Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Gaming and the Canadian Exchange Rate

I was looking at the recent Dungeons and Dragons 4E Essentials release schedule, and couldn't help notice the following product line-up information.

Dungeon Master's Kit
An Essential D&D Game Supplement
James Wyatt and Jeremy Crawford
Awesome tools, rules, and adventure content for every Dungeon Master.
If you’re a Dungeons & Dragons player interested in taking on the role of the Dungeon Master, or if you’re an experienced DM looking for more game advice, tools, and adventure content, the Dungeon Master’s Kit has exactly what you need to build your own Dungeons & Dragons campaign and excite the imaginations of you and your players.
This deluxe box contains rules and advice to help Dungeon Masters run games for adventurers of levels 1–30. It also includes useful DM tools such as a Dungeon Master’s screen (with tables and rules printed on the inside), die-cut terrain tiles and monster tokens, and fold-out battle maps.
Game components:
256-page book of rules and advice for Dungeon Masters
Two 32-page adventures
2 sheets of die-cut monster tokens
2 double-sided battle maps
Fold-out Dungeon Master’s screen
Item Details Item Code: 244640000Release Date: October 19, 2010 Series: Essential D&D Game Supplement Format: Box Price: $39.99 C$47.99 ISBN: 978-0-7869-5630-2

As of September 14, 2010, the exchange rate on the Canadian dollar is roughly $0.97 US. At that exchange rate, the pricing on the Dungeon Master's Kit should be $41, not $48. Hopefully Canadian retailers will not be forced to charge those exorbitant prices, and will get a break on the wholesale price from WoTC. Here's an even more extreme example.

Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms
An Essential D&D Game Supplement
Mike Mearls, Bill Slavicsek, and Rodney Thompson
Exciting new builds and character options for the druid, paladin, ranger, and warlock classes.
This essential supplement for the 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Roleplaying Game presents exciting new builds for the game’s most popular classes: the druid, the paladin, the ranger, and the warlock. Each class comes with a set of new powers, class features, paragon paths, epic destinies, and more that beginning players can use to build the characters they want to play and experienced players can plunder for existing 4th Edition characters.
In addition to new builds, this book presents expanded information and racial traits for some of the game’s most popular races, including dragonborn, drow, half-elves, half-orcs, and tieflings.
Item Details Item Code: 247510000Release Date: November 16, 2010 Series: Essential D&D Game Supplement Format: Trade Paperback Page Count: 352 Price: $19.95 C$35.00 ISBN: 978-0-7869-5619-7

At $35 Canadian, compared to $20 US, that's an exchange rate of $0.57, compared to the current $0.97. I trust this $35 Canadian price is just a typo, or a placeholder for the correct price.

4 comments:

Sean Robson said...

I've noticed that some companies engage in profiteering on the exchange rate. Games Workshop has been bad for this in the past, charging Canadian prices far in excess of the exchange rate. I'm willing to bet that the prices you cite are neither typos, nor place-holders.

Aaron E. Steele said...

I stopped buying GW products for this very reason.

Timrod said...

Don't they pass the difference on to your healthcare system? Heheheheh

Aaron E. Steele said...

Tch, tch, tch.

Yes, we do have an awesome health care system!

:D