How many readers would rather save a dollar than be forced to pay for an extra copy of the comic they already own? How much extra does it actually cost Marvel to add that little code to the comic? How many of those codes actually get redeemed at all? And those that do, how many by the actual person who bought the book? It's popular to sell/trade/give codes away online, because nobody wants them. This is a ploy to justify them jacking up their costs out of pace with the competition.

It's standard practice now in the entertainment industry-movies, CDs etc. all are sold for higher sticker price with digital codes. And you would be surprised at how many people either use the codes or trade them for something else, which is added value to the product. And nobody is ever forced to pay a price for a luxury item. You choose to buy it at the price it is offered, find a better deal, or do without. It's not a necessity if you can't get your comic, you will survive, so nothing forces you to spend the money on it. And if the competition charges as much or more for the same codes when you get then from them, how is Marvel jacking up the prices out of pace with the competition. DCs $3.99 books are $4.99 with the code and their $2.99 books are $3.99 with the code, when they offer combo packs (they do it only for a small number of books. Is 2-6 more story pages and ads worth the extra $1 DC charges when they charge $3.99, can you trade those 2-6 pages for a whole other comic story the way you can with digital codes? What's more value to the consumer for $3.99 20 pages plus code or 22-26 ages no code. Or if you are buying IDW, Dynamite, BOOM! or other publishers $3.99 for just 20 pages no code no extra pages. So again how is Marvel prices out of pace with their competition? The only one who offers a better price is Image, and that is on a case by case basis depending how the owner-creator wants to price the book, not determined by Image itself. 

I am not happy with the pricing of comics, I pretty much stopped buying new comics 6-7 months ago because I determined it wasn't worth the cost for me, but just because I don't like the result, I know the economics behind it and not liking it doesn't entitle me to ignore the economic realities of the print publishing and non-digital sales of entertainment media that exist today. If wishes were trees I'd live in a forest, but wishful thinking here only sets unrealistic expectations of what the reality of the market forces require. Don't like the prices, don't pay them and don't buy the products. They are luxuries. You can do without them. Or wait to see if they get remaindered to a bargain bin or hit the secondary market at a better price. Marvel (or DC, or whatever) is not going to sell their product at a loss or for less than they can-they have shareholders to answer to, and all their partners need to make revenue as well. If the market will bear the price, well that becomes the price. Find a way to break Diamond's monopoly and maybe the market will correct itself, but until then luxury goods will continue to cost what they cost in this industry as long as people pay for it. And if you want to talk about unrealistic mark up, let's talk those "deluxe" hardcovers and their msrp....all the creative costs for that material was paid for by the floppies and the softcover trade releases, the hc deluxe price tag is well beyond the production cost of the actual item so it's all pure profit and getting as much from the customer as possible. 

-M

Not new releases that come with the digital code and Blue/Ray DVD combos etc. Older product sure, but new releases are still at premium prices, especially if they are coming with bonus copies in other formats (like digital). Those are still upwards of $20 when released. And those $5 DVDs still are priced about $4.50 more than what it costs to make them since all the creative costs for the older releases were long paid for so it's the price of the disk, the packaging and the machine to imprint it and then ship it as far as production costs are. 

-M

List price for Captain America: The Winter Soldier (a newish release) DVD only is $29.99. Combo packs are more.  1997 is not 10 years ago, it's almost 20, and DVD were new to the market then, VHS used to cost upwards of $90 plus when they were first introduced as well because it was before the technology was adapted on a wide enough scale to make it cost effective to produce products for mass market and keep them affordable. Price decrease because of adoption of new technology has nothing to do with cost vs. inflation rates. It's a whole new variable that changes the equation. But if you look at the price of DVD players themselves from 1997 to 2003 as shown in this chart...



you will see they declined at the same rate as constant dollars, meaning the prices remained consistent with the cost of production as the product became more readily available and sold in greater numbers. DVD prices themselves followed the same curve. At some point they will reach plateau and then dive as new technology (in this case Blue Ray) replaces them and the process starts all over again with high prices for the new tech and media in the new format at first dwindling down at a rate that is constant with the adoption of the new technology. Sticker price vs. inflation doesn't really enter into these equations because the new tech is introduced and goes obsolete and is replace which does more to define the market prices than inflation factors long term. It's why tech companies and products (like phones, tablets, computers) are constantly being upgraded to keep prices for new products form decreasing to the plateau point because of market saturation. New DVD prices now are actually higher vis-vis-production costs than they were 10 years ago because they are the secondary format now not the primary (Blue-Ray is) and are not produced on as large a scale as they were. Blue Ray is already being replaced by streaming in many cases, which has fueled the price drop on blue rays. There is no equivalent new tech introduced to replace comics to fuel that kind of price drop, mostly because Diamond monopolizes distribution of the print product new releases and digital is being price controlled to match print prices for new releases so as not to undercut those print sales.

-M

Except when you add in the additional stuff Marvel is adding (i.e. the digital code) and compare their prices to other publishers when they add it in or if you buy it separately, Marvel is increasing at the same rate as other publishers. When you compare Marvel prices to other publishers where the amount of content is equal, they are in line with each other. 

-M

And Dark Horse was using a higher quality paper and cover stock than Marvel at the time, so production costs were more. Now that all the publishers are using white stock not newsprint, they are charging the same. Dark Horse prices then are apples to Marvel's oranges at the time. When you look at the Epic books from Marvel that used the same kind of paper stock and cover stock that Dark Horse used, lo and behold it cost the same as a Dark Horse book at the time. Apples to apples. So when you buy a comparable product from Marvel and any other publisher, you are paying the same for the product. You paint Marvel as the bad guy because you want Marvel to be the bad guy, but the actual facts and evidence show a different story.

-M

Groo and Elfquest were printed on the cheaper paper. 

Marvel cover dated January 1986

Dr. Who #16 on mando paper (better paper stock, what indies used) cover price $1.50
Moonshadow #6 Epic, better paper, cover price $1.50
The One #4 Epic, better paper cover price $1.50
Six from Sirius II #2 Epic, better paper $1.50
Sword of the Swashbucklers #5 Epic, better paper, cover price $1.50

and these Epic books had higher page counts and fewer ads as well, it was a comparable product to the indies of the time. 

one stop shopping from Mike's Newsstand for books cover dated Jan 1086, if you are having trouble finding books priced $1.50 from Marvel from that time, you either aren't trying or aren't looking in the places where the info is available. 

-M