Retailer's Stance on PDF Deals

[Nikchick]

Now, that is a much better response. Reasonable, professional, and well-thought-out.

I suppose there's an argument that could be made, that the other response was on a personal blog of sorts, but when a personal blogs is public, and when it contains a public response to a business-related inquiry... Well, I'd call it unprofessional at best.

-O

My response to Marcus was tailored to address Marcus in particular. I've known him for years and we're generally on perfectly friendly terms but sometimes the man needs a serious, no holds barred smackdown to get a message and this was one of those times. He's admitted it to me personally.

 

[Erik Mona]

I might put out a book or two on the shelves if any of my regular customers had expressed interest in the months leading up, but that's it. I'd be more willing to take chances on newer board games than TRPGs, honestly.

- Marty Lund

That's a good strategy for getting RPG publishers other than Wizards of the Coast and White Wolf to focus more of their efforts on PDF publishing and spend less time and money on working with the retail tier of the business.

Focusing on the products that are most likely to be carried at deep discount on Amazon.com or down the street at Barnes & Noble is a good way of marginalizing your RPG section into oblivion. What does your store have to offer that better capitalized, more convenient locations can't provide at a fraction of the price?

If all retail stores take this approach, there will be no more print RPG business to speak of.

And shortly thereafter, there will be no more brick and mortar specialty game stores with anything remotely resembling a traditional pen and paper RPG.

--Erik Mona

 

[JoeGKushner]

Since the Pathfinder beta sold out and was the best selling book, does that mean that the full Pathfinder RPG will be available for free download?

 

[Erik Mona]

* Paizo, and other distributors, could make a profit by letting me sell cards with subscription services for their PDFs, and it would be really cheap for them to do so. The concept of a loss-leader might work for them here (though knowing how much it hurts me, I hesitate to reccommend it to them)...on the other hand, there are a lot of products available on small-scale via online methods (IPR for one) that could grow their business if I could sell customers a card that offered them a few PDFs. See also Baen Books; small publishers can't do free books as PDFs but they can do cheap ones to garner interest.

This is an excellent suggestion, and it's something I'll definitely look into setting up.

I think one concern that I've always had that has subconsciously got in the way of setting up something like this is that my impression is that many retailers would consider a program that sent its customers to Paizo.com an attempt to "steal" their customers.

I wonder if something like a pre-loaded gift card would work? You see these at the grocery store all of the time for just about everything.

I'd love to hear from retailers about whether they'd like to/be able to sell a pre-loaded Pathfinder subscription or similar PDF-related offer in this vein.

It'd definitely a thought-provoking idea. Thanks very much for offering it.

--Erik Mona
Publisher
Paizo Publishing, LLC

 

[Obryn]

My response to Marcus was tailored to address Marcus in particular. I've known him for years and we're generally on perfectly friendly terms but sometimes the man needs a serious, no holds barred smackdown to get a message and this was one of those times. He's admitted it to me personally.

Hah! Fair enough.

-O

 

[Treebore]

That's a good strategy for getting RPG publishers other than Wizards of the Coast and White Wolf to focus more of their efforts on PDF publishing and spend less time and money on working with the retail tier of the business.

Focusing on the products that are most likely to be carried at deep discount on Amazon.com or down the street at Barnes & Noble is a good way of marginalizing your RPG section into oblivion. What does your store have to offer that better capitalized, more convenient locations can't provide at a fraction of the price?

If all retail stores take this approach, there will be no more print RPG business to speak of.

And shortly thereafter, there will be no more brick and mortar specialty game stores with anything remotely resembling a traditional pen and paper RPG.

--Erik Mona

Book stores, and many other types of stores, and not only music and DVD stores, are going the way of the Dodo bird. The reality of the "store" in general, is that they are being phased out. Eventually there will be far fewer, but bigger and more centralized stores of every kind, except probably grocery stores, but even that is definitely open to change.

Why? Because every year more and more people are becoming comfortable with buying on line, and falling in love with it being delivered to their very door step within days. Even grocery stores (Safeway in my area) allow me to order my groceries on line and they will deliver them to my door, for an additional fee, which really isn't all that unreasonable, depending on how valuable your time is.

Sears, Costco, and Sams Club/Wal Mart allow me to order on line, they get my order together, and then I walk into the store and go to the customer service area and pick up my order. Saving me all the time I would have spent wandering around their store finding and collecting all of those products myself.

So as more and more of the general consumer becomes comfortable with on line buying, and learn to appreciate the added convenience, as well as the time it saves you, more and more brick and mortar stores are going to lose customers and shut down. Whether they sell books, music/DVD's, clothes, tools, etc... To sum it up, EVERYTHING already can be bought on line, even new cars. Heck, for $30 my bank will go find me a new car at the best price they can find, finance me, and close the transaction for me.

The day is already here where you don't have to leave your home at all, even in a growing number of cases people are able to work at home. So as more and more people become aware of this fact, and warm to the times saved and convenience of it, brick and mortar stores across the entire spectrum are going to disappear.

Remember the landscape you see today of all those stores you visit, because in 10 to 20 years 80% of them are going to be gone.

 

[Erik Mona]

Now this is extremely disingenuous. It's available on Amazon.

No, it isn't.

As for the rest of your response, I've posted some thoughts over on Black Diamond's Blog.

--Erik

 

[Erik Mona]

Since the Pathfinder beta sold out and was the best selling book, does that mean that the full Pathfinder RPG will be available for free download?

No, but the entire thing except the names of about a dozen gods is Open Content under the OGL, so it will be online in a free form sooner rather than later. We will eventually probably put a link-filled electronic version on our site at some point, but I suspect someone else will beat us to it. Lastly, we've discussed a kind of "rules subscription" that, like Paizo's other subscriptions, would include a free PDF to subscribers. We've not yet made a formal announcement of such, and there are some remaining issues to be resolved before we do so.

--Erik

 

[Treebore]

Since the Pathfinder beta sold out and was the best selling book, does that mean that the full Pathfinder RPG will be available for free download?

That is a great question! I mean if you get similar results, it would be totally worth it, now wouldn't it? Plus if they do it, it would prove once and for all how blind WOTC's recent actions have been. IT would have ramifications across the entire retail book market.

I know I will never give up print, so If I have a huge book that I will never read in PDF, but have the PDF to show me I will like the book, I will buy the book in print.

Plus if Paizo does this, and has similar success, it will show Paizo as the industry leader in a whole different way.

A very interesting question indeed, and it will be far more interesting if Paizo takes the leap and achieves similar success again! It will turn conventional thinking completely over!

 

[Treebore]

No, but the entire thing except the names of about a dozen gods is Open Content under the OGL, so it will be online in a free form sooner rather than later. We will eventually probably put a link-filled electronic version on our site at some point, but I suspect someone else will beat us to it. Lastly, we've discussed a kind of "rules subscription" that, like Paizo's other subscriptions, would include a free PDF to subscribers. We've not yet made a formal announcement of such, and there are some remaining issues to be resolved before we do so.

--Erik

Awww! Come on! Why do you guys think its the wrong thing to do? A one time fluke with the Beta, or because it flies so opposite to conventional thinking?

Well, its good to know you guys are at least considering the subscription model. Considering Paizo's track record I am confident you will at least do that.

Still, I wish you guys would take the risk of trying your Beta model again, if it isn't a fluke instance, and Pathfinder ends up truly being the great improvement over 3E your striving for, not only will offering it for free reward to loyal customers, but get all the doubting Thomas' to look for themselves, and hopefully win them over too.

Taking into consideration WOTC's shockingly low sales numbers (only hundreds of thousands of copies sold), success in sales with the PF release could literally put you neck and neck with WOTC as the RPG market leader. Doing it with such a new sales model would put extra strong cement in your leadership image.

I hope you guys go back and really consider this all over again. You had the guts and brains to stay 3E, I think this would be another ground breaking success for Paizo.