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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 8470990" data-attributes="member: 907">My insight into the business side of RPGs is limited to what I have gleaned from various industry insiders here and in other places. I think there are two relevant things to consider here:1. On one side, this is a hobby built on the creativity of its participants. DMs in particular are strongly encouraged to come up with their own worlds and adventures and maybe even rules bits. Some of us dream of actually getting that stuff published, which means there are large numbers of people one could tap to do some design and work for peanuts.2. On the other side, the step from "Hey, here's a spell I came up with, what do y'all think?" to being able to produce stuff that's consistently good (or at least publishable) on a deadline is quite a big one. For complicated systems like Starfinder or Pathfinder 2, these people are fairly rare, particularly since there's probably more money in doing 5e stuff. And these are the kind of people you want working for you, either employed or as regular freelancers.In other words, while there are certainly lots of hungry potential designers out there, they're not likely to be ones to produce consistent high-quality work.There's another thing to consider, which is that a large portion of what happens in-house at Paizo isn't the actual writing of stuff. That's to a large degree done on a freelance basis (though in some cases done as freelance work by Paizo employees – apparently, one of the perks of working there have traditionally been getting the juiciest freelance stuff). The folks actually working at Paizo do the stuff around that: outlines, editing/development, layout, and so on. I think they keep heavy-duty design (e.g. class design) in-house as well, but things like adventure paths and books like the Mwangi Expanse? That's mostly freelance. That means that the people actually working there are the ones who do the planning and stuff for their books, and I reckon that's even harder to replace than primary design. Well, that and a lot of support staff (e.g. customer service or IT) who are also covered by the union.And speaking of freelancers and the union, one of the reasons Paizo were so fast in recognizing the union was that they were told by many freelancers that they were withholding labor until the union was recognized. In other words, while Paizo employees didn't go on strike, freelancers did (or as close as you can get as a freelancer). So if Paizo wanted to replace truculent employees, these are the people they'd go to for replacements, and they don't seem particularly inclined to be scabs.</blockquote>

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