Pathfinder 2E Release Day Second Edition Amazon Sales Rank

[Porridge]

When ranking their APs, the best are far and away the early ones, and they released some stinkers in the middle of PF1.

There's no question that they started off hot, with two of their most popular APs. But whether there was a general downward trend in quality is an interesting question.

Looking through the 25 APs that Paizo has released so far, the APs I feel were generally not well-received were:

Second Darkness (3rd)
Council of Thieves (5th)
Serpent's Skull (7th)
Wrath of the Righteous (13th)
Mummy's Mask (14th)
Giantslayer (16th)
Hell's Vengeance (18th)

And the APs that I felt people were pretty enthusiastic about were:

Rise of the Runelords (1st)
Curse of the Crimson Throne (2nd)
Kingmaker (6th)
Carrion Crown (8th)
Skull and Shackles (10th)
Reign of Winter (12th)
Iron Gods (15th)
Hell's Rebels (17th)
Strange Aeons (19th)
Ironfang Invasion (20th)
War of the Crown (22nd)

So while I share the gut-instinct reaction that their first APs were the best, there doesn't seem to be a clear correlation between when they've been put out and how well received they were.

I'm inclined to think my feeling that the first APs were the best ones is at least partially a result of "AP-fatigue". I mean, no matter how good your APs generally are, it's hard to keep up when so many keep coming out.

I'm a good example of this -- I'm generally a fan of Paizo's APs, and followed them pretty carefully, but I stopped reading through them (in part due to life and being busy, but in part due to fatigue) starting with Hell's Vengeance (18th). And I feel this was true for a lot of the PF community.

I mean, I don't even know how well the last two "big blockbuster" PF1 APs were received (the 23rd and 24th), because no one was talking about them. They might have been fantastic. But everyone was just talking about the PF2 playtest...

 

[Hussar]

HarmonQuest uses Pathfinder. They don't mention it, but you can see that they have the PF1 books and a number of classes, rules, and things are clearly Pathfinder.

Sorry, but, what's HarmonQuest?

 

[Parmandur]

Sorry, but, what's HarmonQuest?

It's a recorded in front of a live studio audience stream show where Dan Harmaon, creator of Community and Rick & Morty, playa Pathfinder with entertainment industry friends. The in-character bits are animated by the Rick & Morty cartoonists:

 

[Hussar]

Oh, it's a live play. Ok, I thought we were talking about general culture penetration, not highly specialized shows with extremely limited audiences. When you see someone playing Pathfinder on NBC during a prime time show, then we can talk about penetration into more mainstream culture.

So, yeah, I think I'll stand by what I said and say that outside of gamers, no one has ever heard of Pathfinder. Whereas I can pretty routinely see references to D&D (and not always in the hur hur, you live with your mother in the basement sort of thing) on prime time TV shows.

 

[darjr]

That’s a good point @Hussar

I would have bet on Harmonquest being more popular.

 

[Parmandur]

That’s a good point @Hussar

I would have bet on Harmonquest being more popular.

I think it is actually less well known than Critical Role or the Adventure Zone (which is now featuring Powered by the Apocalypse).

 

[Jester David]

I'm a good example of this -- I'm generally a fan of Paizo's APs, and followed them pretty carefully, but I stopped reading through them (in part due to life and being busy, but in part due to fatigue) starting with Hell's Vengeance (18th). And I feel this was true for a lot of the PF community.

I mean, I don't even know how well the last two "big blockbuster" PF1 APs were received (the 23rd and 24th), because no one was talking about them. They might have been fantastic. But everyone was just talking about the PF2 playtest...

I mused about that after posting. Because even an aggressive twice monthly play schedule is lucky to get through an AP each year, if not 18 months. New APs will always have to compete with old.

It becomes harder to sell a third Runelord focused AP or get people exited about the new AP. Especially when they're so focused on the setting and not as generic as "the pirate AP" or "the hexcrawl kingdom building AP." Selling Reign of Winter or War of the Crown is just harder.

 

[BryonD]

So, yeah, I think I'll stand by what I said and say that outside of gamers, no one has ever heard of Pathfinder. Whereas I can pretty routinely see references to D&D (and not always in the hur hur, you live with your mother in the basement sort of thing) on prime time TV shows.

I'll tell you what, since you have chosen to fixate on this isolated quote from me based on 10+ year old memories. I'll concede that I was wrong here and I'll just assume you've conceded all the points you are ignoring.

 

[prosfilaes]

Their sales in All Books decreased, while the 5e book sales increased. So we can eliminate "people not buying RPG books" and we can eliminate "Amazon not shipping RPG books" and we can eliminate "other books increased in popularity over RPG books while the RPG books stayed the same" given those facts.

Which is assuming that 5E and Pathfinder are closely analogous here. I think the rest of this thread makes it clear they are not. Adding in the fact that game stores are closed, coming to conclusions about the sales of Paizo through one distributor seems unreliable at best.

 

[BryonD]

Which is assuming that 5E and Pathfinder are closely analogous here. I think the rest of this thread makes it clear they are not. Adding in the fact that game stores are closed, coming to conclusions about the sales of Paizo through one distributor seems unreliable at best.

What is your alternative assumption? You say that the rest of the thread makes it clear that "they are not" analogous. But I'm not sure that the basic argument about difference in the size of the fanbase makes any difference to the buying behaviors of those fanbases.

For example, you said that you were not buying from amazon because you want to support your local gamestore and you are waiting. Are you suggesting that there is a widespread presence of Paizo shoppers (you did not specify what product you ordered) who are deeply loyal to their local game store and a notable lack of the same amongst 5E fans? And are you suggesting that not only is that true, but the scale of this is such that it can drive a visible divergence in Amazon data? I find the first point extremely unlikely. The second point can't happen without the first, and even if we just assume it for the sake of argument, the second point still seems beyond reason.

Do you have another theory that simply has not been explained yet?