Pathfinder 1E Lisa Stevens, CEO of Paizo, commenting about ENWorld

[Morrus]

and I cant help feeling that this was done to avoid the possibilty of angering the execs at WotC by stamping out any negative sentiments toward their upcoming edition.

That's insulting, ridiculous, and untrue. I don't deserve that.

Frankly, anyone who feels it's OK to make such onerous accusations about me had BETTER back it up with proof or retract ad apologise poste haste. Because my patience for people lying about me on my own website is very, very thin.

I do not accuse other people of things publically; especially false things. I expect the same basic courtesy in return.

For everyone else: the above accusation is false; it has no basis in fact, and does not reflect my stance whatsoever.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

ENworld on the other hand shouldnt have pitched a tent firmly into any camp and remained neutral. Isnt this place supposed to be the premier news site for tabletop RPGs? Shouldnt all news sites be neutral?

No, it's the premier D&D news site. By deffinition it should retain a NPOV with a focus on D&D-branded games and the games that are mostly D&D, then the ones that are close to D&D. When D&D releases a new edition, THAT will be the news for a while.

 

[PaizoCEO]

Sure, but it did something more important - it gave people the information they wanted to hear. How did all these people decide they didn't like the look of 4E and locked onto Pathfinder before the rules were even out?

Methinks Lisa owes me a beer or ten! I'll track her down next time I'm at GenCon!

EN World's a news site first and foremost. I'm never gonna apologise for reporting what the news is. And I don't make the news, I just report it. I've no control over what's currently news and what isn't.

Like most things on the internet, intent tends to get lost when take out of context of the thread in which it was posted.

For the record, I like ENWorld and if I was Morrus, I probably would have done things close to the same way. 4e was the new hottness and folks were desperate for tidbits of news. I was merely trying to speculate about why ENWorld's PDF sales were slagging when at the same time, other retailers, including paizo.com, were having increasing 3e sales, including PDFs. It wasn't meant as a slam or an indictment. Just a possible reason for the loss of sales.

My comment was made in response to a post on our messageboards that 3e sales were slagging across the board. When I posted that they weren't for us and that other retailers had told me the same thing, the poster mentioned Morrus' post and I then speculated.

I have been really happy with the recent ENWorld and support shown to Paizo and Pathfinder. Winning the ENNies this year was a career highpoint for me! We'll have to figure out a way to get our news to ENWorld more reliably. Oh, and I would be more than happy to buy you a beer at the next GenCon.

Oh, and btw, 4e sales are also doing very nicely for us on paizo.com. I really hope 4e does very well for WotC and that they bring in a crapload of new gamers. That will only help the whole industry.

Btw, my first ENWorld post. Do we get cookies here too?

-Lisa Stevens
CEO
Paizo Publishing

 

[Morrus]

Oh, and I would be more than happy to buy you a beer at the next GenCon.

I'm a bigger beer fan than I am a D&D fan... I'll be taking you up on that!

 

[Dragonbait]

Btw, my first ENWorld post. Do we get cookies here too?

Mm.. Sometimes yes. And they are quite tastey.. And then sometimes they are cookies of flaming-hot-4E-killed-Gygax-tshirt-wearing-d20-ate-all-enjoyment-from-my-soul-nerdrage.. It really depends..

 

[PaizoCEO]

Something unclear about my post?

Jason, a primary designer over at Paizo, began work on the Pathfinder RPG in October 2007. After seven months of work, they released his first alpha in March 2008.

As to my interpretation of the timeline and what it says about Paizo's decision and when it was made... Putting one of your primary in-house talents to developing the core of a new system strikes me as leaning towards that project from the outset, especially in an industry with profit margins as thin as the RPG industry (and especially with Paizo's reliance on traditional book distribution with longer lead-in times, as noted by Erik as a concern).

Just to touch on this a little bit. Jason decided to work on an alternate rules system on his own and wasn't doing it on Paizo time. When the GSL started to get later and later, he told Erik about the work he had been doing on his own time and we utilized that work in the Alpha. But Paizo didn't truly make the decision about which way we were heading until February of this year. We were just really lucky that Jason had done so much work on his own and this gave us a big leg up on getting the Beta ready for GenCon.

-Lisa Stevens
CEO
Paizo Publishing

 

[Hypersmurf]

Btw, my first ENWorld post. Do we get cookies here too?

You'll get your cookie when Russ gets his beer, and not a moment sooner!

-Hyp.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I'm a bigger beer fan than I am a D&D fan... I'll be taking you up on that!

(Does she realise she also has to pay your airfare to ensure she can deliver on the promise? )

-Hyp.

 

[Fenes]

Personally, I use smilies to denote the difference between "wryly amused" (as previous) and "angrrry".

I hope these boards haven't come to the point where we can't poke a little good-natured fun at each other.

Given the nature of internet discussions, the different langues we often have, and the rather heated topics, I would say any "poking of fun" won't result in anything but needlessly infuriated posters.

 

[Scribble]

Wait... the ennies are rigged based on beer payoffs???

(Oh wait... that's the whole internet statement taken out of context thing gaian...)

The real truth...

Lisa n Morrus sittin in a treeeeeeeeeeeeee...