NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shadewyn" data-source="post: 4118687" data-attributes="member: 6340">WotC has now seen the marketing data on the 2E swap to 3.0 and the 3.0 to 3.5.Considering that the core books PHB / MM / DMG are a good way of measuring the total number of gamers out there in the hobby I think that WotC has a very good idea on the size of the market and how fast the market will adopt a new standard of books.Paizo on the other hand simply knows that they have a chunk of subscritions for some good module work they did.  However that market is VASTLY skewed.When WotC first put 3.X on the scene many gamers started with the WotC adventure paths.  You can make Meepo jokes to just about any 3.X gamer to day and they will undersand them.  After the WotC stopped building core adventure modules the Paizo team became the leading 3rd party publisher of high content mods.The problem is that anyone who NEEDED 3rd party module support for ease and coveinice already has located Paizo for thier work.  When 4E hits a portion of the Paizon membership will leave for 4E and since Paizo isnt providing 4E module support they loose those customers.Then Paizo compounds the problem by fragmenting the market further.  If you have ever played high level D&D in the 10+ levels then you know how valuable the Paizo products were to provide well stated, decent story, ease of use high level adventures that under the 3.X system would take hours to put together.   If a GM who skips 4E now only has a chocie of converting to the new Pathfider system or spending hours converting pathfinder material back to 3.5 then Paizo has lost another segment of the market.This isnt rocket science or anything that isnt seen in many other industries.Paizo is the fast food of game modules.  If their product is no longer easy to use (due to conversion issues) or cheap (barrier to entry costs now though buying their core rules) then Paizo is loosing market share.If McDonalds charges a cover fee to enter their restuarant and then declared you must only order in French ... would you still go out of your way for that savory big mac?  Some will jump through hoops of fire for it ... others will leave for other publishers errr restaurants.And whipping figure out of your nether regions about millions of customers swooning for Paizo is silly expecially when the board threads are 50% / 50% split between I will stay with or I will leave them.  I dont see folks clamoring to suddenly join them after this move.As an FYI ... I am not saying that Paizo continuing to push 3.5 products is wrong ... their is a market for that, shrinking, but still something.  I am saying that SPLITTING a shrinking market further is the bonehead move.</blockquote>

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