Paizo sets price of Pathfinder RPG PDF at $9.99!!!!!
Was just checking Paizo's boards when I came across this announcement from Vic Wertz the Technical Director.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vic Wertz
Update:
We've made some decisions regarding shipping of the Core Rulebook (and other August subscription products) and Core Rulebook PDF distribution. Here's the lowdown:
Assuming there are no major problems getting the Core Rulebook into our warehouse, we anticipate shipping subscriber orders and preorders starting the first week of August. We'll attempt to stagger-ship them based on transit time so that as many copies as possible arrive as close to the August 13 release date as we can manage. Of course, that's all up to the postal system—some folks will get it a day or two earlier, and some later.
The PDF will become available on August 13 as the Gen Con floor opens. The PDF will be priced at $9.99. Pathfinder RPG subscribers will get it for free (but not until the release date).
When asked if that was correct his response was:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vic Wertz
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sharoth
The PDF of the core PF RPG will be $9.99 ?!? My word! Are you sure Vic? I am just checking!
That is correct, sir! Though of course Pathfinder Adventure Path subscribers will get the Pathfinder Advantage discount, so it's $8.50 for them.
I'm totally amazed at the price. Paizo rocks!
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__________________ It is the spirit of the game, not the letter of the rules, which is important. NEVER hold to the letter written, nor allow some barracks room lawyer to force quotations from the rule book upon you, IF it goes against the obvious intent of the game. As you hew the line with respect to conformity to major systems and uniformity of play in general, also be certain the game is mastered by you and not by your players. Within the broad parameters give in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Volumes, YOU are creator and final arbiter. By ordering things as they should be, the game as a WHOLE first, your CAMPAIGN next, and your participants thereafter, you will be playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons as it was meant to be. May you find as much pleasure in so doing as the rest of us do.
OK, I really have no interest in Pathfinder, but I have to give them major kudos. THIS is how you fight piracy... with reasonable prices. Hopefully this will lead to fans buying the hardcover and the PDF, rather then buying the hardcover and pirating the pdf.
It's a PDF so let em whine, they can sale hard copys .That is a good price.
__________________ Remember kids whisky will not put out flaming mages ,but it will confuse the deathknight
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Last edited by Hunter In Darkness; 26th June 2009 at 09:38 AM..
Will this lead to FLGS removing all Paizo Pathfinder products from their shelves, or an outright boycott?
Personally, I don't care, my LGS is a piece of crap and doesn't stock Paizo, and has only 2 or 3 Goodman, TLG, and Green Ronin on his shelves, all of which I own.
The only thing he is good for is my picking up Level Up!
__________________ It is the spirit of the game, not the letter of the rules, which is important. NEVER hold to the letter written, nor allow some barracks room lawyer to force quotations from the rule book upon you, IF it goes against the obvious intent of the game. As you hew the line with respect to conformity to major systems and uniformity of play in general, also be certain the game is mastered by you and not by your players. Within the broad parameters give in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Volumes, YOU are creator and final arbiter. By ordering things as they should be, the game as a WHOLE first, your CAMPAIGN next, and your participants thereafter, you will be playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons as it was meant to be. May you find as much pleasure in so doing as the rest of us do.
I'm actually seriously tempted to cancel my Pathfinder rules subscription and order the book from my FLGS.
The free PDF generally makes it worth my while to subscribe, but at that price I might just buy the PDF instead.
Anybody have the inside track on what the US dollar / sterling exchange rate will be in mid August?
With the cost of shipping over seas I would just buy the PDF too, and buy the book locally, when it gets there.
Then start up your RPG subscription for the rest of the books, since I would imagine their PDF prices will be more like we are used to seeing.
Now if they continue with this insanity...
__________________ It is the spirit of the game, not the letter of the rules, which is important. NEVER hold to the letter written, nor allow some barracks room lawyer to force quotations from the rule book upon you, IF it goes against the obvious intent of the game. As you hew the line with respect to conformity to major systems and uniformity of play in general, also be certain the game is mastered by you and not by your players. Within the broad parameters give in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Volumes, YOU are creator and final arbiter. By ordering things as they should be, the game as a WHOLE first, your CAMPAIGN next, and your participants thereafter, you will be playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons as it was meant to be. May you find as much pleasure in so doing as the rest of us do.
As Tree said you might want to just buy it locally and then get the PDF. Since due to it's size the core book is going to be shipped priority which greatly increases the international postal rate, but the rest of the line will not have to be sent that way.
So it actually might be cheaper to buy locally and then buy the PDF than get a free PDF and pay shipping. Though then for the rest of the books like the monster book it might be better to subscribe unless they keep the PDF's 10 or less which I honestly doubt.
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It's a PDF so let em whine, they can sale hard copys .That is a good price.
I really cannot fathom this way of thinking. Please tell that a FLGS owner to his face.
I mean, is there at least a "cooldown" period, meaning that the .pdf is not immediately available? That would allow traditional sales to go on for a while, and then the cheap .pdf gets published.
Please note that i don´t begrudge anybody his cheap Pathfinder .pdf. But at first glance, this looks good for players and DMs and horrible for FLGSs.
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Well first off I have no FLGS or LGS. 2nd it really is a product they do not carry so pricing a product they do not have is really a non issue
Myself I do not use pdf however a cheap core PDF will push more harbacks as people might pick up a 10 buck pdf to check it out before dropping 50 bucks on a book they are unsure of. Also the more copys in any form out there the more likely people are to spend money on other products such as AP, and chronicles and so forth. Which is good for Paizo and LGS's alike.
__________________ Remember kids whisky will not put out flaming mages ,but it will confuse the deathknight
"The Soul of D&D? It's rolling a natural 20 when you're down to 3 hit points and the cleric's on the floor and you're staring that sunnavabitch bugbear right in his bloodshot eye and holding the line just long enough to let the wizard unleash a fireball at the guards who are on their way, because they're all that stands between you, the Foozle and Glory." - WizarDru
Thank you Gary Gygax, for everything.
"Rock on, Paizo, for you rock mightily".- dragonlordofpoondari
Well first off I have no FLGS or LGS. 2nd it really is a product they do not carry so pricing a product they do not have is really a non issue
A possible reason that it wouldn't be carried is because they can't compete with the prices. A possible reason the FLGS or LGS does not exist is because of the fact they can't sell material if it's available considerably cheaper as PDF.
But I am reminded of the Goodman post/article recently, where he said that WotC did a lot for gaming stores with their policies and Paizo is attracting more people to their online store and away from the gaming store.
In the end, I am not sure I should ... well, care? I don't go to my (F)LGS, though I do order online in a FRGS (Friendly Remote Gaming Store) that is a FLGS to others.
I take from the prices that Paizo is making its primary income from its subscriptions, and the Pathfinder book might be a kind of "loss leader" at best. It stands to wonders how much money WotC does with DDI and if they could do something similar, or if there are structural differences?
I am tempted to buy the PDF for 9,99, just to say what it's all about. I bought Exalted 2e or Changling for a way higher price without ever expecting to play it, too.
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I really cannot fathom this way of thinking. Please tell that a FLGS owner to his face.
I mean, is there at least a "cooldown" period, meaning that the .pdf is not immediately available? That would allow traditional sales to go on for a while, and then the cheap .pdf gets published.
Please note that i don´t begrudge anybody his cheap Pathfinder .pdf. But at first glance, this looks good for players and DMs and horrible for FLGSs.
There are good FLSG that could be hurt by this.
Paizo needs to make some 'direct marketing only' promotional items that aren't available online. Free RPG day stuff is great. Missing that and getting it online for free in many instances? That cuts down the need to actually go to the store.
What the FLGS might not realize is that with a $9.99 core book PDF, Pathfinder just went from the game that is "interesting, I'm sure some other guys will play it" to "yeah, I'll try that out."
In other words, Paizo is selling the razor cheap so that it can sell a huge volume of razor blades. The FLGS might get caught flat-footed by the upswing in demand due to this. So they'll need to think about whether they want to get on board even despite the pricing.
Paizo needs to make some 'direct marketing only' promotional items that aren't available online. Free RPG day stuff is great. Missing that and getting it online for free in many instances? That cuts down the need to actually go to the store.
IF LGS' are going to cry about this, and I am sure they will, then they better cry about all the content WOTC gives away for a pretty small sum every month, of their leading sellers, presumably. Then they should complain about WOTC undercutting them by selling through places like Amazon. Complaints about things that really hurt their survival.
If they are going to cry about PDF's, a sales revenue that WOTC and Goodman both say is so small as to barely be worth paying any attention too, then they are crying about something that doesn't effect them at all, or might possibly cost them a sale or two.
Considering how Goodman described things the PDF deal Paizo is offering might lose 1 out of 100 stores a single sale. Lousy salesmanship costs them far more sales. So maybe they should put their energy towards fixing that, rather than complain about something that all evidence says is highly unlikely to cost them a single sale.
__________________ It is the spirit of the game, not the letter of the rules, which is important. NEVER hold to the letter written, nor allow some barracks room lawyer to force quotations from the rule book upon you, IF it goes against the obvious intent of the game. As you hew the line with respect to conformity to major systems and uniformity of play in general, also be certain the game is mastered by you and not by your players. Within the broad parameters give in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Volumes, YOU are creator and final arbiter. By ordering things as they should be, the game as a WHOLE first, your CAMPAIGN next, and your participants thereafter, you will be playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons as it was meant to be. May you find as much pleasure in so doing as the rest of us do.
A possible reason that it wouldn't be carried is because they can't compete with the prices. A possible reason the FLGS or LGS does not exist is because of the fact they can't sell material if it's available considerably cheaper as PDF.
Yes, remember how the Pathfinder Beta didn't sell any copies when the PDF was released for FREE? Oh boy, dark times, one FLGS closing down after the other, and each of them saying "nope, we're not stocking books which are available for free as PDFs - because NO ONE would ever buy them!".
/sarcasm out.
The $9.99 PDF serves a clear purpose. People get it and if they decide they like it they WILL buy the pricey hardcover, believe me. While WotC makes a good effort to contract US printers, the quality of ink/colouring/paper in used/etc. in their book is on occasion mediocre to intolerable, and their PDF sales (at full pricing) have been modest at best (this being the clear reason why pulling them off the market hasn't hurt them - see also Joe Goodman's comment on that).
Paizo, on the other hand, prints their stuff in China and anyone who EVER bought something in the Pathfinder product line can tell you - these things are W O W !!! The print quality (coloration, resolution, you name it) is amazing - nothing your own printer at home will even remotely match (these not being exactly sentiments when I first received my copy of Keep on the Shadowfell). Print copies of Paizo's FREE stuff still fetches solid sales on Ebay - a measerly 16-page adventure they gave away freely on FreeRPGDay fetches ten dollars - or, sometimes, not just solid but perverse prices: the Beta RPG could be bought on Amazon market place for $125 when people learned that the Beta print run had been SOLD OUT. And yes, these copies SOLD OUT too.
I think it is the simple realization by Paizo and its fans that they don't really NEED the gamestore. Basically, the health of the game store should not be a factor in pricing etc.
Honestly though...this _WILL_ push gamestores further away from Paizo. While many on this thread truly believe that PDFs do not take away physical sales, many of the game store owners truly believe the opposite.
And since, like many things in this industry, there's no independnet organization that tracks these things, each side is going on what their personal experience is.
$9.99 is a great price - thank you, Paizo! I tend to buy most of my games as PDF only now - no green house gas emissions given off, no cutting down trees or wasting other natural resources just to print and ship it to me, be that to the FLGS or my house directly. I buy a lot more ebooks and magazines for the same reason. I'm not saying I'm perfect at it, but I've really been trying to reduce my carbon footprint the last few years. Every little bit helps.
The True20 Adventure Roleplaying, Revised Edition PDF is also $9.99. I wonder if ten bucks is the new benchmark for core rules PDFs?
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