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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 5066660" data-attributes="member: 20741">This is apologia. Paizo made money off of publishing Dragon and Dungeon, as did WotC.  Paizo continues to make money off of selling the paper version of Pathfinder Chronicles.The suggestion that the decision was necessary is plainly untruthful. It was a marketing decision by WotC which appears, in all of the circumstances, to have proved  unwise at this stage.  Whether that estimation continues to be the conclusion another eight years from now is unknown.But necessary? As in "no other option?" Demonstrably, that is simply untrue.I don't think there are many who have been touting the decision by WotC to have been one that has been particularly successful to date.  In any event - WotC can do whatever it is that it wants to do. Apart from gripe or bitch privately or online, I don't get to do much about it other than vote with my dollars. I'll either decide to buy their products or not, as I see fit, in my sole and absolute discretion.In the specific instance being discussed in this thread, I've made it clear for both logical and emotional reasons that my group has been happy to give Paizo our business as a consequence.  Does that goodwill saddle Paizo with potentially unreasonable customer expectations in the future? Sure it does. We're gamers. When you hitch your company's financial performance, in whole or in part, to the pedantic obsession of gamers, that comes with the gig. It's an inherent factor at work in both a good way and in a potentially negative one, too.To date, Paizo has been remarkably responsive to their customer base. Should that change in the future, I expect their customers will let them know.Right now, Paizo appears to understand what their customer niche wants in a way that threatens to make Paizo an actual real competitor in the marketplace for WotC's own customers. That did not have to be; nevertheless, that's where all of this has ended up.While I'm not pleased that it all transpired in the manner that it did, I'm very pleased  to have a company like Paizo understand our needs and want to make stuff to sell that I want to buy. In terms of my loyalty in the current marketplace, Paizo has certainly earned it.It's not easy to turn a license and the businss of being a niche publisher into a brand. It takes skill, financial wherewithal and testicles the size of grapefruits -- and an occasional bit of luck.  That Paizo has managed to do all of that with Pathfinder in a manner which is successful enough that other companies wish to use and sublicense the brand demonstrates how far Paizo has come. It also demonstrates, perhaps,  how genuinely imprudent it was to license out the publishing of Dragon and Dungeon to Paizo in the first place. Trademarks can be licensed for a limited time, but the credibility and goodwill that comes with that time-limited license can be leveraged to last a lot longer than any license -- or royalties payable thereunder, too.Food for thought.</blockquote>

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