Has Paizo ever talked about releasing their adventures in 5E format?

[Jester David]

Citation the figure was from a magazine interview in 2012 and Paizo was in the top 5000 fastest growing companies with revenue of 12.7 million. IIRC the RPG market 2013 was close to 14 million.

On phone if you really want a link I can go digging. I found it years ago when I looked at D&D revenue/ figures.

Obviously we're not at peak Pathfinder.

Found it
https://www.inc.com/profile/paizo-publishing?cid=search

Those million dollar 5E Kickstarters small potatoes.

Thanks.

I can't find an ICv2 breakdown of the RPG market at that time (2012). The best I can locate are 2013, 2014 and 2015:
https://icv2.com/articles/games/view/29326/hobby-games-market-hits-700m
https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/32102/hobby-games-market-climbs-880-million
https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/35150/hobby-games-market-nearly-1-2-billion
Which gives the RPG market at 15 million, 25 million, and 35 million respectively. So Paizo would have been 2/3rds of the market... Which seems high.

(But, this omits online sales, such as Amazon and Paizo.com. So the industry could be larger.)

Of course...they had 152% growth over three years to hit that peak. In 2009 they would have been at $4.4 million. (Which is probably closer to where they are now. Which is still damn good for this industry.)

As far as the Kickstarter comment... keep in mind, in 2013 Paizo released 12 Player Companions, 6 Campaign Setting books, three hardcovers, 12 adventure path volumes, and the Rise of the Runelords collector's edition. And they were still selling the last 24 adventure path volumes, the prior 9 hardcover accessories, and the Core Rulebook. They had seventy products in circulation to generate that 10 million. Plus minis, comics, plush goblins. Oh, and sales on their online store. As they also sold numerous other RPGs and RPG products.
Other than the Core Rulebook, no one product likely made a million in 2012.

That Kickstarter selling a million dollars of book in a month? Likely more than any one Pathfinder book made in a year, CRB aside.

 

[Zardnaar]

Thanks.

I can't find an ICv2 breakdown of the RPG market at that time (2012). The best I can locate are 2013, 2014 and 2015:
https://icv2.com/articles/games/view/29326/hobby-games-market-hits-700m
https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/32102/hobby-games-market-climbs-880-million
https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/35150/hobby-games-market-nearly-1-2-billion
Which gives the RPG market at 15 million, 25 million, and 35 million respectively. So Paizo would have been 2/3rds of the market... Which seems high.

(But, this omits online sales, such as Amazon and Paizo.com. So the industry could be larger.)

Of course...they had 152% growth over three years to hit that peak. In 2009 they would have been at $4.4 million. (Which is probably closer to where they are now. Which is still damn good for this industry.)

As far as the Kickstarter comment... keep in mind, in 2013 Paizo released 12 Player Companions, 6 Campaign Setting books, three hardcovers, 12 adventure path volumes, and the Rise of the Runelords collector's edition. And they were still selling the last 24 adventure path volumes, the prior 9 hardcover accessories, and the Core Rulebook. They had seventy products in circulation to generate that 10 million. Plus minis, comics, plush goblins. Oh, and sales on their online store. As they also sold numerous other RPGs and RPG products.
Other than the Core Rulebook, no one product likely made a million in 2012.

That Kickstarter selling a million dollars of book in a month? Likely more than any one Pathfinder book made in a year, CRB aside.

It's why I think their business model is flawed. They spammed alot of rubbish. Short term good long term maybe not.

 

[MNblockhead]

I wonder whether even if Paizon sold conversions for their materials if they would be a bit too late to the game. If they would have come out with a mature campaign setting with multiple, excellent adventure paths in the first year or two of 5e, they could have done very well for themselves.

But, based on my admittedly anecdotal evidence and personal experience, there are already many excellent settings for 5e available now, especially for typical kitchen sink style medieval fantasy settings. Kobold Press has its Midguard setting with all its associated adventures and player-option books. Frog God Games is releasing their Lost Lands setting and already have release a number of large adventures and settings for 5e such as City of Brass and Rappan Athuk. WotC has Forgotten Realms spread through the Sword Coast book and most of its adventure books. It also has Ravnica and Eberron (in PDF form).

How many 5e players are looking for another kitchen-sink fantasy setting?

As for the need for Pathfinder as another option, sure, I'm all for options and competition. But when I played the PF2 playtest at a recent convention it felt pretty much like playing D&D with a few variant rules. If I want to play something different from D&D I have many, Many, MANY options out there. I don't have time to play the TTRPG material I currently own and after a few years of new-edition intoxication and impulse purchase, I'm cutting way back on my TTRPG-hobby spend. I'm at the point that about the only thing I really feel compelled to pay for is my D&D Beyond subscription.

I like everything that I've read about Paizo, but Pathfinder and Starfinder are just not compelling enough for me to buy a new set of rule books and expensive APs.

 

[zztong]

I wonder whether even if Paizon sold conversions for their materials if they would be a bit too late to the game. If they would have come out with a mature campaign setting with multiple, excellent adventure paths in the first year or two of 5e, they could have done very well for themselves.

But, based on my admittedly anecdotal evidence and personal experience, there are already many excellent settings for 5e available now, especially for typical kitchen sink style medieval fantasy settings. Kobold Press has its Midguard setting with all its associated adventures and player-option books. Frog God Games is releasing their Lost Lands setting and already have release a number of large adventures and settings for 5e such as City of Brass and Rappan Athuk. WotC has Forgotten Realms spread through the Sword Coast book and most of its adventure books. It also has Ravnica and Eberron (in PDF form).

How many 5e players are looking for another kitchen-sink fantasy setting?

That's an angle that I had not considered. One Paizo advantage I could see is that some people are already familiar with Golarion, but I don't know that the draw is the setting as much as it is the APs. It's pretty easy to change the setting of an adventure. It's much more work to convert the abilities of the monsters and NPCs to a different system.

 

[Jester David]

I wonder whether even if Paizon sold conversions for their materials if they would be a bit too late to the game. If they would have come out with a mature campaign setting with multiple, excellent adventure paths in the first year or two of 5e, they could have done very well for themselves.

But, based on my admittedly anecdotal evidence and personal experience, there are already many excellent settings for 5e available now, especially for typical kitchen sink style medieval fantasy settings. Kobold Press has its Midguard setting with all its associated adventures and player-option books. Frog God Games is releasing their Lost Lands setting and already have release a number of large adventures and settings for 5e such as City of Brass and Rappan Athuk. WotC has Forgotten Realms spread through the Sword Coast book and most of its adventure books. It also has Ravnica and Eberron (in PDF form).

How many 5e players are looking for another kitchen-sink fantasy setting?

This may be true now.
When 5E launched and WotC has its slow release schedule, there was lots of room. And companies like Green Ronin and Kobold Press have been quick to fill the gaps.
But the window might be closing.

 

[Zardnaar]

Golarion is a bit more high profile. The Inner Sea guide was good but the Kobold Midgard book beats it in quality IMHO. Throw in the 3E FRCS though you have 3 great campaign world's.

 

[darjr]

I wonder if minus the huge investment into the Pathfinder video game, it might be making more money for them than the RPG.

Maybe they don't care if the RPG is all that successful as much as they care about IP for the video game? Like Marvel with Movies? I mean I'm sure they care about a quality RPG product, but maybe it isn't really the bacon any more?

 

[MockingBird]

Roughly 6 years ago or longer I noticed how pronounced the Pathfinder section at the book store was. D&D was mixed in with the other games. Literally a whole bookshelf, top to bottom was dedicated to PF. Now it's the other way around. Interesting how it flip flopped. Now PF is sharing a shelf with the other RPGs and D&D dominates and entire shelf. Just an observation. I would love to be a fly on the wall at Paizo. Wished I new what their strategy was.

 

[MNblockhead]

[MENTION=52905]darjr[/MENTION] How successful is the Pathfinder video game? I've heard about it but don't hear much buzz about it and do not know anyone who has bought and plays it. Seems like an uphill battle to put out another fantasy VRPG. D&D has the brand, but even D&D video games are 2nd tier properties.

 

[MockingBird]

[MENTION=52905]darjr[/MENTION] How successful is the Pathfinder video game? I've heard about it but don't hear much buzz about it and do not know anyone who has bought and plays it. Seems like an uphill battle to put out another fantasy VRPG. D&D has the brand, but even D&D video games are 2nd tier properties.

I didnt realize it had been released until it popped up on my YouTube feed. From what I gathered after watching several videos, it had a shakey start with tons of bugs. I think it's been patched somewhat by now. It's a throw back to bioware's D&D games. The whole library of those games have been remastered with a couple of new titles not set in D&D. I recommend trying them if you havent. But yeah not sure how successful the PF PC game is.