Mad at Paizo?

[Mercador]

That's what you were supposed to see. They even posted lots of pictures of those massive pallets of PF2 books on social media. I mean, they could have brought along too few and sold out early (I did thatt with Luna-1 at UKGE - sold out by lunchtime first day; it's easy to do). I guess they preferred to keep on selling. The Gen Con sales are a little subset of the many more pallets in their warehouse.

When they sell copies on GenCon, did they get more money per book, since there's no middleman?

 

[Green Onceler]

I'm a huge Pathfinder fanboy. I disliked the playtest and have lost all interest in Second Edition, at least for the time being.

Still, I'm not mad at Paizo at all. They're a great company and I'm almost relieved the decade long torrent of 1e books has ceased. It has allowed me to step back and decide what I really need. I feel I have nearly completed my 1e collection, minus a few outstanding items.

I just hope I can continue to find players for the original system. I'm planning a trans-continental relocation early next year, which will necessitate finding/forming a new group. Assuming I have players, I can play for many, many years with what I have currently unused.

 

[MNblockhead]

I'm sure that I'll feel the same reason when D&D 6E is released. But I already have more material than I'll be able to use for many years. I have a tendency to buy whatever cool book is released, but I've finally hit the point where I stopped doing that. I was spending too much money on more content than I can use. When 6e comes out I'll still have plenty of material to get through and I can still buy a lot of what I skipped.

And, besides, there are many other game systems out there that I've not played.

Perhaps to get over your angst, you should take a break from Pathfinder and D&D for that matter and try a completely new system. I find that I much more enjoy buying books for new systems at this time. I don't feel a need to be a completionist, I just get whatever core rules I need and an adventure path. Even a short campaign will give me plenty of hours of enjoyment to make it worth the cost. Then I can just move on to yet another system.

Instead of buying another bestiary or setting book for D&D I would not rather spend my money on a completely new system.

 

[Mercador]

Perhaps to get over your angst, you should take a break from Pathfinder and D&D for that matter and try a completely new system.

That's exactly what I did; I purchased Trudvang and Grim&Perilous recently plus several old Cyberpunk books. But for some reason, I read around 10-15% of them and I'm looking for something else. I think @Parmandur found out, it's like a drug hit so it bothers me a bit.

 

[DaveMage]

Mercador - if you want to continue to play PF1, and want some really good stuff for it, visit Frog God Games because they are having a massive Pathfinder 1 sale right now (just make sure you choose the Pathfinder rules when you order because they offer products for 3 different systems). You can get the Slumbering Tsar hardback for $20. This was a $150(!) hardback (and it even comes with a free PDF). It's probably my favorite adventure of all time (and certainly my favorite for Pathfinder).

 

[GreyLord]

On a recent news post about PF2E Bestiary 2, I was wondering if it was deseperation that announcing stuff so much in advance, to which point Morrus told me that I might be an outlier;



To which point I'm starting to wonder why I am so mad at them? It's totally normal for them to go forward and wanting to renew their franchise, DnD did that 5 times already (and I guess we'll see 6th by 2025). So why am I that mad at them? The only thing that I could find is that I'm sad to see all those books going to waste but that's only a material issue. It's like I feel betrayed.

Am I alone with this sentiment? It's a not a joke question, I'm truly curious about this.

I'm not really a pathfinder fan, but I think you might not be alone in your feeling.

I get the idea that many who felt betrayed by 4e eventually moved onto Pathfinder because it was compatible with 3.5 and in many ways was it's continuation. Pathfinder in many ways built upon that foundation.

Moving so far away from it's roots of 3.5 and even Pathfinder 1e in some ways could feel very similar to the same type of betrayal that people felt at 4e.

I do not think Paizo ever had to move onto PF2e IF they had stuck with their original premise. The original idea they had launched was to keep on doing adventures that could be played with 3.5 D&D. They needed a ruleset that was also compatible so that new people coming into it could also play their Adventures.

If they had stopped with the Core rulebook and maybe the APG and two or three Bestiaries I think they could have continued for a lot longer of a time with just publishing adventures.

However, Paizo expanded FAR beyond the initial premise that the stated. Instead of just making a compatible game system, they expanded it...A LOT. They increased the number of books they made and products. In doing so they also expanded how many people they hired and how many workers they employed. This meant that they had a higher necessary inflow of cash and in order to keep this inflow, they had to keep on making even more rules, more books, and more products.

Unlike the original intent they expressed this meant that they could not just do Adventures forever, they needed that extra cash from Pawns, Rulebooks, and other things to fund their additional employees and investments. This meant, that as sales started to slacken off (or the likelihood that they would at least) they needed to have something to reinvigorate them.

Ala...Pathfinder 2e.

The problem I see is that, just like 4e changed so drastically differently fro 3e and 3.5, Pathfinder 2e from what I've read here, is also very changed from Pathfinder 1e.

So, all those that jumped on PF1e because they felt betrayed by 4e, could have a strong possibility of feeling very similarly when Paizo jumped to such a different system than PF1e in their switch to PF2e.

I don't think their announcement of the Bestiary is that unusual. Paizo has at times announced many things up to a year in advance, and their release date does not seem to be over a year away for this book.

I think they sometimes announce their adventure paths up to a year in advance, and they announced 2e pretty far in advance as well.

 

[dave2008]

Moral: It sucks being an author. Yeah, this is really the reality. We think of best-selling books selling millions per year, whereas actually 10,000 is a great number. Being an author is a decision to bring joy to others at the expense of your income. I am overwhelmingly grateful to those why try on this path.

Isn't it WotC's goal* for 5e was that every book run sell 150,000 copies? I seem to remember reading that somewhere.

*This was their explanation (one of them) for slow production schedule. They didn't want to release a book unless it could sell 150,000 copies (if I remember correctly)

 

[Mercador]

Mercador - if you want to continue to play PF1, and want some really good stuff for it, visit Frog God Games because they are having a massive Pathfinder 1 sale right now (just make sure you choose the Pathfinder rules when you order because they offer products for 3 different systems).

I noticed that Paizo also put a 50% on every PF1 earlier this week. I guess my local shop will do the same soon enough.

 

[Parmandur]

Isn't WotC goal* for 5e was that every book run sell 150,000 copies? I seem to remember reading that somewhere.

*This was their explanation (one of them) for slow production schedule. They didn't want to release a book unless it could sell 150,000 copies (if I remember correctly)

Perkins said 100,000 a few years ago: never really sure if that was an honest or a flippant answer, or flippantly honest. However, their strategy is working no matter what their actual goal is, since they haven't changed it substantially in over 5 years.

 

[Green Onceler]

I noticed that Paizo also put a 50% on every PF1 earlier this week. I guess my local shop will do the same soon enough.

The PF1 sale has been going on for a number of months.