Paizo Inc. Names Industry Veteran Christian Moore as First Chief Growth Officer

Paizo Inc. today announced the appointment of Christian Moore as its first chief growth officer (CGO). In this newly created role, he will be responsible for driving worldwide revenue growth through his management of the sales, ecommerce, marketing, and licensing teams.

A data-first brand architect with more than 25 years’ experience combining creativity with analytical rigor, Moore most recently served as Managing Director at Exemplar Holdings, where he drove consistent 19 percent year-over-year growth across the firm’s portfolio. He began his career in gaming, founding Last Unicorn Games and selling it to Wizards of the Coast, later becoming Wizards’ inaugural d20 Games Creative Director and VP of Product Development at Decipher.

Beyond gaming, he has held C-suite, ownership, and advisory roles for brands in entertainment, consumer goods, healthcare, and technology. Under Moore’s leadership, Paizo will lead analytics‑driven initiatives to enhance the player experience and deepen one-to-one engagement with the brands.

“Christian blends lifelong tabletop DNA with deep insights for growing brands like ours,” said Jim Butler, CEO of Paizo Inc. “His ability to unite creative vision with analytical discipline will help us reach new players and unlock fresh opportunities for Pathfinder®, Starfinder®, and worlds yet to come.”

As CGO, Moore will also spearhead Paizo’s core growth engines—encompassing digital marketing, hobby and book trade sales, consumer insights, licensing, ecommerce, and strategic partnerships—driving the company’s push into new platforms, regions, and opportunities.

“Paizo’s commitment to community and creativity resonates deeply with me,” Moore remarked. “I’m excited to pair the team’s storytelling genius with insight-led growth strategies and analytics as we continue to delight current fans while welcoming the next generation of adventurers.”

Moore holds an M.B.A. from Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, an M.S. in Integrated Marketing Communications from Northwestern University, and a B.A. in literature from Princeton University.

Together, Moore and Paizo seek to blend analytics and artistry to broaden reach, deepen community bonds, and enrich player experiences on every platform.

 

[Staffan]

I want to like it, but it just went too 4E for me. I will give them credit, they did it in a way that didn't slaughter all the D&D sacred cows the way 4E did, but I still cant help but feel that vibe from it.

The way I see it is that the problems of the 3e engine hadn't changed appreciably in the 10 or so years between the release of 4e and the release of PF2. It's no great surprise that the solutions to those problems would look fairly similar as well, even if they aren't identical.

That said, I think there are some things from 4e that are missing in PF2:

• Attrition mechanic for medium-term healing (e.g. healing surges). Treat Wounds is a fairly dull mechanic because the only cost to using it is time, and at low levels (before you can take the skill feats that improve it) that time is very long (one-hour cooldown per target). And given how chonky PF2 monsters are, you don't want to go into combat at less than full hp.
• Resource-using martial characters. PF2 has a fairly strict delineation between proper casters and martial characters, and has issues with classes that straddle the line (e.g. alchemists). There are some martials with focus spells (mainly monks and champions), but those are unquestionably still spells and not limited-use techniques. Martials almost exclusively use action economy as a balancing mechanic rather than resource use. I am slightly hopeful that with kineticists blurring the line in one direction (unlimited-use magic effects), they might eventually blur the line in the other (limited-use martial techniques).
• Rituals as the primary means of using non-combat magic. 4e relegated pretty much all non-combat (or at least non-immediate-use) magic to rituals, and made them theoretically usable by anyone with an investment in a single feat (and a variety of skills). So things like animal messenger, comprehend languages, or magic to remove various long-term conditions were all rituals instead of spells. That meant that they weren't limited by class (so you wouldn't go "We need a cleric to deal with poisons"), you didn't need to choose between having those and having combat powers available, and since rituals took a fair bit of time to use (10+ minutes), they wouldn't outcompete using skills to solve problems. PF2 has rituals, but they don't fill the same niche as 4e rituals.

 

[Gambit42]

All of those I would say were going down the same path "in a way that didn't slaughter all the D&D sacred cows", especially the last two.

But ultimately, I didn't want a new take on 4E, I wanted a better 5E, just as PF1 was a better 3.5. But I have also come to realize that strict balance is not a huge priority for me in RPGs, at least not at the expense of fun. As long as all the players feel useful, that's what matters most. I also started in 2E AD&D and consider it to still be my overall favorite...I wish Myth & Magic hadn't turned out to be a total shitshow.

 

[Morrus]

But ultimately, I didn't want a new take on 4E, I wanted a better 5E, just as PF1 was a better 3.5.

Pretty much everybody and everyone has released their 'better' 5E. I'm not sure we need more of them!

 

[payn]

I was hoping for more 3.5 with bounded accuracy myself. PF2 ended up being a veiled encounters game as opposed to traditional attrition. I get why folks like it though. It flies under the radar in ways 4E didnt.

Even though PF2 is not for me, I think it was a good decision as it differentiates PF from D&D.