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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DracoSuave" data-source="post: 5196293" data-attributes="member: 71571">I did a search for ads for Pathfinder on google.None.You talk of Shrodinger's Customers, I offer you in rebuttal, Schrodinger's Marketing, which itself may or may not exist.No, it's based on the fact that Paizoa) Is not the market leader.  Do I need sales figures to show that Wizards of the Coast is?  I figured this was simply already fracking -obvious-b) That Paizo is selling a product to an existing market.  They're doing 3.5... um... point five, after all, as well as a slew of 3.5-compliant products.  Now, tell me, when your target audience is 'People who like 3.5' how does that cross over with 'People who never played an RPG'?  I could draw a venn diagram for you, but here's an ascii version instead.O        Oc) Paizo isn't advertising online to any great degree.  In fact, there are more ads for Dungeons and Dragons Online than there is for Paizo's anything.  They're entire marketting consists of reaching out to existing roleplayers who played a previous product.  This isn't even a subject for debate!  Show me one product that isn't.D) The bulk of their roleplaying work is based on Wizard's products anyways.  I do not need to prove that a product line that is based on the 3.x SRD and the OGL is based on 3.5 and the OGL.  I'd be better off spending that time to prove that when something has fire, it is burning.  Neither am I.  I am facing the reality that as a -thing-, it has some uses, but those uses are not the same as other uses.And Timmy likes those other uses.I don't disagree.  PDFs -are- useful.  But 'useful' and 'profitable' are not the same word.  No one is disputing that Bob wants a PDF of <book>.  This is probably because Bob has exposure to <book> and already uses <book> or has a use for <book>.This is because Bob knows about <book> and has found a place for <book> in his life.Bob is needed for the industry.  But for the -leader- of that industry, you also need Mary, Timmy, and George.Mary, Timmy, and George have never had exposure to <book>.  How does Bob wanting a PDF of <book> help these three learn about <book> and make the decision to include <book> in their lives?No, they haven't.  Remember, their ORIGINAL stance was 'Yes, let's make this available.'  Circumstances have shown that it is not worth their time to do so.In this case, the -consumers- have spoken, and the -company- responded.  It's as simple as that.  In this case, it is likely the consumers spoke by stealing their work instead of buying it, because it was easier to do so.That's what you haven't addressed... how does PDFs legally aquired compete successfully with illegal PDFs?That's a big question.If there's an open wound, it was the aforementioned consumers who held the knife.They are losing potential sales of one sort.  They may not be losing potential profits.Again, you're applying the smaller market mentality to that of a larger distribution.The distrubution and publication models of, as an example, Changeling: The Dreaming (a game that has a cult following, rabid, but could not sustain a publisher in the long term) cannot POSSIBLY apply to, say, the Adventurer's Vault 2.As an analogy, you're using the business model of Mom's Hardware store and asking 'Why doesn't WalMart do that?'The question doesn't even make sense.  The scale is completely disproportionate.Blaming Wizards for responding to a market is a fallacy.  So far, your entire argument has always been 'I want this, and I can't have it, so Wizards sucks.'  The counter argument has always been 'You're not the entire market.  What about those other guys?'And, in their judgement, putting out PDFs -was- a mistake.I don't think you remember that guy who came onto THESE forums because he was being taken to court because HE bought Wizard's PDF, and then distributed it on scribd.com.That's not 'schrodinger's' anything.  That's an actual poster here.Not to mention, why are you suggesting my response is in any way trying to suggest that you think Wizards is The Big Bad?It wasn't.  Are you even reading what I'm saying?The problem is, Schrodinger's anything only exists as a matter of -observation-.  Once there is interaction, there's no more Schrodinger's anything.  No quantum state.Wizards interacted with PDF customers.  They decided it was not worth their efforts.Everything you've said is based on a 'Schrodinger's' argument.  To you, there's this untapped market that Wizards is ignoring because either they lack business sense (they don't), or because they're stuck in the past while bringing up publishers that are riding on the coat-tails of Wizards' past (Paizo.)To Wizards, however, they've openned the box, looked at the cat, and didn't like the smell.So, my point is:  What has changed since then?Awesome.You've mentioned a marketting campaign Wizards is already doing, and with great success... marketting games to gamers.Now, how does having PDFs available translate into a sale from Wizards, rather than from torrentz.zomg?Here's the whole situation, with Wizards putting out PDFs.1)  There's already pirated versions available.  No one debates this.2)  Any product any company creates has to compete in the market.  In the case of Wizards' PDFs they have as their number one competitor their own PDFs, but for 100% less cost.So, you're saying 'They're losing potential sales!' but they're looking at it as 'This product cannot favorably compete with our number one competition.'  So they have two options, make their product more favorable (which they can't, because the main competition IS their product) or put out a different product.Spending thousands of dollars on legal bills is the only way they can do the former.  Not spending any money at all on the practice is how they can do the latter.Please explain to us what's changed since the last time they tried to do this.</blockquote>

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