Pathfinder 2E Release Day Second Edition Amazon Sales Rank

[Mistwell]

So, I've made some charts.

Chart #1: Reported PF2 Core Book Amazon Rankings, as reported in this thread (and where there were multiple reports in the same day, I took the best sales number). Unfortunately the representation here isn't what I'd prefer, as the "higher" it goes up, the "worse" the sales because it reflects the worse sales rank of a higher number. Maybe someone can tell me how to flip that, or I could just make them negative numbers if I have to. Also, people stopped reporting sales rank numbers so we have far fewer data points for 2020 than we did in 2019. Maybe someone knows how to find that data?

Chart #2, Camel Camel Camel's old Amazon Rankings for the PF1 Core Book, where it's "properly" displaying the lower the sales the lower it reflects on the chart:

The most important thing I draw from these two charts?

PF2, a year and a half into its release, is selling worse on Amazon than PF1 was selling on average 7-8 after it's release.

 

[Retreater]

I have not read or played Extinction Curse because the premise was an immediate nonstarter for my group (as with Agents of Edgewatch), but the reviews I've read were: immediate thematic bait and switch, illogical encounters (like random monsters in the middle of a populated camp ground), too difficult encounters (like Age of Ashes).
The martial arts tournament concept seems extremely pigeon-holed for a very specific player with a not very popular character class (a monk centered campaign?)
While it's great they appeal to you, neither of these seems to me something that appeals to general fans of the heroic fantasy genre (same thing with their "buddy cop" adventure path).
Look at what D&D released in the first few years of 5e: Dragons (going against Tiamat), Elemental Evil, Underdark and Demon Lords, Giants, Vampires and undead.
Paizo has given us circuses, buddy cops, and a poorly crafted dragon adventure (which at least is a good theme). If they want to appeal to general fans they need something that's core fantasy, an easy sell for GMs trying to get their players into the system, not bizarre experiments that have seldom been attempted in the 40+ years of tabletop gaming.

 

[Nilbog]

Shame its not selling well, but if people don't like it, they don't like it. I just hope Paizo make enough to keep it going as i think its a great system, but then I've always been a little weird

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Worth remembering that D&D is so dominant in its own market that getting 10% of the TTRPG market is enough to make you a very comfortable #2.

Here's a really critical thing to remember about hobby markets: most users are casual users. We can be talking about model trains, video games, TTRPGs, CCGs, or fly fishing. Doesn't matter. Most users are casual users. As soon as you start talking about the person who does X for years and really wants to dive deep into skill/complexity, you're talking about somebody who represents, let's be generous, maybe 1% to 5% of customers. Somebody who cares enough about a product to post online about it is in a tiny sliver of customers, so talk on forums or whatever is extremely non-representative of the customer base.

Most people play for a while and quit. Some people continue playing for a long time. Only a tiny, tiny number of people become true hobbyists, continually plumbing the depths of what the hobby has to offer. These people are a paradox: they spend high quantities of money, allowing marginal products to succeed, but they are extremely tiny in number, and so do not drive larger trends. In concrete terms, waiting for "deep crunch systems" to pass some sort of tipping point and become a serious competitor to the mass market phenomenon is like waiting for ARMA to catch up to Call of Duty. Your typical customer is gone after a few years, usually less than that, and doing something else completely, not looking to go deeper.

So when we're talking about a tipping point I think its important to remember the parts I italicized for emphasis in the posts you quoted, exactly so someone didn't respond in this fashion, I don't want to fall into the trap of thinking that it needs to numerically catch up with 5e to not be some kind of failure, it basically needs a healthy user base who buys its products on an ongoing basis and a bunch of people playing it. I see the tipping point as being more of an internal phenomenon, where the system reaches its market potential, where enough people are playing it that its a flourishing community in its own right, even knowing that community is likely an order of magnitude smaller than the 5e one in terms of players who aren't engaged with it online. Its like how a game like Final Fantasy 14 has a smaller user base than World of Warcraft, but is still considered to be successful in its own right, as opposed to the MMORPGs that are regarded as failures.

I guess what I really mean is that I feel like this game still has a lot of room to grow, there's a lot of players who would like it better than 5e who either haven't discovered it or haven't made the jump for whatever reason, there's 5e players who might be seduced by options that sort of aggressively don't exist in that game (they have very different policies about what's allowed to be a class, or even represented by unique mechanics), there's pf1e players who are shy of it for whatever reason who might find themselves seeing it differently, players who would really be content with either system who might come along with their pickier friends or want to get in on something new in general, people who like Paizo's way of delivering on representation and a healthier company culture, people who like its new school take on some old school design elements enough to adopt it from the OSR crowd as those elements receive more attention.

I don't think any of these are likely to be a mass exodus (unless WOTC really screws up, I guess) but I don't think PF2e is anywhere near its full potential player base, regardless of it's relative size to the 5e player base. As for it's 'low numbers' v. pf1e? I think that's just the difference between the built in 3.5e playerbase becoming the Pathfinder 1e playerbase, 4e being such a wildly different game, 5e drawing back many of those players, and then 2e starting anew as tis own game and gradually converting pf1e holdouts and 5e players.

 

[Justice and Rule]

So, I've made some charts.

Chart #1: Reported PF2 Core Book Amazon Rankings, as reported in this thread (and where there were multiple reports in the same day, I took the best sales number). Unfortunately the representation here isn't what I'd prefer, as the "higher" it goes up, the "worse" the sales because it reflects the worse sales rank of a higher number. Maybe someone can tell me how to flip that, or I could just make them negative numbers if I have to. Also, people stopped reporting sales rank numbers so we have far fewer data points for 2020 than we did in 2019. Maybe someone knows how to find that data?

Chart #2, Camel Camel Camel's old Amazon Rankings for the PF1 Core Book, where it's "properly" displaying the lower the sales the lower it reflects on the chart:

The most important thing I draw from these two charts?

PF2, a year and a half into its release, is selling worse on Amazon than PF1 was selling on average 7-8 after it's release.

Interesting charts. It seems like it was doing alright until COVID came by; wonder if there is a supply problem they are wrestling with. I know my APG got delayed because of things that were happening at their warehouse.

 

[Mistwell]

I don't think PF2e is anywhere near its full potential player base, regardless of it's relative size to the 5e player base.

The problem is the sales of their core book are going down over time, by quite a bit. Some of this must represent digital book sales due to Covid, but it's not a good sign for growth over time.

 

[Mistwell]

Interesting charts. It seems like it was doing alright until COVID came by; wonder if there is a supply problem they are wrestling with. I know my APG got delayed because of things that were happening at their warehouse.

At some point they shut down their warehouses and focused on digital sales, putting a discount on digital books in place. I don't think that lasted too long as Amazon seems to have been relatively continually supplied with books since then. But I am sure Covid is having a meaningful impact on these numbers in some way.

But even then, PF1 was selling roughly around #1000 for four plus years, and PF2 had already sunk to roughly #2750 before Covid after about 6 months.

 

[TheSword]

I have not read or played Extinction Curse because the premise was an immediate nonstarter for my group (as with Agents of Edgewatch), but the reviews I've read were: immediate thematic bait and switch, illogical encounters (like random monsters in the middle of a populated camp ground), too difficult encounters (like Age of Ashes).
The martial arts tournament concept seems extremely pigeon-holed for a very specific player with a not very popular character class (a monk centered campaign?)
While it's great they appeal to you, neither of these seems to me something that appeals to general fans of the heroic fantasy genre (same thing with their "buddy cop" adventure path).
Look at what D&D released in the first few years of 5e: Dragons (going against Tiamat), Elemental Evil, Underdark and Demon Lords, Giants, Vampires and undead.
Paizo has given us circuses, buddy cops, and a poorly crafted dragon adventure (which at least is a good theme). If they want to appeal to general fans they need something that's core fantasy, an easy sell for GMs trying to get their players into the system, not bizarre experiments that have seldom been attempted in the 40+ years of tabletop gaming.

This +1

I think Pathfinder 2nd Ed is missing a crucial point.

PF1 became unwieldy and obscure because rulebooks became ever more niche as did the APs that were released at the same time.

With PF2 they reset the rule books back to a base to grow from, but never reset the mindset around Adventure Paths. They have tried to keep doing what they’ve never done before to stay fresh. Not realising that we loved what they did before and wanted more of that.

The decline into niche in order...

Evil campaign
Cthulhu campaign
War zone campaign
Colonist Campaign
Political Campaign
Sell out Campaign (Return of the Runelords, really did jump the shark)
Apocalypse Campaign
Kill the players Campaign (starter AP)
Circus Campaign
Buddy Cop Campaign
Martial Arts 1/2 Campaign
Mega dungeon 1/2 Campaign.

Now I think it’s fair to say most APs have had a theme or overriding idea. I really do think these are getting further and further away from the core experience provided by Runelords, Curse (and Shattered, Worms, Tide)

 

[Campbell]

@TheSword

I mostly agree although I think the Mega Dungeon is a solid choice for showcasing how well PF2 works for old school dungeon crawls. I think instead of a Savage Worlds Rise of the Runelords we should have probably gotten some kind of direct sequel or callback in PF2. Alternatively having the Kingmaker project ready at launch would have been a killer app.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

The problem is the sales of their core book are going down over time, by quite a bit. Some of this must represent digital book sales due to Covid, but it's not a good sign for growth over time.

It also depends on if theyre doing less of their buisiness on Amazon, you can't buy pdfs there and physical books are less convenient for online gaming.