Pathfinder 1E This is why pathfinder has been successful.

[BryonD]

I'd say pretty much this: large numbers of high-quality adventures that fans pick up consistently to the tune of multiple purchases a month, that's a formula for success.

One of my good friends is a big Pathfinder fan, and he had me over the other weekend. He has pretty much everything that's out since the beta days. In looking at the pile of product I was amazed at how much stuff they've put out. The idea that you don't make money on adventures is ... misguided.

They make a TON of money on adventure.
Creative setting and story is a HUGE fundamental element of what makes Paizo great.

And every bit of that hinged on their early wisdom to hook their creativity to a the right system.

To say that they don't make their money on adventures isn't simply misguided, it is deeply off track.

To say that their ability to make all that money on their adventures isn't contingent on system of choice is every bit as misguided.

 

[Rogue Agent]

But I still think that the maxim "adventures don't sell" holds, if compared to sales of rules.

A few things to consider:

(1) Adventures are likely to be less successful in games which don't feature a unified, default scenario hook. Games like D&D and Shadowrun have this, but a lot of others don't. (Transhuman Space, for example, goes all the way to other extreme and people routinely report having difficulty figuring out anything to do with it at all.)

Without the unified, default scenario hook, the odds that any given adventure will actually be usable in a particular ongoing campaign is incredibly small.

(2) Building off of that point, Adventure Paths and similar "campaigns-in-a-box" may have a larger potential audience. (You don't need to figure out if a particular adventure will hook into your campaign; the adventure product is the campaign.)

OTOH, this requires the existence of a significant audience that wants a campaign-in-a-box. If there isn't (or you can't build one), then the audience for your product is essentially zero (it can't be used as part of anybody's campaign).

(3) It's probably also true if you're looking at product-vs-product sales. But if you're interested in building a sustainable, long-term business plan then adventure products may out-perform rulebooks: Since the splatbook product line became popular in the early '90s, every single company that has adopted it has burned out (usually in the range of 10-15 products if they're successful, maybe a few more if they're really successful) and been forced to reboot the line. AD&D2, PEG, White Wolf, AEG, WotC, and so forth. It's a long list. (One could go even farther back and say that the original Traveller suffered the same fate.)

And, notably, most of these reboots are not successful. With a couple of notable exceptions (which featured "clear, deep, and widespread dissatisfaction" in the customer base), these companies always end up splitting their existing customer base and playing a game of diminishing returns.

Unlike rule supplements, however, adventure products get used up: Whether you're actually playing them, looting them for usable material, or just reading them for pleasure there's always going to be a need for another adventure.

(4) If you're actually developing your rules properly, they cost a lot more time and resources to develop than adventure products. (You can, of course, develop your supplementary rules on the cheap... But if you do that, you're just creating other sustainability issues in your product line.)

So, to sum up in slightly different terms, I think Paizo's secret to success is two-fold:

(A) Produce products with a high quality that people can rely on.

(B) Don't kill the golden goose. (Both by avoiding the splatbook burnout cycle, but also by pacing their release cycle in order to keep their loyal fans hooked without overwhelming them.)

The Pathfinder core rulebook may sell 5x more copies than any individual AP. But they publish 12 AP SKUs per year. You do the math.

 

[billd91]

However, I don't buy the other adventures because there isn't a discount on subscribing to them.

Cheers!

You do, at least, get the PDF of the module for free as part of the subscription, though. That's nice, particularly if you make your own paper chits by taking some screen captures or you copy/paste the stat blocks into a word processor to make edits.

 

[S'mon]

That's why almost all game publishers with a new game publish a lot of rule books and supplements but few adventures.

Call of Cthulu? Mostly adventures, surely. And a lot of games publish mostly setting sourcebooks, not rule books.

 

[Zelda Themelin]

Additional point I want to give why I really like Paizo. Ordering from them works well for international customer. It is not really cheaper, since posting costs are pretty high and euro is not doing so well, but it's not that much expensive either than getting them from my local shop (they really miss me getting books from them lol).

Big competetive thing however, is that I get pdf:s as bonus. Said shop here would have gotten same offer from Paizo, but they didn't give it to them, smart move in my case. Another extra feature that makes it so good, is that it takes long time for books to arrive, but you can load pfd:s as often you need.

Their personification system is neat. I actually like having my e-mail address at pfd:s showed the way that doesn't feel visually ugly.

 

[Maggan]

The Pathfinder core rulebook may sell 5x more copies than any individual AP. But they publish 12 AP SKUs per year. You do the math.

Unfortunately I don't have enough information on how Paizo is doing things to do that math.

It might be that they are putting equal amount of resources into creating the AP's as they were creating the core rules, but probably they are putting less resources having perfected the process.

That still leaves the printing and shipping costs for 12 AP's per year, which should be higher per page than for the core rules, which could be offset by a good process and the subscription model.

But I don't really have any info on Paizo to make a qualified guess as to the balance between core and adventure for them.

/M

 

[Maggan]

To say that they don't make their money on adventures isn't simply misguided, it is deeply off track.

Is anyone saying that, though?

Isn't the thing here that traditionally, when rules ruled, that people were buying tons of those instead of adventures.

Now, there seems to have been a shift, and Paizo's customers are buying adventures rather than rules. I'm not sure how wide spread that pattern is in the industry though.

/M

 

[Maggan]

Call of Cthulu? Mostly adventures, surely.

And Chaosium is not a very profitable company, to boot.

A shame, CoC is my favourite game. Apart from WFRP that is.

/M

 

[Ranes]

Isn't the thing here that traditionally, when rules ruled, that people were buying tons of those instead of adventures.

Now, there seems to have been a shift, and Paizo's customers are buying adventures rather than rules. I'm not sure how wide spread that pattern is in the industry though.

/M

I think this is true. It certainly was the case in the eighties that published adventures (especially sequels) offered publishers returns that diminished far more quickly than the returns on another rule book. Now, Paizo seems to have come up with a different workable model. Rogue Agent's take on it seems sound. As you point out, however, it's not clear that anyone else can make or has made a similar model work.

 

[BryonD]

Is anyone saying that, though?

Isn't the thing here that traditionally, when rules ruled, that people were buying tons of those instead of adventures.

Now, there seems to have been a shift, and Paizo's customers are buying adventures rather than rules. I'm not sure how wide spread that pattern is in the industry though.

/M

Actually in THAT statement I'm simply repeating the words Steve posted as a set up to contrasting the truly important point.

So if you are saying that is something of a straw man argument then yes, that was my point.