with high price, high quality gaming materials. But it's no longer a game for kids. 20 to 30, or cheaper, is plenty for a book for games with a future.

I for one certainly don`t want the hobby full of 20 and 30 year old kids, if you didn`t game in the early 80`s we dont want you.
lol

As much or LESS than a Coffee Table Book.
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Examples; (remember paying for License is a large cost, whereas game companies do not pay for license)
Art, editors (haha editors), printing, distribution, and marketing, are close enough to the same.
.
DK Children, hard cover Illustrated;
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_p_n_feature_browse-b_1?fst=as%3Aoff&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3ADK+CHILDREN%2Cp_n_feature_browse-bin%3A2656020011&keywords=DK+CHILDREN&ie=UTF8&qid=1419421070&rnid=618072011
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Lego and star wars;
http://www.amazon.com/LEGO-Star-Wars-Dictionary-Expanded/dp/1465419217/ref=sr_1_24?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419421512&sr=1-24&keywords=hardcover+star+wars
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Marvel Encyclopedias;
http://www.amazon.com/Marvel-Encyclopedia-Matt-Forbeck/dp/1465415939/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419421363&sr=1-1&keywords=marvel+encyclopedia+new
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so many low cost examples.

 Amaya wrote:
You can't compare a book that is primarily text with some art to a book that is all say, concept art, or a collection of the year's best in scifi/fantasy art or something similar. The two should be priced completely differently. Bad poll.

Yes, I completely agree.

300 pages of fiction is just a novel, and 300 pages of art or photography is a coffee table book -- both of which are worth a lot less than 300 pages of rules, which is worth less than 300 pages of campaign and scenarios.

Bad poll.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Knockagh wrote:
We need to ask. Do we want a future for our games, do we want kids to buy a rule book with their pocket money and learn a new exciting game or do we want the games we love to become exclusive clubs for middle class 20 and 30 year olds? GW have already answered this for themselves and that's ok I get what they are doing with high price, high quality gaming materials. But it's no longer a game for kids. 20 to 30, or cheaper, is plenty for a book for games with a future.

I don't know if that's realistic. You know that a video game that a kid will get bored with in 20-30 hours costs $60, right? Kids are expensive these days :X

Realistically, even a small model count game like Warmahordes is way out of reach for most families as something to introduce 12-15 year olds to (ie before they have income of their own). Also, it used to be that boardgames and role-playing were the "gateway drug" to tabletop miniature warfare. Now, about the closest thing for youth is TCGs. The number of 13 year olds I see reading RPG rulebooks and scenarios is practically zero (none in my extended family, or their immediate friends), whereas the number that play FPS, RTS, console games, etc., especially boys, is almost 100%.

Economic theory predicts that GW will charge as much as we are willing to pay. At the risk of sounding snarky, if you want them to charge less, don't buy at the current price. I don't play GW games anymore because I don't think they are worth the price.

Don't know if anyone else mentioned this, but FFG sells the Warhammer 40k RPG books which are 200-300 pages of quality art for only $60. That's a whole friggen game mind you.

 radred609 wrote:
okay, so for a hard cover, full colour 200-300 page book


I think that something worth pointing out is that a standard box of marines is $62 in Australia. whereas it's $37 in US (and our dollar has been at parody with the US for almost a decade)

so the $74 USD seems mighty F ING REASONABLE COMPARED TO THE $124 AUD WE HAVE TO PAY!!!
Even if you consider GST, (goods and services tax) that's only %10 more ($80)

For the same amount US and UK buyers could get the book and a box of dudes. But even if the book was that price here we'd still only get half a box of guys.
And they wonder why Australian buyers stopped buying from GW and went to European, UK and US distributors? I mean come on. it was still cheaper despite the international shipping charges
(oh yeah, then they stopped that by preventing them from shipping to the australasian region )


aaanyway. i'll get down now

EDIT: edited for typos due to copious amounts of RAAAGE

GW is mad because ya'll keep control of uranium prices globally. They are jealous of the power!

I would say $30-40 is prime for me, and also wandering towards impulse buy territory (especially if it's $30). Up to $50 is okay, but I'll usually put a lot of thought into it before buying it. $60 is probably the max I'd pay, but I'd have to really want it, and $60 and above is within the range where I seriously begin considering not buying it even if I want it.