Pathfinder 1E You're the CEO of PAIZO. Now What?

[billd91]

PDF-only subscriptions. I'd make it possible to subscribe to product lines for PDF copies without print copies.

 

[Festivus]

I'm going to guess that was a rare special incident. Paizo's customer service people generally have a good reputation, and every incident I've had (a couple of issues with address changes, one book with a damaged binding, etc.) were dealt with within hours.

QFT, I have had a couple instances where Paizo customer service went out of the way to help me out.. including replacing an issue that the post office mangled. I have always felt it was one of the major plusses of doing business with them. I haven't bought anything in a while, and I don't know if he's still there, but Cosmo was always there for me.

 

[coyote6]

Yeah, I haven't had any problems recently, but back when Paizo was doing Dungeon & Dragon magazines, my issues were forever going missing or being shredded in the local mail. Paizo was always very prompt & helpful when the destruction was too much.

If I was Paizo CEO, I'd give the job back to Lisa, because I'd want someone good at the job to do it. First, though, I would institute a "free stuff for Bob" policy, of course.

 

[Kafen]

I'm going to guess that was a rare special incident. Paizo's customer service people generally have a good reputation, and every incident I've had (a couple of issues with address changes, one book with a damaged binding, etc.) were dealt with within hours.

QFT, I have had a couple instances where Paizo customer service went out of the way to help me out.. including replacing an issue that the post office mangled. I have always felt it was one of the major plusses of doing business with them. I haven't bought anything in a while, and I don't know if he's still there, but Cosmo was always there for me.

These two views speak well for my experience with books from them. My experience involves a book with a broken binding - somebody stepped on it on the shipping end from the look of it. It was settled without any real trouble.

 

[Wicht]

Smack some sense into customer service. A buddy emailed and called for a week before getting a response. Completely unacceptable.

Your buddy must have been calling on Christmas Day or something, or the week of Cosmo's vacation; because the one thing Lisa should certianly not do is start berating her customer service reps. They've always struck me as top notch.

 

[ssampier]

You really want me in charge? Really? I'm more of an i/t person myself, but:

1) Steal Underpants
2)
3) Profit
4) Make bizarre offers to indie RPG companies like Rifts, so they can Pathfinderized
5) Start separate division for electronic gaming
6) Send writers to Aruba Hawaii Bermuda-shorts-and-Hawaiian-pizza-luau-night after finishing an AP

Okay, I was kidding, of course. Paizo does a good job I think. I haven't bought much of their stuff simply because I have lots of stuff I don't use now.

If I could change one thing it'd be their forums. They are okay, but they could be better.

 

[Voadam]

1 Offer pdf only subscriptions. I second this idea.

2 Add pdf bundle options (get all six modules in an AP in one collection for a discount).

3 Fill out the Dungeon and Dragon pdfs to cover the missing ones you have the rights to do so for, more than just the first Savage Tide Dungeon issue for example.

4 Do bundles of Dragon or Dungeon pdf issues for discounts (get three in a sequence for $10 or something like that).

5 Develop a pathfinder unearthed arcana type book with variant optional stuff like nondivine healing rules (4e style healing surges and warlord class or Trailblazer style rests or something different).

6 Figure out a way to display shipping costs and options before checkout on the web store.

 

[Croesus]

Get your modules to read on those Nooks and other e-readers. I tried to read Kingmaker on it, but the illustrations and maps kept causing it to freeze up.

My understanding is that there is no easy way to get the various readers to properly display different publications, with different formats and styles. If displaying the PF modules on an e-reader would require significant Paizo resources, I doubt doing so would pay for itself in additional sales. And I wonder if the freezing problem is really an issue with the reader, rather than anything Paizo is doing...if so, there may be little Paizo can do.

However, I think you raise a good point about e-readers in general. They will likely only gain in popularity. Just my personal opinion, but the "killer ap" for e-readers is when they can replace all my hardcopy subscriptions + my internet browser + my library. One or two of those isn't enough, but get all three and I can see sales of these things really exploding.

If someone working at Paizo has an e-reader and the interest/understanding, I would recommend having them keep abreast of e-reader developments. At some point e-readers will have a simple way of converting publications to display correctly on them. When that happens, publishers like Paizo will have a new outlet for their products.

 

[falcarrion]

As far as e-readers go. It depends on the type and size of the e-reader.
For example. If I try to read the pathfinder core book pdf on my sony PRS-505,
it is unreadable as described above. But if loaded it on my Kindle DX it is readable.
It is the reader and not the pdf that is the problem.
In either case you can't zoom in like you can a pdf on a computer.
I have tried this on modules, magazines like Kobald quarterly and level up, and most game related pdfs.

 

[guivre]

Your buddy must have been calling on Christmas Day or something, or the week of Cosmo's vacation; because the one thing Lisa should certianly not do is start berating her customer service reps. They've always struck me as top notch.

A couple of anecdotal good experiences don't invalidate his bad one. I realize it's typical for people to chime in with "nuh uh I've had godo experiences" whenever someone complains about a company, particularly about online ordering but it's absolutely meaningless. No one is saying they're universally bad, and there could be 100 good experiences for every 10 bad... it's still a problem. I don't know what the percentage of bad experiences is. What I do know is poor customer service occurred, resulting in a lost customer as well as someone very vocal passing his story on at a game store on two separate occasions.

Someone ed up, period. Whether it's a one time thing or not (unlikely unless he was someone singled out) it happened and is something I would be addressing.