Pathfinder 2E Release Day Second Edition Amazon Sales Rank

[BryonD]

I'd be willing to bet that number is lower for Pathfinder players. Golarion is baked into Pathfinder.

No more than Greyhawk is baked into D&D.

Almost every Pathfinder actual play podcast or stream is an adventure path.

And they tend to have a direct connection to Paizo. It is funny how you hand wave actual research on players at large in one sentence and then appeal to the unestablished authority commercial broadcast microcosm in the next.

And, of course, Critical Role was a Pathfinder 1E campaign that quite absolutely was not set in Golarion. They changed it to 5E because the system mattered.

And also, it is worth noting that the bestseller PF2E AP title on Amazon is currently at #46 in Pathfinder Game. I suppose you could make up an arguement that everybody is buying those exclusively from Paizo. But it would be hard to understand why the Bestiary is so far ahead. You would think anyone buying APs directly from Paizo would buy the bestiary there as well. (Heck, the PF1E bestiary, along with numerous other titles are outselling the AP). Hanging your hat on the AP is a really weak position.

And again, I don't have a link, but I'm certain I've read Paizo higher-ups remark that their AP subscription is their main revenue stream, and they publish core books to support that stream. This makes perfect sense when you consider that the foundation of Paizo's business was subscriptions to Dungeon magazine.

You're gonna need that link. I've heard them praise their overall subscription service. But if you look at the range of crunch focused series they produce then you claim seems quite absurd. They don't produce scores of books a year (including multiple major hardbacks) just to solely support their 12 AP annual titles.

As for how much system matters, WotC themselves, during the buildup to the release of 5E, commented that their surveys and playtests showed them most players don't care much about the numbers on the character sheets. What they care about is the stories generated at the table. The implication was WotC got sucked into the char op element of the hobby too much, and alienated fans. With 5E, they were going to correct that by easing off on the crunch, and release a simpler, looser rules set to appeal to the broad base of the pyramid, rather than the hardcore crunch lovers at the top.

Sort of. But the core of what you are saying here works. They had a system that alienated players and that hurt sales. So they created a system that did a much better job of appealing to players.

So I think system matters in the sense that players have preferences for how much complexity they want in their game, and to what extent rules mastery is rewarded. But the kinds of arguments going on between advocates of PF1 vs PF2 are really about pretty arcane differences in two very similar, very crunchy systems. I don't think most players out in the wild care strongly about that stuff.

You combined an unsubstantiated claim that "complexity" is key with an unsubstantiated short selling of why some people don't like PF2E.

 

[JFranklin3000]

I hope Paizo didn't expect Pf2 to pass 5e, that would be have been really unrealistic. People forget all the time that the only time in history that D&D wasn't the number 1 selling TTRPG was after the announcement that 4e was ending production. There were still a few products coming out when Paizo passed them, but only a few. D&D we always be the Kleenex of TTRPG and that branding would be hard for anyone to beat. Being the #2 TTRPG (and possibly the #3 with Starfinder) should make for a very sustainable business model.

 

[Mistwell]

The question has always been not how it's doing relative to 5e...but relative to the sales they had with PF1 before they announced PF2.

If they're selling the same or less as they did at that point, it's a big issue. If they're selling meaningfully more than they were, then it was a good decision.

 

[JFranklin3000]

There were a lot of comments in the thread about it not doing as well as 5e, which as I said is not a good comparison. Based on what we can see PF2 is selling better on Amazon then PF1 which is what Paizo was shooting for. The unknown of course is how much better? We only really have the Amazon data for that.

 

[Mistwell]

There were a lot of comments in the thread about it not doing as well as 5e, which as I said is not a good comparison. Based on what we can see PF2 is selling better on Amazon then PF1 which is what Paizo was shooting for. The unknown of course is how much better? We only really have the Amazon data for that.

I have not seen anything showing it's doing better on Amazon now than it was before PF2 was announced. Do you have something on that?

 

[JFranklin3000]

Just that PF2e CRB is number 2 on Pathfinder sales on Amazon and CRP for PF1e is 11.

 

[zztong]

While this isn't sales data, and perhaps still too early to make a conclusion, Google Trends suggests to me Pathfinder seems to be neither gaining or losing ground. Here's the 5-year chart; draw your own conclusions:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F04dzk1_

There's a dip in interest currently, but the 5 year trend suggests searches for Pathfinder routinely fall off around the holidays. Perhaps that is because many searches relate to things like rules that players make while playing, and maybe it's harder to play during the holidays...?

If you look at the "Related Searches" part of the report, you can see Pathfinder 2 related searches have increased compared to Pathfinder 1 searches.

 

[BryonD]

Just that PF2e CRB is number 2 on Pathfinder sales on Amazon and CRP for PF1e is 11.

Agree with Mistwell.
The fact that PF2E is outselling PF1E right now is meaningless. If it were not it would be catastrophic.
IMO, it needs to do a great deal better than PF1 was doing right before PF2 was announced. Afterall, PF1 had been on the downswing for a while. PF2 needs to be doing significantly better than PF1 was way back when Paizo started investing in development.

But, again, that all gets into "financial success". And, beyond the obvious implications for on-going support, it really is neither here nor there to us fans. We have neither the data to make a judgement nor the standards to compare the data against.

We can read a lot of indirect information and get a decent idea. But nothing more than that.

As a fan, I'm way more interested in how the game will impact the overall gaming community for the long(ish) term. How easy will it be to find a game two years from now?

 

[Mistwell]

Just that PF2e CRB is number 2 on Pathfinder sales on Amazon and CRP for PF1e is 11.

PF1 was, of course, Number 1 on the Pathfinder sales on Amazon prior to PF2 being announced.

Do you have anything showing that PF1 was selling worse in overall book sales than PF2 is selling now? I have not seen it.

 

[teitan]

No more than Greyhawk is baked into D&D.

Have you seen the 2e book? There is a gazetteer in the core book for Golarian. Much more than Greyhawk ever had in a core book. It's baked in but it's so generic fantasy that it's easy to ignore the Golarion but less ingrained than Nentir Vale assumptions which Critical Role actually has baked into their setting because while it was a Pathfinder game it was also started as a 4e game.