Quote from: Emperor Norton;685125I would say that FFG and AEG both handle this pretty well also.

Absolutely.  I was rummaging through my old copy of FFG's Twilight Imperium 1st Edition, and the evolution of production values and layout from then to now is nothing short of amazing.

Quote from: jeff37923;685046There seems to be a lot of hope that Paizo fails once 5E comes out.
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I hope Pazio keeps succeeding.

I think that if 5e is a big hit that they will need to do something, if they want to keep their market share.

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Quote from: JonWake;685081I don't think I care one way or the other how Paizo does. They seem like nice people. But I also think people attribute way more foresight and ability to what was just a damn lucky break. Yes, they've done a masterful job of exploiting that-- if the Paizo leadership were a little less agile they'd be in the same boat as Green Ronin.

I also think people are making the mistake that their customer base is all that loyal.  Back in 2008, people would have said the same thing about D&D customers.  It's mad world and all bets are off.

Chance favors the prepared mind.

You can have all the "lucky breaks" in the world and not be successful if you do not produce a good product and supplant it with good customer support. Paizo shouldn't be sold short on their success.

Also, your customer loyalty comment is misplaced. The customers were loyal to the RPG system that had been providing them good entertainment value for the previous 8 years. The customers didn't leave WotC, WotC left the customers when they made 4E.

Really, Paizo only needs to worry if 5E is a better product than Pathfinder, which is looking like less and less of a possibility.

JG

Quote from: James Gillen;685293Really, Paizo only needs to worry if 5E is a better product than Pathfinder, which is looking like less and less of a possibility.

JG

I like it better. So do my players. But we'll see what the market decides in a year or so.

Paizo is not in a good place long term if they stay as a RPG company. If they deviate beyond 3.75, they will lose the 3.5 audience who really, really like to buy 3.5 stuff. They can't really do a true 2e, just a 1.1e cleanup without risking their core audience.

So they are in the Palladium problem. Innovate and anger the core OR keep cranking out books to the same (eventually dwindling) group of gamers and non-gaming collectors who keep buying books faithfully.

But Paizo is smart. I suspect their real move is to expand the Pathfinder IP and move into electronic games. That's where the real dollars lie and after that, the a paper RPG just doesn't matter.

I am very happy for Pathfinder. It keeps 3e players away from my games at cons and game days. All the rules lawyers can monkey spank to their hearts content, as long as their spunk doesn't stain my table.

Quote from: James Gillen;685293Really, Paizo only needs to worry if 5E is a better product than Pathfinder, which is looking like less and less of a possibility.

Next will be a different game with a different focus - far less crunchy. So Paizo only needs to worry if a less crunchy version of D&D proves more popular or accessible to new players, and chokes off the supply of new players to Pathfinder.

Quote from: Haffrung;685376Next will be a different game with a different focus - far less crunchy. So Paizo only needs to worry if a less crunchy version of D&D proves more popular or accessible to new players, and chokes off the supply of new players to Pathfinder.

I think a lot of people confuse (1) Relatively successful (i.e. best in the market) with (2) Actually successful in bottom line sales terms.

As far as I can tell only people on the interwebs actually care about (1)- hence the widespread belief that this is all zero-sum game where multiple companies can't succeed at the same time and the focus on whose "winning" in sales- when (2) is what actually matters if you enjoy a game.

Next succeeded is not inherently a problem or even necessarily a relevant factor for Paizo (and vice versa), especially if they're designed to appeal to different groups.

Quote from: tanstaafl48;685379I think a lot of people confuse (1) Relatively successful (i.e. best in the market) with (2) Actually successful in bottom line sales terms.

As far as I can tell only people on the interwebs actually care about (1)- hence the widespread belief that this is all zero-sum game where multiple companies can't succeed at the same time and the focus on whose "winning" in sales- when (2) is what actually matters if you enjoy a game.

Next succeeded is not inherently a problem or even necessarily a relevant factor for Paizo (and vice versa), especially if they're designed to appeal to different groups.

I agree. Not only do the interwebs crowd only think about the current market, but they let the tribes and factions of the interwebs convince them that it's a market of fixed loyalists. The possibiliy that a lot of customers for Next may come from people with no existing D&D allegience, and who may never have played the game at all, does not occur to grizzled edition warriors. It's kind of sad that the notion of actually growing the hobby doesn't occur to so many D&D fans.

Quote from: Haffrung;685382I agree. Not only do the interwebs crowd only think about the current market, but they let the tribes and factions of the interwebs convince them that it's a market of fixed loyalists. The possibiliy that a lot of customers for Next may come from people with no existing D&D allegience, and who may never have played the game at all, does not occur to grizzled edition warriors. It's kind of sad that the notion of actually growing the hobby doesn't occur to so many D&D fans.

Probably that's because they'd gotten so used to their own insular groups that it never occurred to them to do some outreach.

I just realized the two likely reasons I might buy 5E.

1) So many players flock to it that it becomes difficult to get people to play anything else. (Currently I have that problem with Pathfinder and 4E)

2) 5E is actually 'rules' lite, or 'sleek' enough that the rules fade into the background.




If it turns out 'clunky' I will not gm it, but might play it.

Quote from: JonWake;684946Let me rephrase this question:

Why is Pathfinder more successful than any of the other OGL hanger's on?

I don't have numbers to back this up, but there is some history and market positioning that may have been pivotal. But they were also the publishing house with enough experience and people to take advantage of the mess WotC was making in the 3.5 era.

in my mind, 3 pivotal events happened that delivered Paizo a larhe chunk of WotC's audience.

Before Paizo made Pathfinder RPG, they published Dungeon and Dragon. Wizards cancelled the print magazines, pissing off a lot of long time fans. This was well in advance of publishing 4e.

Paizo offered fans with remaining subscriptions the option of taking remaining issues in their new Pathfinder AP periodical. This was event #1.

Event #2 was that Paizo knocked the APs out of the park. They assembled (or rather, retained) the staff to put together and excellent product, and in delivering got both a good reputation and many ongoing subscribers well in advance of the publication of 4e.

Event #3 was that Wizards produced their gaming licence too slow, and when it did show up, it had the fingerprints of Hasbro corporate lawyers all over it. It was risky for a good sized publisher like Paizo to accept. This motivated Paizo to make the risky move of making their own 3e follow-on.

But they already had the kernel of an installed customer base ready to jump ship from WotC, and as the edition wars heated up and more players didn't like what they were seeing in the 4e preview (or quite simply didn't want to change systems at all), their customer base only grew.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;685631I don't have numbers to back this up, but there is some history and market positioning that may have been pivotal. But they were also the publishing house with enough experience and people to take advantage of the mess WotC was making in the 3.5 era.

in my mind, 3 pivotal events happened that delivered Paizo a larhe chunk of WotC's audience.

Before Paizo made Pathfinder RPG, they published Dungeon and Dragon. Wizards cancelled the print magazines, pissing off a lot of long time fans. This was well in advance of publishing 4e.

Paizo offered fans with remaining subscriptions the option of taking remaining issues in their new Pathfinder AP periodical. This was event #1.

Event #2 was that Paizo knocked the APs out of the park. They assembled (or rather, retained) the staff to put together and excellent product, and in delivering got both a good reputation and many ongoing subscribers well in advance of the publication of 4e.

Event #3 was that Wizards produced their gaming licence too slow, and when it did show up, it had the fingerprints of Hasbro corporate lawyers all over it. It was risky for a good sized publisher like Paizo to accept. This motivated Paizo to make the risky move of making their own 3e follow-on.

But they already had the kernel of an installed customer base ready to jump ship from WotC, and as the edition wars heated up and more players didn't like what they were seeing in the 4e preview (or quite simply didn't want to change systems at all), their customer base only grew.

I'd add one more to that:

Event #4 was that during the development of Pathfinder, Paizo let the fans have a big say in the rules and editing of what was finally released.  This engendered a lot of goodwill between them and their customer base.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;685597Probably that's because they'd gotten so used to their own insular groups that it never occurred to them to do some outreach.

It isn't so much that they don't make efforts to grow the game themselves; it's that it doesn't occur to them that attracting new and lapsed players is how WotC intends to build the 5E player base.

Quote from: Haffrung;685638It isn't so much that they don't make efforts to grow the game themselves; it's that it doesn't occur to them that attracting new and lapsed players is how WotC intends to build the 5E player base.

Given how grumpy some old timers have gotten at the recent explosion in Gen Con attendance, I'm sure they're rehearsing their "get offa my lawn!" routines right now.