D&D 5E I just don't see why they even bothered with the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

[delericho]

Pathfinder has gained lots of new gamers and introduced many into the hobby.
But its sale numbers are also small compared to D&D's 3e and early 4e numbers.

Actual sales numbers are painfully thin on the ground - Ryan Dancey has released a few bits and pieces, but as a rule neither WotC nor Paizo have revealed much (and for good reason). We do know a few things, such as approximate DDI subscriber numbers, and indeed PHB sales, but only a few.

So I'm not entirely sure how we can know how Pathfinder's sales stack up - isn't that like arguing that one thing we've never seen is slightly less blue than another thing we've never seen?

 

[Alzrius]

Well, it is not venture investment: backers do not get ownership, they get delivery of a product.

You're right to point out that it isn't "venture" investment per se, but you're wrong to say that they get delivery of a product. They can get that, but that's not inherently part of the deal; it's a perk, an extra, which is thrown in there to help incentivize the funding.

Not knocking it, I like it. But it takes business away from local stores, just the way it is, per my understanding from the retailers themselves. And WOTC is all about the stores.

It does not take away business from stores, because if a crowd-funding doesn't succeed, then that particular product won't be created in the first place, and so couldn't end up in stores to begin with. This cannot be argued; it's just the way it is.

There might be some retailers who don't understand that, of course, but that doesn't mean that they're correct. Crowd-funding is something to create products; how and where they get sold is an entirely separate issue.

 

[delericho]

You're right to point out that it isn't "venture" investment per se, but you're wrong to say that they get delivery of a product. They can get that, but that's not inherently part of the deal; it's a perk, an extra, which is thrown in there to help incentivize the funding.

Eh, sort of. I suspect a KS that doesn't offer a perk of that sort is going to find it really hard to get funded (at least in the RPG field). I mean, I might like the concept of a DDI-like suite of tools for Firefly, but I'm sure not going to lay down money just so it exists - if I'm paying for it, I want to personally gain something for my investment.

So, yeah, you don't have to offer people a copy of the end product in your Kickstarter. Only if you want it to actually fund.

 

[Jester David]

Actual sales numbers are painfully thin on the ground - Ryan Dancey has released a few bits and pieces, but as a rule neither WotC nor Paizo have revealed much (and for good reason). We do know a few things, such as approximate DDI subscriber numbers, and indeed PHB sales, but only a few.

So I'm not entirely sure how we can know how Pathfinder's sales stack up - isn't that like arguing that one thing we've never seen is slightly less blue than another thing we've never seen?

A few years ago Erik Mona actually dropped numbers for the 3.0 PHB, 3.5 PHB, and Pathfinder Core Rulebook. (I haven't been able to find the post since but my memory has been corroborated several times.)
The numbers were something like 500,000 in 3 years for the 3.0 PHB, 300,000 in 5 years for 3.5, and 250,000 in 5 years for the CRB. Putting Paizo numbers at half that of 3.0 D&D at a much longer time frame.

 

[Mark CMG]

Because it's splitting the consumer base. 3.5 players aren't likely buying Pathfinder books and Pathfinder players aren't buying 5e books.

I know of plenty of people who play and consume both. I was running a 1E game this week and some play both PF and 5E, while all play in multiple games/systems regularly. One was even just at GameHole Con playing in PF Society games as well as Adventure League games. Yup. The ones at my table play PF, 5E, and 1E, as well as many other tabletop experiences.

In other words, paizo's audience is about a third or so in size of what WotC had before 4e came along.

I never know where you get your ideas. Being very one-company or one-system focused can color ones assertions. I know of almost nobody and have rarely met anyone in forty plus years of tabletop gaming, who is single-game/system focused.

 

[Alzrius]

Eh, sort of. I suspect a KS that doesn't offer a perk of that sort is going to find it really hard to get funded (at least in the RPG field). I mean, I might like the concept of a DDI-like suite of tools for Firefly, but I'm sure not going to lay down money just so it exists - if I'm paying for it, I want to personally gain something for my investment.

So, yeah, you don't have to offer people a copy of the end product in your Kickstarter. Only if you want it to actually fund.

I'm not saying that they don't usually offer the finished product as a perk - that's become all but ubiquitous - but rather I'm pointing out that there are always funding levels that don't offer that, but are still taken as viable rewards. Things like "a $1 pledge gets you our eternal thanks and your name in the back of the book. A $5 pledge gets you access to our insider design diary. A $10 pledge gets you access to a PDF from our back-catalogue," etc.

 

[Mistwell]

Looking at pathfinder it also went to a slower release scedual compared to WOTC 3.5, not counting published adventures bot both paizo and wotc.
pathfinder released 16 hardcover books in 6 years.

While wotch was on a relase scedual where they had at 8 hardcover books each year.

Pretty sure the hardness of the cover isn't a good measure of publication schedules. That's a format issue, not a publication schedule issue. Pages of content is apples to apples in terms of publication schedules.

 

[pukunui]

The only quip I have, as of now, is this: the map on page 5 lists only one city--which I am fine with--but it's the wrong one: Marsember. It should have been Suzail, the capitol of Cormyr.

There are also a number of cities on the map that are missing the little city icon (eg. Iriaebor). And Elversult is misspelled. I pointed these things out to Mike Schley, the cartographer. He got the city icons added to his digital version of the map, and Marsember was quietly moved to the east and Suzail added in its place at the same time. Those corrections came too late for the map in the book, unfortunately.

 

[Jester David]

Pretty sure the hardness of the cover isn't a good measure of publication schedules. That's a format issue, not a publication schedule issue. Pages of content is apples to apples in terms of publication schedules.

I figured it out once and compared TSR at its height (excluding the magazines) with WotC and Paizo. But I think the breakdown went away with the WotC fourms... I can't even remember who "won".

 

[Hussar]

You're right to point out that it isn't "venture" investment per se, but you're wrong to say that they get delivery of a product. They can get that, but that's not inherently part of the deal; it's a perk, an extra, which is thrown in there to help incentivize the funding.



It does not take away business from stores, because if a crowd-funding doesn't succeed, then that particular product won't be created in the first place, and so couldn't end up in stores to begin with. This cannot be argued; it's just the way it is.

There might be some retailers who don't understand that, of course, but that doesn't mean that they're correct. Crowd-funding is something to create products; how and where they get sold is an entirely separate issue.

There's a step you're missing though. Distributors. Even if I get my book published through a Kickstarter, that doesn't mean that I have the money to print enough copies to interest distributors. I mean, sure, Primeval Thule (to pick an example I like) is offered at Amazon.com, but, is it in an FLGS? How many FLGS? I have no idea to be honest. But, I'm fairly sure that there are many Kickstarter projects that never end up in a retailer.