Pathfinder 1E Paizo Annoucement!

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

First, let me say I think the choice you guys made was brave and gutsy.

Second, I wish you all the luck in the world. I hope your new venture succeeds.

Third, my prediction is that in the short term this will do well, and in the long term it will prove an unwise move. Eventually most people will move over to 4e, and leave the vestiges of 3e behind. I suspect in two-three years we will see someone like Necro buying out Paizo for pennies on the dollar.

But don't let that negative prediction drag anyone down. I genuinely hope I am wrong, since I have enjoyed a lot of Paizo products over the years, and know the people at Paizo are good people who are skilled creators.

Good Luck Paizo!

You took the words right out of my mouth. It's not the call I would have made, and not a call I likely would have been brave enough to make, but hopefully the always-high quality of their work can make this work for them.

 

[TrainedMunkee]

All who look upon this press release should sympathize, however briefly, with Erik Mona, forced by the delays and absence of communication regarding the GSL into a dilemma where Paizo had to either cease producing books for months on end, leaving their publishing division haemorrhaging money due to being payrolled but unable to produce anything saleable, or make a dunderheaded decision like this, leaving him in the position of countless other fantasy heartbreaker authors crying "Look, look! My game is different from Dungeons & Dragons in ways that no one will notice, and this makes it better!" to the heavens and hearing no reply save for the howling wind of people rushing past them to the one dungeon fantasy game people actually play.

For a few months, at least. Then he'll be sent to the poor house anyway as Paizo terminates its entire publishing division due to violently haemorrhaging money on this tomfoolery.

Or what helium3 said. I just had to say it in the most overblown way possible. Essentially, I looked over the Pathfinder RPG rules, shrugged - I mean, okay, they're a nice house rule document, but I don't particularly care that much - and felt bad for the situation Paizo found itself in, stuck in a situation where what it can produce for the next year or so is really questionable due to the version change and their habit of producing long Adventure Paths.

I hope that WoTC is doing something like this to eliminate some competition? Another company publishing 4e material could only help them to sell 4e stuff. This competition between two biggies could be good for us, as consumers though. This is probably short term for Paizo.

 

[Beckett]

I wish them the best in this. I'll check out the rules, but I'm pretty sure I'm looking for a new edition, not just another revision of the 3E rules.

The announcement does make me reconsider Jason Bulmahn's thoughts on playing 4E.

 

[Lancelot]

I've been a long-time Paizo supporter. I think their work on Dungeon/Dragon was a second "golden age" for those mags, and the Pathfinder books have been awesome to date.

But this announcement is pretty disappointing to me. Unless 4e is a complete bust, I'm ready to move to it... and I'm disappointed that the best publisher of adventures, bar none, won't be making the same move. I'm not going to get value from "online web enhancements" to 4e-ize the modules, so it means a cancellation of my subscription. I'm after adventures which are designed out-of-the-box for the rule-set, and I don't enjoy printing out and integrating online PDF conversion notes (especially when I'm paying $20 per module to do so).

Having said that, I really hope this works out well for them. Erik Mona, James Jacobs and co are top guys and have given my gaming group many hundreds (thousands?) of hours of solid entertainment.

...and I guess on the bright side - maybe Necromancer will become my "new" Paizo?

 

[ShadowDenizen]

This is definitely a daring move, but one that I think will ultimately be beneficial, both to the company and it's fans.

Best wishes to all the good folks at Paizo, and I'm looking forward to lots of exciting new Pathfinder products!!

 

[keterys]

It seems likely that Paizo can adapt to 4E depending on its success, and they'll almost certainly have short term success with this route.

I can't fault them this decision and lay the situation upon whoever made the decision to not allow Paizo (and other third party companies) to see the 4E rules and preliminary GSL.

Granted, they might have come to this decision if they had... but they weren't given a choice.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Hell Yeah!!!!
Fight that 800 pound gorilla! You Can Do IT!

As a long time suscriber to Dragon magazine. You already have my loyalty Piazo, and since I'm not switching to 4e and likely not buying from WoTC in the future looks like you can count on the about $400 a year I spent with them being thrown at your quality products instead.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

So from this announcement, it is safe to assume they roundly ignored testing the new 4E rules and ignored proper due diligence to come to such conclusions?

Hmm. Well, I guess it makes sense to continue with 3.5 and then change their minds later on so they don't have to cease production.

Well, I think there are multiple factors involving this decision, not limited to:
- The GSL is still unfinished (or at least not made available to anyone outside WotC).
- All evidence points to the GSL being more restrictive then the OGL and not compatible to it.
- Since the GSL is coming late, there is not really enough time to benefit from the "Early Adopter" option. (Without Rules or GSL - how can you create viable material? WotC Freelancer or Playtesters working in "secret" can only go so far...)
- Paizo must publish something, they can't just twiddling their thumbs hoping that they might eventually be able to produce something for 4E. They can't wait indefinitely.

And who knows, this can work out well enough. They don't have to compete with 4E to remain viable, I suppose. (But maybe they effectively due - the quality of their products isn't bad, is it? )

 

[Kunimatyu]

First reaction: Paizo, you just shot any chance of a good 4e OGL in the foot.

Second reaction: I'm glad someone decided to be gutsy and try an open rules beta. It's the wave of the future.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Free PDFs! Awesome! That'll help them tremendously to sell Pathfinder stuff. Genius! I'm totally going to check it out. I can't wait to see what they make!