Pathfinder 2E Release Day Second Edition Amazon Sales Rank

[BryonD]

You are still avoiding my questions. You should be able to answer them.

Throwing around a bunch of hand waving about pulled from the air percentages of former PF1 fans vs converted 5E fans ignores the elephant in the room.

YOU said that they need a hit AP to be big. You repeat that point in this very thread. But that contradicts everything else. The foundational presumption in YOUR position is that the PF2E growth is in the future and does not exist at this time. You are predicting that at some undefined point in the future the popularity of PF2E will suddenly change. You have no basis for this. Making up venn diagrams of theoretical future players doesn't make that future any more likely.

I truly don't care at all where the new fans come from. I certainly wish they have made a game that had my taste in mind as a target audience. They did not. So it goes. But if they get 11 new fans for every 10 they lose then they are in great shape. The "what flavor is this fan" question is irrelevant. But right now they don't have those fans.

Yes, losing existing fans is important and I'll make note of that. But only to the extent that it starts them in a hole. Show me reason to expect them to be better off two years from now and I'll agree that every lost fan was worth it.

System matters. It matter a lot.

 

[Haffrung]

I truly don't care at all where the new fans come from. I certainly wish they have made a game that had my taste in mind as a target audience.

Ah, okay. Then I don't think we have enough common ground to have a meaningful exchange. I never played PF1, and my interest in PF2 is will it earn enough money to sustain an output of quality RPG books. While I believe system matters very much to you, I don't believe it matters to the great bulk of RPG players anywhere close to the degree it matters to people who talk about systems on forums. And there's little chance anything you post here will persuade me otherwise.

 

[BryonD]

Ah, okay. Then I don't think we have enough common ground to have a meaningful exchange. I never played PF1, and my interest in PF2 is will it earn enough money to sustain an output of quality RPG books. While I believe system matters very much to you, I don't believe it matters to the great bulk of RPG players anywhere close to the degree it matters to people who talk about systems on forums. And there's little chance anything you post here will persuade me otherwise.

OK, I think that is a bizarre exit point. But whatever.
Seems deeply irrelevant to everything else that has been stated. If I hated 1E everything I said would apply exactly the same.

If you decide you can answer any of my questions or explain why they need to wait until the future to get a fan base through some future (but certainly not the current) AP, just tag me in the post.

I'll be over here watching things stay rational.

 

[CleverNickName]

More interesting to me is that the PF2 Core Rulebook is ranked #49 on the "Most Wished For" list for Sci-Fi and Fantasy Games. Sales are one thing, but desire is another--and harder to measure, I think.

 

[darjr]

It didn’t look like it was shrinking a lot until 5e released. At least the Amazon sales rank was holding steady until 5e released. Then it dropped fast.

 

[BryonD]

It didn’t look like it was shrinking a lot until 5e released. At least the Amazon sales rank was holding steady until 5e released. Then it dropped fast.

IMO, the market was well primed and just needed the right outlet.

 

[zztong]

I would think the subscriptions are a good indication of hardcore PF/Paizo fans while Amazon would be a good indicator of casual and/or new fans.

Unless your definition of "hard core fan" relates only to purchasing, that statement wouldn't match my observations. Of nine hardcore PF1 players I observed over the years (in two games), one had a full subscription and one had a subscription to APs only. One bought via game stores. Three bought via Amazon. Others only purchased Hero Lab data. Our other more-casual players generally don't buy anything, or just the core book.

The trend I'm seeing is fewer book purchases overall in favor of datasets for tools and access to web-based resources. I'm hanging out with older players, which no-doubt skews the view.

Our (now closed) PF2 experience involved one person with a book and everyone else with Hero Lab subscriptions.

 

[dave2008]

Ah, okay. Then I don't think we have enough common ground to have a meaningful exchange. I never played PF1, and my interest in PF2 is will it earn enough money to sustain an output of quality RPG books. While I believe system matters very much to you, I don't believe it matters to the great bulk of RPG players anywhere close to the degree it matters to people who talk about systems on forums. And there's little chance anything you post here will persuade me otherwise.

Per WotC surveys, historically over 50% of D&D gamers play in their own homebrew settings / adventures (I for one have only run 1.5 published adventures in 30 years of gaming). For these people APs mean almost nothing, and system is almost everything. So, if Paizo's bread and butter is APs, then they are essentially missing 50%+ of the market from the start. I think you over estimate the importance of APs and under estimate the importance of system to Paizo, WotC, and RPG companies in general.

 

[Mistwell]

Thinking and facts aren’t always the same. There is a reason comic book companies no longer offer subscription services.

Uh, what?

Where have you been? Yes they do.

See for example:

Marvel Subscriptions :: Never miss an issue of Avengers, Spider-Man, X-Men & more Marvel Comics

subscriptions.marvel.com

 

[Haffrung]

Per WotC surveys, historically over 50% of D&D gamers play in their own homebrew settings / adventures (I for one have only run 1.5 published adventures in 30 years of gaming).

I'd be willing to bet that number is lower for Pathfinder players. Golarion is baked into Pathfinder. Almost every Pathfinder actual play podcast or stream is an adventure path. 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.

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.

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.