Sean K Reynolds on working at Paizo (and other companies)

[Jd Smith1]

I think it was useful for you to mention it was legal in your place of employment. When I read it first I thought "mmm, we got a confession!" then remembered you were in the US and it would be legal behaviour there. So clarifying was certainly helpful.

Thanks. Although it wasn't in my place of employment. I used to do it as a sideline.

Maybe I can explain the "political" thing: in several European countries, labor agreements are negociated by unions but apply to a whole sector of activity. So if say, Amazon, is against unions, they will still have to comply with the "warehousing sector labor laws". The political aspect is in making agreements enforced irrespective of the workers being personally member of a union. So, if, say, the RPG worker's union negociated with, say, Hasbro a "no room sharing rule" it would apply to Paizo as well by a political decision to extend it. As you said, very different ways to deal with labor relations, resulting from countries being free to implement solutions working for their culture.

I see. It certainly explains the confusion.

 

[Staffan]

Which brings us back to the specific topic at hand: as already noted by others in this thread, there are countless people in the USA dreaming of being an RPG writer. So Paiazo has the upper hand. Until that fact changes, nothing else will matter in the long run.

There are certainly plenty of people who want to be RPG writers. But do they want to be writers for Paizo, specifically? Or could they perhaps make more money by self-publishing things for 5e, which has a customer base that is at least one or maybe two orders of magnitude larger?

 

[Jd Smith1]

There are certainly plenty of people who want to be RPG writers. But do they want to be writers for Paizo, specifically? Or could they perhaps make more money by self-publishing things for 5e, which has a customer base that is at least one or maybe two orders of magnitude larger?

A good point. I'm inclined to think that a large number would take any job to get a foot in the door.

 

[Mordhau]

As I said earlier one of the issues here is that they currently presumably have a group of employees who know the company's systems, know each other and can work together effectively, and know the game system that they are working on (and probably helped to develop it).

That's not expertise that is ultimately irreplaceable, but it is not easily replacable. There might be a lot of people who are willing to do the job, but identifying people who can do the job well is often not easy, new staff need training, and the more current expertise is lost, the bigger the problems down the road.

A company with a huge cushion in cash and profit could probably afford to dump 70% of it's staff and recover, but Paizo? I'm very sceptical that they're in such a position. Especially as a serious fan backlash (if not from bad publicity, then from a drop in quality that would likely result from such a turnover) could well send them into a downward spiral that they would never really recover from.

My impression of Paizo, in the current market with 5e dominance, is that they probably have to fight really hard to hold onto what they have, and if they lose ground it would be hard to get it back.

 

[Jd Smith1]

As I said earlier one of the issues here is that they currently presumably have a group of employees who know the company's systems, know each other and can work together effectively, and know the game system that they are working on (and probably helped to develop it).

That's not expertise that is ultimately irreplaceable, but it is not easily replacable. There might be a lot of people who are willing to do the job, but identifying people who can do the job well is often not easy, new staff need training, and the more current expertise is lost, the bigger the problems down the road.

A company with a huge cushion in cash and profit could probably afford to dump 70% of it's staff and recover, but Paizo? I'm very sceptical that they're in such a position. Especially as a serious fan backlash (if not from bad publicity, then from a drop in quality that would likely result from such a turnover) could well send them into a downward spiral that they would never really recover from.

My impression of Paizo, in the current market with 5e dominance, is that they probably have to fight really hard to hold onto what they have, and if they lose ground it would be hard to get it back.

I don't agree. You're not replacing brain surgeons or ER staff. All you need to be an RPG writer is high school-level English skills, average computer skills, some creativity, and a knowledge of game systems. That's literally 80% of the hobby in the USA. On this site alone are scores of people who have written scenarios, rule expansions, and/or settings.

Piazo has a full range of products on their shelves. They could fire every single employee, and the next day those same products would still be on the shelves. Sure, there would be a lag time to re-assemble their group, but its not like they have to put out a new product item next week; they're a niche book publisher, not an old-time newspaper.

As to backlash, a majority of their customer base wouldn't even know about it. Gamers here on this forum represent a tiny minority of the hobby.

Not to mention that there are still diehards playing every variant of D&D published, as well as games from companies long defunct. This isn't a soft drink; brand loyalty is buttressed by people who have invested money (a serious issue for gamers with limited means) and time (so much time) into campaigns based on the system and settings.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I am sceptical that Paizo could dump its workforce and move elsewhere and setup shop and not suffer a massive fan backlash from such an obvious union busting move. Not at this point in time given the recent history.

 

[Parmandur]

I am sceptical that Paizo could dump its workforce and move elsewhere and setup shop and not suffer a massive fan backlash from such an obvious union busting move. Not at this point in time given the recent history.

They invested too much in their "good guy small business" brand to try that move.

 

[Mordhau]

I am sceptical that Paizo could dump its workforce and move elsewhere and setup shop and not suffer a massive fan backlash from such an obvious union busting move. Not at this point in time given the recent history.

I'm bemused by the idea that producing content reliably and of reasonable quality is so easy.

If that were the case the I think the bar for quality in the rpg industry would actually be a lot higher. If average competence is such an easy bar to clear, than people who can reliably produce something far beyond that, what we now think of the very best stuff, should be fairly easy to find.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I'm bemused by the idea that producing content reliably and of reasonable quality is so easy.

If that were the case the I think the bar for quality in the rpg industry would actually be a lot higher. If average competence is such an easy bar to clear, than people who can reliably produce something far beyond that, what we now think of the very best stuff, should be fairly easy to find.

I agree with you but I was making the point that even if Paizo could dump their staff relocate and start afresh with new people it would not help them in the current environment. Their would be a huge fan backlash, at least one big enough to put ha large hole in their sales and to tank any goodwill the company has in the community.

 

[Justice and Rule]

While it is great Sean has found a place that is great to work with, there have been other incidents showing a great deal of the industry isn't great to work with. Though, hopefully with more awareness and pefople like Sean, Crystal and others out there, that these issues can be dealt with.

Yeah, seriously. We know that other places have problems, even if they haven't fully come out Activision-Blizzard style. I've gone over the large in another thread, but if we want to go something smaller just look at The Perfect RPG Kickstarter clusterf*** (Linking to a blog post for the end of the whole ordeal, with two links to previous stuff). There's plenty of problems in the RPG industry, and just finding good and decent people doesn't mean they aren't there. The silver lining here is that forming the union helps those wronged fight back, and hopefully can inspire others to do the same. Not every studio necessarily needs to, but definitely something good for larger ones.



Also put me in the camp that while it's often a threat, actually trying to do the "There are thousands of other writers who would want to work here!" gambit would be cutting your nose off despite your face. The thing about established industry writers is that they are established and you have an idea of what they can actually produce. Turning to the massive well of talent out there is very much a huge gamble given that you aren't sure who is going to apply and what skills they are going to bring: you'll have to look through their previous work, hope they can work the schedule you give them, and even then there is no guarantee of what they can actually deliver. There's the offhand chance that it suddenly works, that you get some diamonds in the rough that hadn't been found... but also that it blows up in your face and completely tanks your quality