I'm actually reading all these posts, and I am trying to say over and over that this is basically unknowable. All you can make is conditional statements where you get the opposite answer depending on the conditions.
There is a lot of speculation in this thread presented as fact. Here are the knowns, as far as I can see:
- Every available indicator we have shows declining market share for Pathfinder 2.
- ...but it's a declining share of a growing market.
There is a whole lot of speculation about Paizo having hidden sources of players and revenue. That's pure speculation. There are no positive proxies. Zero.
However, industry growth has been crazy, so you truly, truly can't conclude anything. Tabletop games were $80m in 2019. That's up from just $15m in 2013. Here are some made up numbers: If Paizo's share of the market was 30% in 2013, then if its total revenue has merely stayed steady, its share in 2019 will have been 6.25%. You can make up your own numbers and see that there is plenty of room for any possible scenario: decline, growth, or steadiness. That's how crazy the growth is.
A lot of stuff that looks negative is a result of declining share, not declining revenue. If you are 5% of a $1m market, I'm not making 3rd-party product for you. There's too much money to be made from the guy who's 50%. If you're 5% of a $100m market,
I'm still not making 3rd-party product for you for the same reason. Same goes for what I stock in my store. The most space goes to the guy who puts up the biggest overall numbers.
The next think to do is look at how the company behaves. Are they cutting costs---laying people off, dropping SKUs, using lower-quality and less art, etc? Are they panicking, scrambling to find revenue sources to keep creditors at bay? Have there been high-profile resignations by good people near the top? I don't think so. That doesn't mean things are great, but at the same time, we have no reason to conclude they're bad, either.