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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Darrin Drader" data-source="post: 4425595" data-attributes="member: 7394">I agree with everything you said here. I would also like to add that the erroneous assumptions that you list generally assume that both products are vying for the same level of marketshare, that they both are being equally invested in, that they both require the same level of success, and that eventually there will only be one standing. I'd argue that none of these assumptions are true.We already know that Wizards sales are going to be greater than Pathfinder's sales by several orders of magnitude. It's not even a question. WotC has the D&D brand name, which has enormous recognition, a huge marketing presence, and a 30 year history backing it up. I'd be willing to bet that a good percentage of the people buying the new books haven't bought anything for years because they aren't avid fans and just get together with their friends once every few weeks to play the game, along with the three or four books they've bought over the last eight years. I'd also not be at all surprised if there has been a lot of mixing 3.0 and 3.5 books.Pathfinder doesn't even need 1/10th of WotC's core customer base to survive. That isn't to say that they don't need a loyal customer base, because they do, but their sales numbers aren't going to rival WotC's, nor are they expected to. Their Pathfinder RPG sales are for people who prefer to run their Pathfinder APs, their modules, or simply want an upgraded version of 3.5 to play with. That's it, and it seems to be going well for them.If for some reason Pathfinder were to eclipse D&D, which is possible though unlikely, it would be a real David and Goliath story, and the shift would take years to occur. If they were to increase by that level of magnitude, I'm not sure I'd still be onboard with them because the company could start looking appealing to some large corporations, which would offer obscene amounts of money to buy it, which would result in the future of the game being beholden to the shareholders rather than a single owner of a business and its fans. In other words, I like Paizo because it's small. I don't want it to get too large.So to sum up my points, Pathfinder and D&D will coexist. From the looks of things, they'll coexist for a very long time, and with luck, they'll still be coexisting when D&D goes 5th edition.</blockquote>

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