Fantasy Flight to Raise Prices in November

Fantasy Flight Games has announced a price increase of 10-25% for a decent chunk of its board and card game offerings. As FFG CEO Christian Petersen notes in a press release accompanying the announcement, “There has been tremendous upward pressure on manufacturing pricing during the last three years. FFG has for long fought extremely hard to create and retain maximum value in its products for the gaming audience. This is something that we’ll continue to do. However, with energy, commodity, and labor prices affecting every stage of our business, we now find it necessary to make a rare correction.”

Prices for many forthcoming titles will increase prior to their first appearance, with Cosmic Encounter, for example, to retail for $60 instead of $50. Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game, however, will remain $40 through its first wave of release, which is due in October and already sold out to preorders; by the time the second wave arrives in November, the price will be $50. Most price changes will take effect on November 1, 2008, and a list of price changes is available on the Fantasy Flight website.

At the same time, FFG will eliminate net pricing on certain items and instead offer consistent discounts across its product line to distributors and retailers. Why does this matter for gamers? Some stores have refused to stock titles like StarCraft: The Board Game because the game was sold on a net basis instead for a percentage of the retail price. (With discount-based pricing, the more a retailer purchases from FFG, the better his discount will be, giving him a tiny bit of extra profit for each FFG title he sells; with net pricing, the retailer pays a flat cost no matter how large or small a customer he is, and net prices typically cost more than discounted prices, which lowers the margin on these games and sometimes discourages dealers from carrying them.)

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