[ArchonShiva]

With evergreen retail not being a consideration, the hindsight-is-20/20 scenario becomes what the original Ogre plan was: fulfill Kickstarter and sell off remaining inventory (you always order extra to account for replacements, etc.) t whatever stores will take it, but not rely on or plan for any actual retail sales.

So, suppose the DFRPG had been the physical contents of four books: Adventurers, Exploits, Spells and Monsters, plus a PDF of I Smell a Rat. Physical GM screen (sans Character Creation booklet) and the PDF Traps, Magic Items and Against the Ratmen as stretch goals, possible but not guaranteed.

No box, no maps, no tokens, no dice, no GURPS Zombies. Flip a coin on a PDF Delvers-to-Go.

You, as a Kickstarter backer, are the only market. This is the only place you can reliably get a physical copy if this, and if you don’t want it, it’s not getting made.
What would that have been with to you, shipping excluded? (We’re assuming that if the project works, PDFs become available for sale)

I’d have gone to $100 easily. I think the DFRPG set was a ridiculous steal at $50.

If costs needed to be lower, I would have been in with less art; I would have been in for a less colourful printing (black-and-white is too much of a loss, but duo-tone can be pretty great, look at Ars Magica 5th); I would have put in more money for hardcover, if that somehow made SJG’s margins better.

I got the leather-bound 4e books in 2004 when the new edition was launched, and was happy to put the $250 on the KS to get the extra stuff, because GURPS is good. I’d toss another chunk like that for another bunch of heavily discounted PDFs from some other corner of 3e or 4e.