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<blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 6366450" data-attributes="member: 20741">Well, you are correct about Paizo's product release schedule being (currently) more expansive, but the importance of the PDF to that quite large product mix is critical to their business model. It's a model which depends mainly on the PDF for continued success.Paizo gets all of this product onto many retailer's shelves. And there is a helluva lot of it every month. But the thing is that the majority of those products ship to retailers in the black. This is possible because Paizo can cover those print costs through direct subscription sales - and usually with a profit, too.Sure, the Paizo Store's sale price - after calculating in the &quot;Pathfinder advantage&quot; of 30% off Pathfinder AP and 15% off the cover price of everything else is cheaper than buying at your local retailer -- but it isn't cheaper than buying many of their books from Amazon. It's still a little more expensive. So why do people subscribe? Answer: the free .PDFFor Paizo, the free .PDF that comes with subscriptions is the sweetener that even Amazon cannot beat. It's a Paizo exclusive and it works. Never mind the crusty posts about 1990s tech posted here: there are 200 million iPad users out there. And many of those gamers are rolling with Paizo PDFs when they play outside of their homes. (Herolab for Pathfinder on the iPad now, too). Paizo creates a special lite version of each PDF as well as the &quot;full&quot; print version so that they load faster and are easier to navigate on iPads, while still looking pretty.That sort of marketing product mix is key to Paizo's success because of their business model. But that model isn't WotC's model, so the risks of PDFs are at LEAST just as great (greater when you view the importance of retailers to WotC's business model) and the rewards far fewer.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Steel_Wind, post: 6366450, member: 20741"] Well, you are correct about Paizo's product release schedule being (currently) more expansive, but the importance of the PDF to that quite large product mix is critical to their business model. It's a model which depends mainly on the PDF for continued success. Paizo gets all of this product onto many retailer's shelves. And there is a helluva lot of it every month. But the thing is that the majority of those products [B]ship to retailers in the black[/B]. This is possible because Paizo can cover those print costs through direct subscription sales - and usually with a profit, too. Sure, the Paizo Store's sale price - after calculating in the "Pathfinder advantage" of 30% off Pathfinder AP and 15% off the cover price of everything else is cheaper than buying at your local retailer -- but it [B]isn't[/B] cheaper than buying many of their books from Amazon. It's still a little more expensive. So why do people subscribe? Answer: the free .PDF For Paizo, the free .PDF that comes with subscriptions[B] is the sweetener that even Amazon cannot beat[/B]. It's a Paizo exclusive and it [B]works[/B]. Never mind the crusty posts about 1990s tech posted here: there are 200 million iPad users out there. And [I]many[/I] of those gamers are rolling with Paizo PDFs when they play outside of their homes. (Herolab for Pathfinder on the iPad now, too). Paizo creates a special lite version of each PDF as well as the "full" print version so that they load faster and are easier to navigate on iPads, while still looking pretty. That sort of marketing product mix is key to Paizo's success because of their business model. But that model isn't WotC's model, so the risks of PDFs are at LEAST just as great (greater when you view the importance of retailers to WotC's business model) and the rewards far fewer. [/QUOTE]

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