ThirdWizard
First Post
EATherrian said:
Tell us how you really feel!
Pathfinder 1E Paizo Annoucement!
- Thread starter Mistwell
- Start date
Tell us how you really feel!
Mouseferatu
Hero
Having taken a little while to digest the announcement, I think I can safely say that Paizo's probably in a pretty solid place.
By doing this, they have another year to decide if 4E is appropriate to their styles and wants, and to study sales figures and patterns via their partnership with Necromancer. In the interim, they can keep publishing a successful line of adventures, and tap into the market of people who are reluctant to switch.
Now, here's the kicker. If they had said "This is our permanent decision," I'd agree it was a really bad idea. But if they intend to base their business model off of Pathfinder for, say, a year or two, and then reconsider conversion, it may not be a bad model.
And I don't think WotC would have any impetus to try to "stop" them, even if they could. As someone else said, there are already other competing systems. (Hackmaster, for instance.) I don't think this is going to hurt 4E in any way, and it may--if handled right--turn out to be a "best of both worlds" circumstance for Paizo.
My only disappointment is that since I'm not personally playing or writing 3.5 anymore, it means a personal loss of both high-quality adventures and a potential employer. But I can hope that particular circumstance is only temporary.
DB, I very much appreciate the support. But that said, I really don't think Jason was being any more duplicitous than I was. (That is, not at all.) Rather, I expect that what he offered was his honest assessment of what he'd seen of 4E--and that, if anything, the opinions and gaming tastes of the Paizo staff are part of what led to this decision, as opposed to those opinions being "altered" to support said decision. Jason's always been a pretty solid guy, IME.
By doing this, they have another year to decide if 4E is appropriate to their styles and wants, and to study sales figures and patterns via their partnership with Necromancer. In the interim, they can keep publishing a successful line of adventures, and tap into the market of people who are reluctant to switch.
Now, here's the kicker. If they had said "This is our permanent decision," I'd agree it was a really bad idea. But if they intend to base their business model off of Pathfinder for, say, a year or two, and then reconsider conversion, it may not be a bad model.
And I don't think WotC would have any impetus to try to "stop" them, even if they could. As someone else said, there are already other competing systems. (Hackmaster, for instance.) I don't think this is going to hurt 4E in any way, and it may--if handled right--turn out to be a "best of both worlds" circumstance for Paizo.
My only disappointment is that since I'm not personally playing or writing 3.5 anymore, it means a personal loss of both high-quality adventures and a potential employer. But I can hope that particular circumstance is only temporary.
Dragonblade said:
DB, I very much appreciate the support.
But that said, I really don't think Jason was being any more duplicitous than I was. (That is, not at all.) Rather, I expect that what he offered was his honest assessment of what he'd seen of 4E--and that, if anything, the opinions and gaming tastes of the Paizo staff are part of what led to this decision, as opposed to those opinions being "altered" to support said decision. Jason's always been a pretty solid guy, IME.EATherrian
First Post
Dragonblade said:
I think you're making too much of an assumption that such a thing could be done under the GSL anyway. I'm willing to bet that the GSL is so locked down that doing more than a campaign setting / module will be impossible.
Chris_Nightwing
First Post
Well, until now I've not really had much to do with Paizo. You can hardly ever find Dungeon/Dragon over in Europe, and being a pathetic student, I usually buy a minimum of roleplaying material. Still, I looked over the free PDF and it looked really nice. Sadly, I wish I could have had this material a year, two years ago, when I was already growing weary of 3.5E. I should really give it another chance, but (call my fanboy) I really like the look of 4E, and I know which I'm likely to be playing next D&D session. Best of luck to them though!
keterys
First Post
I think Paizo made a logical decision in going with "3.75" - it seems very likely it will have short term success and act as a great advertisement for the company.
Long term, I believe that at least 80% of D&D players will switch to 4e, but 20% of D&D's fanbase is more than enough to provide for an RPG company.
It may even supply enough money to the company for them to support both editions well, which will cost them money and focus, but provide them greater coverage.
Meantime, with the Pathfinder discount, even folks switching to 4E like myself have more than enough reason to stick with Paizo at least through the initial storm.
I like a lot of the ideas behind what I see in the pdf, even if I disagree with the underlying math behind some things... but I'm tired of the math of 3.x, so I'm not the target audience. I am curious how well they'll sell in August 2009... more than a year after 4E comes out, with everyone already having 3.x books.
Of course, in 10 years they might be selling reasonably to people who need replacement books.
Or have switched to 4E, with leisure, and retrospect, and ability to make an educated decision.
I wish them all the luck.
Long term, I believe that at least 80% of D&D players will switch to 4e, but 20% of D&D's fanbase is more than enough to provide for an RPG company.
It may even supply enough money to the company for them to support both editions well, which will cost them money and focus, but provide them greater coverage.
Meantime, with the Pathfinder discount, even folks switching to 4E like myself have more than enough reason to stick with Paizo at least through the initial storm.
I like a lot of the ideas behind what I see in the pdf, even if I disagree with the underlying math behind some things... but I'm tired of the math of 3.x, so I'm not the target audience. I am curious how well they'll sell in August 2009... more than a year after 4E comes out, with everyone already having 3.x books.
Of course, in 10 years they might be selling reasonably to people who need replacement books.
Or have switched to 4E, with leisure, and retrospect, and ability to make an educated decision.
I wish them all the luck.
EATherrian
First Post
ThirdWizard said:
I decided to avoid the video game meme, it's so played out.
Bagpuss
Legend
Personally I love the marketing genius.
You get people to pay for Pathfinder Beta then 12 months later pay again for Pathfinder.
And people complained about the gap between the different versions of WotC D&D, but some how by calling it Beta instead of 1.0 and 1.5 they hope Paizo fans won't even notice.
You get people to pay for Pathfinder Beta then 12 months later pay again for Pathfinder.
And people complained about the gap between the different versions of WotC D&D, but some how by calling it Beta instead of 1.0 and 1.5 they hope Paizo fans won't even notice.
Dr. Halflight
First Post
Spacekase said:
First, keep in mind I'm not being snarky, but Paizo isn't a "biggie". There is no other company in the RPG industry close to being as big ast WotC. White Wolf is bigger than Paizo. I'm glad that Paizo's current business model of using subscriptions is working for them, but it will be interesting when the 4E groups stop needing those subscriptions.
Second, I wonder how a company can be upset that WotC is "abandoning" a ruleset, but think they can sell us a "houseruled" version 18 months from now. Why buy it? We already have the rules. How can this be smart? I do like the open playtest, but they need to realize that Mongoose did this with Traveller this year & tried it with RuneQuest.
Third, WotC doesn't need anyone else to come on board, their sales are that strong. But they have Goodman & in my stores Goodman outsells Paizo (I'll admit I don't know how many of my customers subscribe to Paizo or Goodman).
I do wish them luck, but I think they are going to regret their decision. They have stones though. I really doubt that their message board will get any more civil though.
