GenCon Core Book Sold Out?

[MichaelSomething]

There was a prediction thread with some people guessing it would sell out before lunch, or on the first day.

Define "a lot of fans" and provide some links, please, so that people don't get the impression you're just stirring the pot.

I was the one (and the only one who did so, as far as I know) who made that prediction, back in the thread that talked about the Core Book selling out. With such a high demand for it, it seemed like a reasonable prediction at the time. I guess I was wrong. It looks like Pathfinder was only highly seccessful.

 

[Obryn]

I made that prediction, but I'm not a fan, per se. I expected Paizo to have a stellar convention, and also expected them to sell out of all their books. I was half-right, anyways!

-O

 

[Shemeska]

I also expected a sellout.

I did not however expect them to bring that crazy ziggurat of books to handle the crazy demand as well as they did, which was pretty swift on their part.

 

[Lidgar]

I did not however expect them to bring that crazy ziggurat of books to handle the crazy demand as well as they did, which was pretty swift on their part.

Nice. As long as it wasn't an inverted ziggurat. Or arranged like a flaming eye. That could really depress sales when customers fail their Will saves, not to mention the restocking challenges it presents.

 

[Alzrius]

I think the most interesting question is how many downloads of the PDF has Paizo had so far? If they moved another 20,000 units via pdf over the weekend, that's significant.

It's worth remembering that the PF RPG PDF (abbrev. FTW!) customers will have some overlap with those who bought the print book; I was one of the first people in line for the book Thursday morning at Gen Con, but also paid an additional $5 for a PDF copy as well when I was there at the register.

Oh, and I also was predicting that they'd sell out before the Con was over.

 

[dm4hire]

I predicted they'd sell out also, but when I saw that stack of books I was like, "no way, they brought more books than there are people at the convention." I was pleased to see it shrink considerably. If anything they planned well in advance and their guess on how much to bring was almost spot on. Still it would have been nice to see them sell out completely, but as stated it is better they have a few extra than to come out short on inventory. There's nothing like ticked off gamers who weren't able to buy a book they really wanted.

Everywhere you went in the convention center there was someone reading the book. I even saw people reading it in line for LFR.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Yeah, it's one thing to be surprised by unexpected demand, but Paizo's had two very clear warnings in the last few weeks of what to expect. First, distributor sales were higher than anticipated so they had to order a second print run early. Second, their shipping department had been slammed for the week and a half prior to GenCon. I expected Paizo to react to the demand.

Didn't somebody say Paizo brought 3000 books to GenCon?

Interesting that there is a big demand among distributors? I called the 4 closest gaming stores to me here in the Hartford area in CT and 3 were not planning on carrying the book (one said all RPG books were getting backlogged in his store, so he only special orders them now, on request) and one didn't know what I was talking about.

I was definitely planning on picking the book up as well.

 

[Stalker0]

If Pathfinder didn't sell out, that's a great thing. It means they made the maximum amount of money they could at the con. And...means more people might get the book from other venues.

 

[Barcode]

Agreed. It would seem the ideal scenario in terms of immediate revenue is to almost sell out. Now you miss out on whatever there is to be gained from the "Sold Out at Gencon" status (which mostly appears to be bragging rights for your fans on message boards), but I would think that to be a minor bonus vis a vis the missed sales at maximum margin.

 

[JoshuaFrost]

We sold exactly what we thought we would and brought extra in case we were wrong.