Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder outselling D&D

[Kzach]

To what extent do you think that is a chicken-or-the-egg scenario? Are the players you have access to just diehard committed to other games or is no one willing to break the ice? (I have no dog in this fight, so honest question).

I think it's both.

On the one hand there's an FLGS with open gaming areas that they use for running CCG tournaments as well as allowing RPG gamers to use them. This place has Living Pathfinder games but no D&D. I tried to start up D&D there but have had zero interest in over a month of trying. On the other hand, there's another FLGS that I go to where if you mentioned Pathfinder, everyone would go, "Huh? Is that a new class?"

 

[Maggan]

A very interesting development over the last years, that's for sure.

I never thought I'd see the day when another fantasy roleplaying game consistenly outperformed D&D in some key areas, such as book sales (if the comments from Paizo are correct).

But then again, "D&D" is being matched by ... "D&D with another name". So maybe the old adage that "D&D will never be toppled" is true after all.

/M

 

[Dark Mistress]

Personally not remotely surprised by this. I mean if I played 4e more, especially as my main game I would invest in the DDI. I mean for 3-4 hardbacks you can get the DDI for a year and get everything that has come out. Yes I know it is not the same as owning the books but most of the information you need is there. Not counting all the sheer errata that is done to 4e.

All and all WotC business plan encourages people to buy the DDI which I am sure is on purpose. Yet at the same time that discourages people to buy many books, especially players have little reason to buy books.

Right now the two companies are taking two very different approaches to selling their games. Paizo is focusing on making books with electronic aspects to support their books and offering those that want them PDF's of their books. WotC is focusing on a web based pay service, with books only their to support the DDI. Which while it may not seem like it, is really very different strategies.

It is hard to say which one is the better idea. There is pro's and con's to both models. My personal take is short term the DDI model is the better deal, less overhead and more profit, but it is slowly reducing their presence in stores. If their books sell less stores will order less and stock less. Long term that could come back to bite them on the ass. Though to be fair I think before that happens 5e will come out.

While Paizo has their subscription plans which help with the steady income like the DDI offers but cause they print their books as a main source of distribution I think they have a slimmer profit margin per product that WotC has with their DDI. But on the other hand if more books are sold it makes them more visible in the market and encourages stores to stock their products more. The possible bite them in the ass with this is if they ever get to the point of needing a new edition. Might see a another 3.0-3.5 reaction.

Anyways done rambling.

 

[wingsandsword]

I'm pretty firmly in that boat, although lately I've been questioning the logic of it because there's actually a surprising amount of information that is NOT available through DDI.

The other thing that continues to concern me about this whole digital push is that what happens if WotC dies tomorrow and stops offering DDI? At least when the CB was offline I could still make up to date characters, but with the CB as it is now and with no books, I'd basically have to give up 4e altogether. They're not exactly creating any sort of lasting legacy without physical magazines and their strategy of undermining their own physical products with digital offerings.

The idea of DDI being so ephemeral is probably to WotC's advantage because when the inevitable 5e comes out, it will be easier to pressure people to play it if they can just discontinue 4e online support. With switching to new editions, people have long said that WotC won't come and take their books away. Now, they can just turn off DDI and much of 4e goes Down The Memory Hole. At least 3.x had the SRD's and thus had the ability to stay around, legally, forever, and Pathfinder is the ultimate realization of that possibility.

3.x and its variants will be around and widely played and distributed long after 4e has faded into relative obscurity thanks to the OGL & SRD, and thanks to DDI.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Congrats Paizo! Could anyone have predicted this a few years ago?

 

[Raven Crowking]

Removed

 

[Nagol]

This seems a likely (but not immediate upon 5e's release) scenario. I'd wait a year or so, and then claim that not enough people were still using the 4e DDI materials to make supporting 4e a viable business decision. 5e content, by that time, would be up and running on the DDI.


RC

Considering the incremental cost to host (i.e. almost zero), a scenario I consider more likely is to set up 5e as a "premium" service that grants access to 5e and all 4e material at a small incremental cost (+$2/month) and "allow" the current 4e subscriptions to continue with the caveat that no new material will be forthcoming for 4e.

This allows the player base to continue paying you with limited drama, includes a stealth price increase for fans of the new edition, and continues to milk those who don't want to change immediately.

Of course this works best if 4e and 5e are close enough that previous material is useful at the table in 5e.

 

[RainOfSteel]

I guess the thing is that Paizo represents a huge chunk of what had been WoTC talent;

WotC did that to itself.

Pathfinder is a huge chunk of almost entirely WotC-created intellectual creation.

It can be argued that the majority of talent that created 3.x is gone from WotC now. WotC also pretty much did that to itself, as well.

Pathfinder's mechanics are founded on Open Gaming Content material which is covered by the Open Gaming License. The OGC and OGL in the first place were immense boosts for all of gaming when they appeared. If they had not appeared, the industry would be quite a different place today.

WotC decided to move to 4.x and make access to that material more restrictive for other publishers, ending the spirit of the OGL era for them. They made their bed with these decisions.

Paizo, with more than perfect legitimacy, decided to take the OGL 3.5 material and forge its own improved version that was still compatible with 3.5.

There is nothing questionable, at least for Paizo, about what occurred.

It's not like a third party game & publisher came out of nowhere to challenge D&D [...]

It's like a publisher used public information, which anyone else could have used, to base a game upon and sell it, with total legality.

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.

 

[rgard]

I believe the general wisdom is that each step of the publishing process is a doubling. So if a book sells for $40, WotC got $20, and paid $10 to print it (i.e. $10 profit). So a DDi subscription is about as profitable as selling a subscriber a book a month. I'm stoked (and believe) that Pathfinder is outselling D&D in books, but I think we're pretty far from tinfoil hat season. D&D has clearly committed to their new business model and it shouldn't be surprising that it is cannibalizing the old model.

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.

 

[Ahnehnois]

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.

There has been a significant trend of certain people taking Pathfinder adventures and converting them to other game systems. In general, Paizo has produced much more and better "fluff" than WotC. So I think there is some shift of business there. There's also a number of people who bought 4e, tried it, didn't like it, looked for an alternative, and landed on Pathfinder (who may or may not have been willing to go back to 3.5).

That said, for my part, I agree. I'm still "stuck" with 3.5, and I may never leave it.