Yep, Nick Logue's (in)famous Razor Coast will actually be seeing the light of day. I'd like to say I'm excited by the whole thing, but this is one of those projects that showed the dangers of preordering from a start up publisher - money was taken the the project never released (that's the 30 second summary - I'm sure there are far longer write ups of this drama on the interwebs).
Frog God has stepped in to clear out the mess and has taken upon itself the responsibility of fulfilling any of the original outstanding orders. That's mighty big of them, but the, so is the buy in for the Razor Coast Kiskstarter. At these prices, I'd expect a reach around at the very least.
Follow along with me me:
$30 gives you the Razor Coast Player's Guide in print and PDF - not so bad until you blink and realize it's ONLY a player's guide. It's not the setting. It's not what you need to run the game, it's same fluff and the like for player's to read and maybe offer some further inspiration for the DM. Still, on it's own, useless to run a game in the setting.
$40 gives you the Razor Coast Adventure in PDF only - notice it does not include what you get at the previous pledge level. $40 for a PDF of the adventure and it doesnt even include a PDF of the Player's Guide. (a copy of the Player's Guide is another $20 - I think that is print + PDF but it doesn't actually say)
You want a Hard Copy of the Razor Coast Adventure? Just $110, but hey, they throw in a PDF of it too (if you want a copy of the Player's Guide, you need to add another $20 - so it's $130 for both, presumably both in print and PDF)
$150 gets you signed and numbered HC of the Razor Coast Adventure, a HC of the Player's Guide and PDFs of both.
After $150 it just gets silly and ridiculous. Heck, $40 for the PDF of the adventure only is obnoxious. How much of the jack up in prices is to cover the initial fuck up with the original preorders?
I want to like the idea that The Razor Coast is finally being released. I want to be excited. I'm not. I can't be.
"We estimate the final book will come in over 250 pages, delivered in 100% full color, tightly bound with our infamous stitched-bound hardcovers".
$110 for a 250+ page RPG setting / adventure book? Are we that desperate?
No, I think Frog God simply knows they can get away with it. Their products are pretty much all extremely high priced. $100 for a print copy of Tome of Horrors? $40 for just the PDF. $150 for the Slumbering Tsar hardback, $89 for the PDF.
ReplyDeleteAt least those are relatively big books, I think around 400 pages.
(And let's not forget, I paid $40 for what turned out to be a 90 page book for Starships & Spacemen. Scaling up, that's about the same price as this)
I think the buy in on this is too high, even more so than the usually high frog god kick starters. I think this one will struggle a little.
ReplyDeleteI asked Bill Webb on G+ if the debt attached to acquiring this project from its first crash-and-burn has been passed on to the consumer in the pledge levels, but I haven't heard back. I'll post again here with an update if I do.
ReplyDeleteBill Webb's reply for those interested: "We use a USA printer (T5 was printed in Canada after being shopped around). Our books are text book quality and therefore are more expensive than traditional perfect bond or saddle stitched. The art cost was really large on this. The only back debt that was included in the price of the book was art cost. The other back debt (like refunds, pre-orders, writing, etc) is coming out of FGG's pocket. The total project cost also includes the printing, production, art, writing, etc for the player's guide and bonus module. There is a lot that goes into creating a project like this. We feel our products and quality speak for themselves."
ReplyDeleteI can vouch for the high quality of both FGG's books and their customer service. Having said that, the price on this one is steep to be sure. With Tome of Horrors and S&W: Complete, I was on board immediately. I'll probably wait a while on this one before I decide about pulling the trigger.
ReplyDeleteI think I must be the only person who sees Kickstarter for what it really is: crowd-funding. You're not buying a product with your money, you're helping to produce a product that you won't see profit from. In exchange for profit, sometimes you get a sample of what you've funded.
ReplyDeleteIn this instance, the sample seems slight compared to previous samples you've seen.
If you want to buy this product at a reasonable price, then maybe wait for the kickstarter to succeed and the product to come out. If it succeeds...
I think your crowd-funding point is a good one. There are a number of projects that I've supported in large part to help them see the light of day.
ReplyDeleteHowever, from what I've seen, few publishers go on to sell a book that has been successfully crowd funded at less than what they offered it for during the funding process. Frog God is a prime example. Whenever that happens, it tends to look more like a pre-order than what you've suggested.
I'm a bit surprised they're doing a pirate game when Paizo just finished their Skull & Shackles pirate adventure path with a whole bunch of extra products to go with it. Sure, this setting is a bit different but not by much.
ReplyDelete