What would you pay for a book on leveldesign?

    How much would you pay for a book on level design 0

    1. Less than 20$ (=16 euro) (0) 0%
    2. Around 20$ (=16 euro) (0) 0%
    3. Around 30$ (=24 euro) (0) 0%
    4. Around 40$ (=32 euro) (0) 0%
    5. Around 50$ (=40 euro) (0) 0%
    6. Around 60$ or higher (=48 euro) (0) 0%

    Im doing a bit of research on how much people involved with game modding would pay for a book about level design.

    Lets say that the book you would want to buy has over a hundred example screenshots and 200 pages on A5 sized paper in total, and the cover is looking nice:)

    Ive done research on amazon and the like already but I just want to get an idea of what the people themselves think.

    There is no option "I dont want to buy one" because Im not interested in hearing who would and who would not, I just want to get an idea of what people would spend -IF- they are interested.

    So regardless if you actually buy books or not how much would you find an affordable and acceptable fair price for a book on level design?

    Thanks!

    I'm planning on picking up that very book at some point actually. I think about ~£30/$60 is the most I'd want to be paying, so I voted $50 as I wouldn't want to pay higher than 60

    I think it would depend on exactly what the book covered, and how it does it. Will it be broad level design theories, or will it thoroughly delve into specific mod's, games, and editors? Will there be content in the book that cannot be found on the net? Will there be a CD accompanying any tutorials or editing work?

    I would pay about £25 for a good level design book, especially one that would allow me to learn an editor fairly quickly. Never knew about the HL2 one. I will order that one as well.

    If it's of very high quality and use and packed with stuff not found on the net I'd say $50 or more. Because of course we get what we pay for.

    btw what exaclty are you covering? Will it be more about lighting and geometry and things like that or will it be about gameplay flow and whatnot? And will this be a book specifically on the Unreal engine or does it cover level design in general?

    Quote from Sindwiller

    You forgot one option. Nothing. I still learn stuff myself. Wfr, Sindwiller

    Quote from Hourences

    There is no option "I dont want to buy one" because Im not interested in hearing who would and who would not, I just want to get an idea of what people would spend -IF- they are interested.

    :roll:

    Learning on your own is great, but its important to learn from those with more experience as well.

    $0 because there really isn't much that you can't find on the internet for free. Engine technology changse so fast that it seems like any specific technical data is going to be out of date before long. Plus, articles about level design theory are already out there, and many of them are well written. There are some Q1 and Q2 editing websites that have great sections on gameplay and theory.

    Quote from ginger_lord

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/193…ce&n=266239That much.

    Done by Waldo (of DoD fame), mind you he's doing everything about modding in it, modelling, mapping, sound, animations etc. Helped him out with some stuff in it.

    For something on just level design, I'd want at least the same amount of pages (450+) for the price.

    Did he already released it? i've been wayting for that one for a long time but Amazon.co.uk says its avaible, Amazon.com say's that it isn't..

    About the price not more then 50€, off course people like to pay as less as possible

    Its been proven with tests that if you actualy ask too little for a product you sell less than if you would ask more. People regard something as low quality if its too cheap and thus wont buy it.

    My original idea was like 30 euro but that appears to be impossible to pull off financially. Production cost is a lot higher for me than for huge multi million dollar companies who do everything with discount and in bulk.

    Ill prolly be going for 48 dollar/38 euro but thats not for sure yet.

    Making a book about a specific editor is not a wise decision since there already are books for the most used editors out there, published by huge companies with lots of money, hard to compete with them.

    You cant find everything online, there are barely any design and art tutorials online and those that do exist are either incomplete or only focus on one aspect like multiplayer gameplay and not sound, effects, textures, and so on. So thats the hole I intend to fill up.

    More pages doesnt work btw. It are the pages that are expensive. More pages also means a higher price. If you want 400 pages I need to ask at least 75 dollar to pull it off.

    Looks to me like half the people would pay what I would ask so thats fine to me, its a small target audience anyway.

    Ill release some more info in a few months.

    No it's not released. 30 Euros for me. Because 30 euros should be a reasonable price for a reasonably sized book. Because let's face it, the more "next gen" we get, the less the same person will do everything. With that in mind, there will be large portions of any huge book covering everything that won't ever be used by the purchaser.

    Bottom line I'd rather 5 persons bought a 30 euros book each than 2 persons buying one 50 euros one and not using half of the book because all they care about is some specific aspect of game development. And I'm ready to bet publishers will also prefer my own choice

    I'd pay £25-30 (I think that's about 40-50 euros?) for a good book. The most I've paid for a book is £30 for game programming gems 1. I likely wouldn't pay more for a level design book regardless of its quality.

    Most of the LD books I've seen / heard about have a scattered/ramshackle quality to them. I was asked to write something for one book (which I won't name, but it's none of the books mentioned in this thread), but the payment on offer was paltry compared to the time it'd take me to actually write what was required (think minimum wage, then slice it in half, then probably cut another bit off). If that sort of approach is taken when writing books, then IMO the quality won't be too high (as if the money was totally worthless from a student's pov, then why would a professional person with 100x more experience than me want to write an article for one?)

    I'd definitely pay good money for a focussed, methodical and valuable insight into level design, though. I.e. if Hourences or any other experienced pro wrote a book on LD, I'd probably buy it. These types of book seem to be very rare. Most of the books you tend to see are (as mentioned ^ up there) very scattered and more like "hey dudes you can make a train, choo choo LOL!", or just so basic that it's not worth reading.

    best of luck with it regardless.

    Something I think would actually make for an interesting read would be doing case studies on popular levels from multiple genres (SP, DM, Teamplay, etc) to show what does and does not work from a gameplay perspective.

    Could you possibly have some extra content, such as the case studies Fletch mentioned, on a disc? That might increase it's appeal for little extra cost. I'm fairly certain that CD's are cheaper to produce than print. But then again that has drawbacks as well I guess :\

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