Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder outselling D&D

[rgard]

I suppose some might argue that Paizo's and PF's existence drains some of the market from WotC and 4.0. I couldn't disagree more. If PF didn't exist, I would still be stuck with 3.5, unwilling to so much as touch 4.0.

I agree with you. To add: if 4.0 had been 3.75 instead (tweeked 3.5 ala Pathfinder) I would have stayed a serious WotC customer. Now, all I ever buy of theirs is the occasional dungeon tiles (at big box book stores) or minis on the secondary market.

Also, if WotC had a 3.5 ddi section (in addition to their 4.0 ddi) I'd be a paying customer. That said, I'm sure they didn't want to invest $$$ on an edition they wanted to bury.

 

[C_M2008]

If this is true, then it seems to me that the OGL didn't work out so well for WOTC. I doubt they envisioned that they would be competing against what is essentially their own IP in the future.


Pathfinder is still the relatively new kid on the block, you've got high sales as everyone checks out the game they've heard so much about, which after a few years will drop to a lower level. Further I would assume for both markets there is a point where they reach supplement saturation - where most players will have more material than they will ever use and will stop buying new content. I reached this point for 4e in 2009 - haven't bought a thing since Ebberon was released (Wouldn't have purchased if I had the 3e version). If I was playing pathfinder I would have bought little beyond core as the whole point of pathfinder (IMO) is still using my 3.5 books.

Of course if we're talking market share we could also consider other publishers and other games as well as previous editions - from what I read on this and other forums there are an increasing number of people checking out the older editions.

 

[Scott DeWar]

Ok, I would like to comment here, but i am sure I would get in trouble with the moderators, so suffice it to say: congratulations to piazo!!!

 

[I'm A Banana]

Good point, but I want to add that 'profit' doesn't occur until after the rent is paid, employee salaries are paid, electric bill paid, water bill paid, etc.

And on that note....

DDI is a great plan, but it costs more. Coding, programming, and updating that beast takes quite a bit more money than simply paying some starving writer/fans to do something they might do some of anyway. The expertise needed to get it up and running, and appealing, is pretty pricey.

It IS an upfront cost that can be recouped, but it's a big upfront cost. And if you need to re-do the program every 10 years or so because you launch a new edition, or a new rules element, or something...it's tougher to make ends meet.

This isn't saying that WotC isn't raking in dough from the DDI, this is just saying that the DDI is more expensive than a traditionally published book, so the income may look a bit staggered (and almost for sure looks in the red for the first few months).

It's expensive to run good web programs, and while subscriptions are a wonderful thing, $10/month/person might be enough to pay writers to make books, but not enough to pay programmers to make programs.

 

[Xphile]

I wonder how much of Pathfinder's sales are based upon the evangelical nature of its player base. I'm a system neutral type of guy. You can convince me to try out any system and there is a high chance that I'll find something about that system that I like. This also means that I tend to visit the forums for a bunch of games, and I definitely notice a change in tone between them.

There is definitely a core group of outspoken Pathfinder players who preach the Pathfinder way. While I'm not saying that they are a large percentage of Pathfinder players, they are extremely vocal. They will claim that 4th Edition abused their mother, killed their father and touched them in all the wrong places. The claim is usually that 4th Edition ruined D&D for them (a discussion for a different thread). This can best be demonstrated on the Piazo forums where a discussion was created about a high profile employee leaving WOTC. A overwhelming number of posts treated the man like he was the antichrist.

So I personally see the number of sales from Pathfinder attributed to the fans pushing the games into the hands of people. I know that for a new player to RPGs or 4th Edition, I wouldn't tell them to buy any of the books. I'd let them borrow a copy of my Rules Compendium or Player's Handbook and suggest that they get DDI for a month and build a few characters. If they took the time to create a character at Level X, X+1 and X+2, likely this would last them quite a few months in a bi-weekly campaign.

I feel that the number of hardcover sales by Paizo is generated by the fact that new players will be told that they need the books to play. I know that this is the case with Star Wars Saga Edition. While I love the system, I feel that the players will need the various books to level up their characters. While there are some computer related solutions for both Pathfinder and SWSE, I hardly believe that the sales of Heroforge + Pathfinder would be anywhere as large as DDI.

 

[Reynard]

If this is true, then it seems to me that the OGL didn't work out so well for WOTC. I doubt they envisioned that they would be competing against what is essentially their own IP in the future.

I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that the only reason there *is* a Pathfinder RPG is because of the GSL debacle; given a license closer to the OGL, the new APs would have been 4E.

I, for one, am very happy for the failures of the GSL.

I think what the 4E/Pathfinder split really represents (along with the OSR and folks that never left 3.0 or 3.5) is that D&D means different things to different people -- and sometimes, different things to the same people at different times. Where WotC failed, i think, is in letting others -- the OSR publishers, Paizo -- monetise that fact. WotC gave away some percentage of the pie because they determined that percentage wasn't worth the cost (real or imagined). it is why they hobbled their own PDF sales (which could have evolved into PoD sales of legacy material) and it is why they invented their own biggest competition.

Funny (weird funny, not haha funny) anecdote: I was just downstairs making room on my bookshelves for a couple new Pathfinder purchases, and I finally boxed my 4E stuff. I hadn't played it since it came out, but there it was anyway on the same shelf as my 1E, 2E, 3.x and Pathfinder stuff (plus Labyrinth Lord and Mutant Future) -- my D&D shelf. 4E is no longer on my D&D shelf. That feels odd.

 

[Maggan]

I doubt they envisioned that they would be competing against what is essentially their own IP in the future.

I think that the architects of the OGL were aware of this. Whether the rest of WotC and/or Hasbro realised this is anyones guess.

This thread, and the comments by Rick Marshall, give very interesting insight into the goings on at WotC when the OLG was created.

GROGNARDIA: Thank You, Ryan Dancey

/m

 

[Xphile]

And on that note....

DDI is a great plan, but it costs more. Coding, programming, and updating that beast takes quite a bit more money than simply paying some starving writer/fans to do something they might do some of anyway. The expertise needed to get it up and running, and appealing, is pretty pricey.

It IS an upfront cost that can be recouped, but it's a big upfront cost. And if you need to re-do the program every 10 years or so because you launch a new edition, or a new rules element, or something...it's tougher to make ends meet.

This isn't saying that WotC isn't raking in dough from the DDI, this is just saying that the DDI is more expensive than a traditionally published book, so the income may look a bit staggered (and almost for sure looks in the red for the first few months).

It's expensive to run good web programs, and while subscriptions are a wonderful thing, $10/month/person might be enough to pay writers to make books, but not enough to pay programmers to make programs.

Really? Programming is expensive? I work as a software engineer professionally. There is very little about the DDI stuff that I couldn't do with maybe a team of 10 programmers. Seeing how I just spent the past few months working on a much more complex Flash application with only a team of 3 people, I don't see where this huge cost is coming in, especially if they are outsourcing the project to a company that isn't dedicating full time to this.

Most of the new improvements to things like the character builder and the like are simple data input. Adding new powers and classes in most cases is a data input project that could be done by any bum off the street. The most complex thing is likely to be the new virtual table. For that, look at the companies like D20 Pro or Fantasy Grounds. I doubt they have huge staffs and they still seem to be profitable.

 

[DimitriX]

The fact that Pathfinder is outselling 4e shouldn't be all that surprising that WotC is offering next to nothing in the area of support for its own game. They have a lot of novels, board games, and ancillary stuff like dungeon tiles coming out, but very few books that really add anything to the game. It's as if they are just conceding to Pathfinder. The more I look at things, the more I think that WotC and/or Hasbro want to own D&D the brand, but not D&D the game.

 

[JeffB]

There is definitely a core group of outspoken Pathfinder players who preach the Pathfinder way. While I'm not saying that they are a large percentage of Pathfinder players, they are extremely vocal. They will claim that 4th Edition abused their mother, killed their father and touched them in all the wrong places. The claim is usually that 4th Edition ruined D&D for them (a discussion for a different thread). This can best be demonstrated on the Piazo forums where a discussion was created about a high profile employee leaving WOTC. A overwhelming number of posts treated the man like he was the antichrist.

+1. I've tried to go over on the Paizo forums a few time and research modules/books, etc, but it's like a damned cult over there. I've never seen such a bunch of angry, overly zealous RPG folks- it's really off-putting.


EDIT- That said, no doubt that Paizo has done a bang-up job with PF, so congrats to Erik, Lisa and crew!