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Lawrence Whitaker recently posted at The Design Mechanism Forums that RuneQuest 6 should be available some time in July. And there was much rejoicing.
Then I saw the pricing, and I was hit with the sticker shock.
$62 plus shipping for a 456 page soft covered book with black and white interior art RPG.
$25 for the PDF.
Isn't this for all intents and purposes the same game as Mongoose's Legend RPG? The same game that's a buck in PDF? $19.99 in softcover.
I mean, I got the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG in hardcover for $39.99 and the page count is similar to RQ6.
Maybe I'm spoiled, but $62 seems to be an awful lot for a soft cover book, no matter the page count.
$25 for the PDF is on par with the DCC RPG, so it's steep but doable. Still, Legend is available for $1.
Even if RQ6 is more complete than Legend, I'm not sure if I can justify the difference in price for something that is essentially very similar if not pretty much the same game.
I guess I'll be waiting for the reviews on this one, as it is priced out of my impulse buy zone.
Thanks to Realms of Chirak and Akratic Wizardry for the scoop :)
Unfortunately I think alot of the OSR rpg crowd is beginning to be seen as having alot of disposable income and some people are going to price their wares to reflect that. And if everyone buys it at that price, their theory is confirmed.
ReplyDeletewhich is strange, as a significant amount of OSR stuff is available in Free "art free" versions or are offered in print "at cost".
ReplyDeletei used to rune the original RQ2 and RQ3 back in the day. Loved the system and the atmosphere, but the pricing of RQ6 leaves me head scratching.
Yes, that's some serious sticker shock, especially with releasing it so close in time to other books of slightly larger content and higher quality hard covers. Also, thanks for pointing out my misunderstanding; I guess a hard cover was wishful thinking on my part.
ReplyDeleteBrings back memories of the overpriced Avalon Hill Edition of Runquest,(As I remember $50 for the deluxe edition back in the early '90s) but with that one you at least got a box. Unfortunately with small print runs the price that being asked for the print edition is only a little bit out of line. DCC at $39.99 is an exceptional bargain. Don't ask me about .pdf pricing it is all over the map (many game companies seem to price the core rules .pdf as a loss leader, and try to make their money on supplements.)
ReplyDeleteThe guys at Design Mechanism have a small, rabid fan base. They had nothing but good press and high expectations coming off fan love for MRQII.
ReplyDeleteI think they did their sums and decided they could parlay this into high margins. The price of the book just does not line up with similar products in the marketplace. Not angry, but I might end up sitting this one out.