A lot of my response is going to echo what TheAuldGrump profilaes have already stated, mainly because their thoughts most reflect what I feel is actually the case in these circumstances.
Paizo's current problem is that they've married themselves to an older system and that's one of their chief aspects. If they want to expand they will have to ditch 3.5 at some point and come out with an improved system.
I disagree. Rifts and GURPS has run the same system for 20+ years and they're not a powerhouse in the RPG market, but they've done just fine with a few tweaks to the system. White Wolf, too, has implemented minor changes to a system that'spretty much the same as it's been. Sure, PF will have to adapt some things here or there but if other systems have been able to do it then Paizo shouldn't have a problem with it either.
But, in their current model, that will mean that they'll lose people that think 3.5 was Gygax's Dream System Which None Could Supplant.
Yeah, I lost you on that one.
Are they? A single person in my group has the Rise of the Runelords books. That's it. The rest he wings, and we toss suggestions at him from people that are freely translating it. That's not a good investment for Paizo; if they had player guide for 4E I'd buy it, and if they had a 4E setting I'd buy it, but they've got zero money from me when they could easily have more if they'd just annoy a couple angry nerds and go cross-system with very little effort. Most of their stuff is just straight fluff and 4E design is far easier than 3E, what with CR being the mess of broken it's always been.
Yes, they are. They are doing absolutely nothing different and they got a 4e player to buy the RotR books. Icing on their delicious cake, as you put it, I think? There's no investment on their part. You might think that sinking money into additional printings of a 4e version might be like printing money but they don't, apparently. Like I said in my privious post, I think it's smart of them not to expand out of the PF rules - they make their money from the PF fanbase and if they get the random buyer (like your friend, for example) to buy some of their product, then it's icing on their delicious cake (isn't that how you put it?). I think, if you'd ask company heads, they'll tell you it's better to bank on the little plusses like that instead of putting money into a venture that's not guaranteed to see a return on their money. And the fact is, that is an unknown factor, no matter how many people you or I
think would buy 4e-ized PF products.
Here's the thing; 3.X was not going strong. If it had been going strong, 4E wouldn't have been considered. People were playing 3.X, to be sure, but it had run its little splatbooky course.
Wait a sec. You honestly think that Pathfinder's success has nothing to do with the idea that people, after 8 years, were still enjoying 3.5 D&D and wanted more when WotC pulled the plug? Absolutely nothing? Since you've come up with some hard facts, I'd love to hear what you think it has to do with then. And please refrain from snarky answers like people wanting to play broken classes or all the PF fans are butthurt 3.5 players - that's a cop out that tries to avoid the question. Thanks in advance.
Oh and please provide actual numbers that PF is the best-selling RPG on the market or stop claiming that, thanks in advance.
These have been on every forum I've been to (WotC, RPGnet, here) with the icv2, amazon, and the other outlets sales reports. Lisa Stevens, herself, came on saying that distributors also report higher PF sales. I think that's an awful ballsy thing to do, especially being the head of the "opposition," as it were. I know many people say that "well, you can't go by Amazon numbers," or "well, you can't go by icvs numbers," and so forth. But when most of them report the same thing, it would seem that there could perhaps be some validity to the claims.
So...you're welcome in advance.
You're under the very, very silly assumption that Hasbro concerns itself with WotC dealings.
God, I hope you're wrong. Hasbro has killed lines that seemed to be doing well and made money. If it's not making a certain amount of money, I'm sure it is catching the eye of someone important. Why do you think that new editions are created, anyway? Because the designers think, "I have this new vision of the game and it needs to be shared with the world?" Heh, no. Changes within a company to their chief product is almost always motivated by one thing - money. And Hasbro knows how much money MtG makes. If it makes X amount alone, and MtG and D&D combined only makes X + 11%, if that 11% (for example) is not covering the amount it takes to run D&D, I'd bet my life that Hasbro would either demand profitability out of D&D or they cut their losses and shelve it.