Did WotC underestimate the Paizo effect on 4E?

[BryonD]

So wait, is there a "gamer gene" or something?

Nature or Nurture? Dunno.

And are you saying that WoW players are not gamers, despite often spending far more time at their game than any rpger does?

If it is easier to replace gamers with "tabletop RPGers", please do. The term is pretty vague.

There are people who play bridge, chess, board games, you name it, with no interest in RPGs. They could be called gamers. In the context of this conversation I mean tabletop RPGers.

Your post seems to indicate that you don't think people ever acquire new hobbies or interests, and that attempts to grow the gaming market are wasted effort. Is that an accurate depiction of your position?

That's a pretty radical interpretation.

I never in any way claimed that people don't acquire new hobbies or interests.

I am saying that for 90+% of the population becoming a tabletop RPG gamer is not ever going to happen. And marketing to these people is a poor use of resources.

 

[TheNovaLord]

possibley

we had bought lots of 3.5, but where getting a little tired with it

when 4 came along i think we maybe bought 5 of each book between the ten of us, but very few splat books. we played some home written stuff, LFR and a few of the bog mods. 2 became subscibers. After 6 months we all got a bit 'mweh' with it

PF came out, and we already appreciated how good its module where. I think we have 7 core books, and 3 of beastie. BUT we have bought loads PFS mods and , stacks of the flipmats and lots of AP

ok, seems like wotc lost out in our case.

 

[Mark CMG]

Did WotC underestimate the Paizo effect on 4E?

I think dropping the OGL has hurt WotC in multiple ways.

Setting aside what WotC does outside of D&D, it's pretty obvious from looking at what Paizo does and how many employees they can support, that WotC would have been a lot better off with Paizo pulling in the same direction with a synergistic business model.

 

[Mark CMG]

While I liked the OGL, I think its important to note that it was the OGL that has allowed Paizo to directly compete with WOTC in the way they have. Without it, games like Pathfinder couldn't exist to compete with the DND brand.

SJG, Kenzer and a number of others have proven otherwise. The OGL certainly made things generally less difficult but it has always been possible to directly compete. It's Paizo's overall quality that raises their materials closer to the same weight class and the Internet that helps them market as they do.

 

[Umbran]

The suggestion that WotC is not "competing" against Paizo is fallacious. It assumes that those customers who purchased Pathfinder products were never going to purchase 4E products, no matter what. Take away that unjustified and breathtakingly dismissive assumption - and that argument has no clothes -- and no logic.

It is neither unjustified nor dismissive. It's an observation.

To a first approximation, there are two kinds of gamers: those who buy multiple games, and those who pick one game and stick to it. Among these latter gamers, the products are not like toothpaste here having gotten one means they won't get another. The competition here isn't so much with each other as it is with the customer's internal guidelines as to hat makes a good game. Buying Pathfinder does not mean this person won't buy 4e, so they aren't really in competition for this customer.

For the latter bunch, there's more strong competition in general. However, for 4e the dynamic here is more complicated. When 4e came out, people didn't need Pathfinder, or anything else, to continue playing 3e. Given the controversies, and the differences between 4e and 3e, I honestly don't think Pathfinder's existence (at the time, still a beta-test question mark) was a major player in the decision to not play 4e. I think the folks who play Pathfinder would have stuck with 3e anyway. They are, I suspect, much better off and happier because Pathfinder exists, but that's a different concern.

If folks weren't going to buy 4e whether or not Pathfinder existed, then they aren't in competition.

In a couple years, this argument will no longer hold - we'd be talking more about people who have to make a fresh choice between the games, and they'll be in more direct competition. But for now, I don't think Pathfinder sales are noticeably cutting into 4e sales.

Did WotC expect this would happen? Not a frikkin' chance.

Well, I think WotC did full well expect to lose some 3e players when they brought out 4e. Whether someone else picked them up afterwards wasn't really a concern, as they would have been lost either way.

 

[El Mahdi]

...ok, seems like wotc lost out in our case.

From your own description I don't think this is the case:

...when 4 came along i think we maybe bought 5 of each book between the ten of us, but very few splat books. we played some home written stuff, LFR and a few of the bog mods. 2 became subscibers. After 6 months we all got a bit 'mweh' with it

(then*)

PF came out...

(*added by me for emphasis only, as it was an unspoken element...kind of like "you" as a subject in a sentence that doesn't specifically say it...)

I think this is probably quite typical and highlights something I believe to be true: If someone already didn't like 4E, and was leaning towards not playing it anyways (or switching back to 3E or another game), then Pathfinder did not steal them away from WotC. They had already left or were already looking to leave. WotC did not lose them to Paizo, as they were already lost to them.

The only way customers were stolen away from WotC, is if someone was a customer of 4E, planned on staying with 4E, but then switched because of, and only because of, Pathfinder. I'm not saying there aren't some people out there for which this is true, and quite likely some of the very people in this thread, but I think they are probably a very very small group. I'd bet that most people who bought Pathfinder were those who had already decided to stick with 3E/3.5E, and those who were already disapointed with 4E, whether they had bought 4E books or not.


Although not scientific, and really wouldn't "prove" anything, I'd be interested to see what a poll would show if it asked:

For those playing Pathfinder as their primary game, what was your status before choosing Pathfinder?


Options:

• Originally preferred 4E but thought Pathfinder was better when I saw it. (Woo'd away from 4E.)
• Had already decided to stay with 3E/3.5E, but saw Pathfinder as it's successor.
• Originally switched to 4E, but became disapointed with it...then Pathfinder released.

 

[Wicht]

Options:

• Originally preferred 4E but thought Pathfinder was better when I saw it. (Woo'd away from 4E.)
• Had already decided to stay with 3E/3.5E, but saw Pathfinder as it's successor.
• Originally switched to 4E, but became disapointed with it...then Pathfinder released.

That doesn't hit me. I was prepared to switch, as I had bought into every edition before. But Paizo had me enough that I was willing to follow their lead. Because Paizo did not switch, I did not either and 4e was far from appealing enough to change this. So yeah - WotC lost me to Paizo when 4e came out but they might have had me if they had made different choices.

edit: Bear in mind, Paizo announced their decision before 4e was released.

 

[ancientvaults]

Maybe they didn't see it coming, but where I am Pathfinder outsells 4e completely. There is no competition, none, because the 4e books gather dust and the Pathfinder books sell. I have no problem finding an oldschool or Pathfinder game to play in, but 4e? Not happening.

I hate edition wars, but looking at how many of us "oldschoolers" also play Pathfinder (some also play 4e, to be fair) I see that Paizo has blown the doors off of 4e.

And why this is, I do not know. Our group tried 4e and didn't care for it, but people somewhere have to be playing it.

 

[billd91]

I think a couple posters around here have a very limited view of what constitutes competition. Paizo doesn't have to steal a customer completely away from WotC because people often do buy into more than one RPG. They just have to attract money from a gamer's budget that would probably have gone to WotC, and we're seeing that even with 4e players who prefer to buy Pathfinder APs and adapt them rather than buy WotC 4e adventures much less PF and 4e players who would rather buy the PF Advanced Player's Guide than one of the 4e supplements.

That's competition. It doesn't matter if WotC is much bigger than its competitors and also competes against other media. WotC and Paizo are in competition as surely as Coke competes with Pepsi, just on substantially different terms than the two relatively equal-sized obesity generators.

 

[El Mahdi]

...edit: Bear in mind, Paizo announced their decision before 4e was released.

Just for clarification, what specific decision are you referring to? The decision to not go 4E and stay 3E/3.5E (as concerns their adventures and adventure paths)? Or their decision to make Pathfinder? Or another decision entirely?

And, do you think there should be another option on the poll? How would you word it?