D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast has announced that it will be increasing the price of upcoming books in the not-so-distant future, starting with Bigby Presents: Glory of Giants.
The price of new D&D books is rising to $59.95 from here on in, and according to Wizards, this is thanks to increased shipping and goods costs. That change is already reflected on Bigby Presents: Glory of Giants' Amazon pre-order page, and while I've not been able to confirm what the updated UK cost will be, the same book is £48.30 on Amazon UK rather than the usual £41.99.
Digital pricing won't be affected, though - in other words, you shouldn't have to pay more if you're buying the books on D&D Beyond or through platforms like DrivethruRPG. Backlist Dungeons and Dragons books (e.g. products that have already been released) won't be rising in cost either.
Unfortunately, bundles with a hardcover copy and a digital version aren't so lucky. These combo-packs are also rising in price to $69.95 (or £69.99 in the UK). However, this won't happen until after Bigby Presents: Glory of Giants is out - you can still pre-order it for the current price of $59.95 / £59.99 via the official D&D store.
On the D&D Beyond post explaining this change, Wizards of the Coast explained that "since the release of the 2014 D&D core rulebooks, we’ve kept book prices stable. Unfortunately, with the cost of goods and shipping continually increasing, we’ve finally had to make the decision to increase the price of our new release print books.
"We're committed to creating high-quality products that deliver great value to our players and must increase our prices to accomplish that… Digital pricing is unaffected by this MSRP (manufacturer's suggested retail price) increase, as digital products don’t need to be printed or shipped. The increase also doesn’t impact backlist titles. While we can’t promise that there will never be a change to the prices of digital products and backlist titles, we have no plans to increase either", it concluded.
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