Heavy Costs Hurt Tabletop Gaming Hobbies
I’ve been playing tabletop games for the better part of twenty years.
But I’ve almost left the hobbies behind due the the costs extracted from fans.
Like anyone, I’m not immune to rising living costs, inflationary doom spirals, and my greenbacks not going as far as they used to. I make more money now than I ever have, but, like many living in the post-COVID economy, this money doesn’t go as far as it used to. I also have a daughter, who adds pressure to my leftover cash.
Costs within the hobby, like anywhere in our lives, seem to be going up as well. How can I sustain my participation in hobbies where the costs seem to be rising faster than inflation? The new D&D core set is going to drop soon, with a roughly $150 price tag in the States. While I don’t play D&D as much as I used to, it is often synonymous with the hobby itself. Sure, I can go to indie games, homebrew, and homemade creations, but it feels as if the core part of the hobby is moving away from those of us who have been loyal fans for years.
D&D books have always been expensive—at least from my experience. When I grew up in the Sticks, they were hard to get, meaning I had to travel over ninety minutes to a bookstore or game shop that sold them, often for a prohibitive price, even for a teenager with a steady cash flow from a part-time job.
In wargaming, Warhammer and others like it have become prohibitively expensive for those of us who want to just play. I love minis, but do I have to spend $80 on this cool miniature? In high school, I traded miniatures, securing what I wanted with lunch money, other minis, and after-school competitions. I’ve only purchased one official set, one that is considered a classic now.
Like D&D, it seems even the miniatures market has become an extractive enterprise, one that feels largely predatory for fans who’ve always tried breaking into the hobby, but costs have kept us on the fringes.
The hobbies deserve better.
Better pricing.
Better options.
More creativity, and infinitely more budget-friendly options.
This is why I’m going to forgo purchasing the next edition of D&D and other big titles. There are better options in the indie world, and these options feel like they care about folks who just can’t justify spending unseemly amounts of money on the hobby: My kiddo enjoys her juice boxes, and my four-legged kiddo enjoys his kibble.
To Err Is Human is a blog by G. Michael Rapp (and visiting writers and content creators). Copyright 2024. All rights reserved. However, if you're using any content to add to an ongoing conversation, for teaching purposes, and/or for furthering the hobbies of gaming, storytelling, and worldbuilding, feel free to pull what you want from this blog, so long as you give credit to the original website (https://toerrishuman.xyz) and the author(s)/content creators in question.