This is speculation.
Paizo started as a support company for D&D3e and managed to capitalise on their relationship to the D&D brand after Dragon and Dungeon were pulled. Thus, they managed to convert many of the customers to the new AP format, which was a very smart move.
But isn't this what almost every 3PP did... capitalize on their relationship to the D&D brand as support companies for whatever product they were producing? Is this any different than say Green Ronin converting D&D customers to Mutants and Materminds customers or Mongoose and Conan? If so please explain how...
But, as someone else has mentioned, Paizo is also the only company in the history of RPGs to have such a head start: an entire database of subscribers who were willing to pay for content. I don't know the conversion rate they managed, but even if they just managed to convert around 20%, that'd still translate in thousands of customers, willing to pay for content on a subscription basis.
I'd kill (figuratively speaking of course) to start an adventure publishing business with that kind of foundation in place.
Whoa now, I don't think that customer base or it's loyalty was just handed to Paizo, IMO... Paizo created that customer base and fostered their loyalty... through the work they did on the magazine and other products. If they had done a crap job, I don't think any of the factors you cite would have meant anything... especially since, if I remember correctly, the magazine readership was dying when it was handed over to Paizo.
This also occurred roughly as WotC started winding down D&D3e, basically ceding that market to whomever was left, i.e. Paizo. After D&D4e was released, or arguably after Paizo realised that the GSL wasn't their idea of a sound business foundation, they decided to put the Pathfinder rules on the market. IMO this in itself is a testament to the fact that "modules don't sell": the rules of the game were available for free on the internet, and the D&D3 rulebooks can be bought for a song on eBay, and yet Paizo needs to have a core rulebook in place.
Maybe the Pathfinder book scratches the "it's gotta be in print otherwise I won't buy the modules" itch that many gamers have, but I also believe that Paizo will start to transition to more rulebooks during the end of 2010 and during 2011. Add to this that the Pathfinder RPG was the huge success story of GenCon, selling tens of thousands of books. In an RPG market where a couple of thousand is considered a resounding success
First, I think your biggest mistake is in assuming that Paizo doesn't want to, or can't grow their customer base with new gamers. I know I would hate to tell a new player to find a copy of the game on ebay or get the SRD of the internet (which in fact is not easy to read through, and is actually missing some rules). Secondly... books deteriorate and/or are destroyed, I think making sure the rules are complete, available and easy to access is just common sense... especially if you offer a PFSRD and $10 PDF as an alternative... which again seems to go against the whole corebook = main revenue theory.
So ... hmmm ... I think that the need for a Pathfinder RPG was not urgent due to the rules being readily available in other books or on the net, and that the momentum of D&D3e carried over for Paizo until they managed to get Pathfinder in place.
The reason they sold modules in defiance of the commonly accepted conventional wisdom before the Pathfinder core rules were released was that they managed to capitalise on their exclusive access to a loyal customer base which were already spending money regularly, i.e. the Dungeon and Dragon customers.
Well we can agree to disagree about the necessity of the rulebook... since honestly I think a better question is if you are basing your products on a set of rules, isn't it smart business to make sure they are always and readily available... instead of being dependent upon others to make them available?
Also again, I see you attributing alot to the "Dungeons and Dragons customers" when I would argue they had already become Paizo customers through the efforts, good service and quality products Paizo put out. If they were "Dungeons and Dragons customers" well wouldn't they have went with 4th edition... or waited for it rather than go with a different game and company?
I suspect that Paizo will indeed end up doing that, once the subscribers have had their fill of adventure material. After 5000 pages, how many more pages can you sell to basically the same customer base? Another 5000? 10000? 1000? I don't know, but I believe that Paizo knows.
But given the subscription model, they might shift the adventure material into being more rules material, thus negating the need for a heavy hardback every other month.
Well, so far I believe they have 2 rulebooks scheduled for this entire year... The GameMastery Guide in July and the Advanced Players Guide in August. I guess it's possible they are sitting on releases between now and July or have a ton of rulebooks being developed and ready to flood the market between August and December... but somehow I doubt it. As a quick comparison, on a similar scale, look at how many rulebooks as opposed to adventures have come out for Dark Heresy 10 months out from FFG's release of the rules.
I think Paizo is successful because they started with a customer base that was ready to spend money regularly, and managed to build a business foundation on top of that.
It has, IMO and all that of course, very little to do with fluff or adventures, and everything to do with capitalising on a unique opportunity and shaping the product on offer to fit the customer base available.
Again we'll have to agree to disagree. I think there success is very much based on Knowing their customer base and pleasing them by not releasing a steady stream of classes, rules, prestige classes, etc. and instead building around adventures and fluff.
Why do I say that? While Paizo produces excellent stuff, they aren't the only ones to do so, and not the only ones to ever have done so. There's been people producing stellar fluff and adventures who haven't been able to reap the rewards as Paizo has, so to me it's obvious that there are other factors in play.
Like who? Who has created stellar adventures and fluff on a regular basis and with a dedicated focus on it... the closest I would say would be White Wolf... surprise, surprise they too at one point rose to rival D&D.
That said, if Paizo didn't produce top notch stuff, their business model would likely collapse due to churn among the customer base. They need to be the best to stay the best, which seems like an obvious thing to say, but many, many companies forget that.
Yep, totally agree.
Finally, when looking back at the major thing that the two most successful RPGs today have in common, it is ... a working subscription model.
Hmm... I think perhaps you put too much credence in this, especially since a "subscription model" is such a wide term and encompases so much it's almost meaningless.
