Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1060919Nerds will buy into the latest version of anything.

Except that people are still clinging to 3e in the form of 3e itself and more prominently Pathfinder which is 3e+. Players deserted 4e en-mass to cling to 3e. And still do well into 5e.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1061084Then Paizo will do well against the 2nd tier who also don't do any meaningful marketing, but not achieve PF1e sales. Though, if they strip down the company to a minimal staff as cost control, they can keep cranking for the next decade.

This seems like the plausible best case scenario for them, assuming they don't start producing 5e compatible material via the OGL. It looks like they think PF2 can make them competitive with 5e, but that's not going to happen. The only way PF2 can be a huge success is if WoTC announced 6e - and 6e was rejected like 4e.

The number 1 reason PF2e will be a failure is that it needs to support a significant amount of full time staff in Seattle office spaces.

Paizo needs to compete with 5e just to keep the doors open in their RPG department.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1061145The number 1 reason PF2e will be a failure is that it needs to support a significant amount of full time staff in Seattle office spaces.

Paizo needs to compete with 5e just to keep the doors open in their RPG department.

This is definitely the big problem for them, they grew to be a lot bigger than WoTC's D&D department and are not set up to be a second tier publisher.

Success for PF2 means, at minimum, stopping Paizo's customer base from shrinking. It will fail to do this. The problem Paizo faces is that they are no longer the torch-bearers for the definitive version of D&D, and the traditional market for fantasy heartbreakers is tiny. Enough of the market rejected 4e to allow them to steal the crown from WotC for a while, but it's embraced 5e, so there is simply nowhere for Paizo to go, i.e.

Quote from: S'mon;1061130The only way PF2 can be a huge success is if WoTC announced 6e - and 6e was rejected like 4e.

At this point, there is less reason than ever for a radical revision of the D&D rules. 5e rules are not everyone's cup of tea (e.g. Rhedyn and tenbones), but sufficiently many people like them sufficiently well enough, and this far in, there aren't crippling systemic issues driving players away or keeping players from starting.  PF2 won't immediately crash down to 2% of the market, but Paizo is going to struggle and decline.

About the only hope Paizo has of staying a top-tier publisher is if a couple popular nerd celebrities start streaming sessions of Pathfinder. But why would those celebrities turn their backs on D&D when D&D is the most popular game and they themselves are chasing subscribers? Digital streaming has only amplified D&D's front-runner advantage at drawing in casuals, lapsed players, and newbs. The only way I can see a tabletop RPG challenge D&D at this point is if it's appreciably easier to play and run at the table. And that's not Pathfinder.

Not really interested in a 6e DnD right now. Wouldn't hurt to have a nice fire sale on 5e stuff, considering I've bought no WotC products for it. But that's just my hoarder greed... it's not like my house needs more chapels to gaming.

As for PF2, not even remotely interested... but I don't wish them ill. Some people enjoy the badwrongfun because they live in a state of ignorance or apostacy. I keeed, I keeeed!

Quote from: Spinachcat;1061084I am unsure about "never" because 5e has brought in a new generation of gamers. Just as a certain set of AD&Ders enjoyed the system wonkery of 3e, there may be subset of 5e fans who would be drawn to PF2e. Also, I wonder about the PF1e crowd. Its conceivable they will migrate to PF2e.

Additionally, there's the PF2e Org Play via Pathfinder Society. It is conceivable their Org Play may do something to draw away 5e AL players even if WotC doesn't drop the ball.

But none of that happens without a notable marketing push. Right now, there are no major D&D or PF video games. If a PF game came out that kicked ass (not just a tired fantasy retread using the license), I could see PF2e riding high on that.

But without major marketing? Then Paizo will do well against the 2nd tier who also don't do any meaningful marketing, but not achieve PF1e sales. Though, if they strip down the company to a minimal staff as cost control, they can keep cranking for the next decade.

Well I wouldn't hold out too much hope for a PF computer game with Pathfinder Online looking like vaporware but good point about 5ed growing the market enough that a smaller section of the pie can generate more sales.

Just haven't seen any significant flow of 5ed newbies to Pathfinder. Pathfinder's model of "3ed with more bells and whistles" seems pretty impenetrable if you don't already know 3ed. In my local community PF seems to have dried up nearly as much as 4ed leaving 5ed clearly dominant with a smattering of OSR and non-D&D stuff.

PF did get new people via friends of people who were already playing PF.

PF players tended to be content hungry and very profitable because of that.

Paizo spent much of 5e's lifecycle focused on making new games and new editions rather than producing content for Pathfinder. Naturally, many of Pathfinder's fans got bored with the content and moved to something else (many even went to 5e because hey it had new content). And with them went Paizo's main source of new Pathfinder players. Now they are in position to compete with Pathfinder anymore and will sink or swim off of PF2e, which just isn't good.

Quote from: Daztur;1061224In my local community PF seems to have dried up nearly as much as 4ed leaving 5ed clearly dominant with a smattering of OSR and non-D&D stuff.

That fits my experience. But there are still lots of people out there in their 30s who got into D&D 2000-2007 who see 3e D&D as ur-D&D, and are happy playing Pathfinder in their home groups til the cows come home. Pathfinder was never very successful in bringing in new players even in 2009-2013 but it retains a solid base of support to whom they can still sell stuff.

Edit: With the Great Wars of 2003-2008, 3e-PF seems to have a particularly strong play base in the US military, at least veterans of that era who spent long hours playing it on base. Isaac Arthur plays Pathfinder.

Selling more and more product to your most dedicated users is one of those things that sounds smart to MBAs but kills your business over the long term. But Paizo never had anywhere else to go. They don't sell their own RPG; they sell a legacy version of somebody else's. That's not the kind of thing that naturally has a large market. It lasts only until the owner of the original product gets its crap together and starts making the market happy again. Paizo sowed the seeds of its own destruction the first time they printed "3.5 THRIVES!" on a product.

Idk, if I had a few hundred people willing to subscribe to more than a thousand dollars a year to my product, I would find some way to keep them happy.

If GURPS can maintain two full time devs/editors and crank out content, then surely Paizo could have done that for Pathfinder.

Their attempt at their own RPG has been
a sad Trainwreck.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1061280Idk, if I had a few hundred people willing to subscribe to more than a thousand dollars a year to my product, I would find some way to keep them happy.

If GURPS can maintain two full time devs/editors and crank out content, then surely Paizo could have done that for Pathfinder.

Their attempt at their own RPG has been
a sad Trainwreck.

Tangentially, GURPS is now quietly down to one full time dev/editor. And Pyramid, their digital magazine, ends this year.

Back OT, with the larger playerbase and revenues, Paizo definitely had a lot of options available. PF2 demonstrates a lack of business competence - as others have commented, here and elsewhere, they drank their own kool-aid and believe that they are the Second Coming of 1970s TSR.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1061277Selling more and more product to your most dedicated users is one of those things that sounds smart to MBAs but kills your business over the long term. But Paizo never had anywhere else to go. They don't sell their own RPG; they sell a legacy version of somebody else's. That's not the kind of thing that naturally has a large market. It lasts only until the owner of the original product gets its crap together and starts making the market happy again. Paizo sowed the seeds of its own destruction the first time they printed "3.5 THRIVES!" on a product.

Can't really blame them, it was a golden business opportunity and they grabbed ahold of it, it'd be crazy not to, especially as it was impossible to know at that point that 5ed wouldn't suck as well. They did get really overconfident afterwards as can be seen with idiocy like Pathfinder Online.

But like you said people nostalgic for 3ed wasn't really set up to be a growing market segment. It'd really hard for a business to say "we're making bank now but it's not going to last so we've got to prepare for our market position to contract in the mid-term and set up for that" instead of "wheeeeeee, we're the most popular RPG on the market!"

Our comment also reminds me of how a lot of newspapers have very nice profit margins they days. They do that by firing people, cutting back on content and raising prices. This drops sales but there's enough of a customer base of old people to keep on chugging with slowly declining sales every year making good (but slowly less money) year by year with no real hope of ever having any growth.

Quote from: S'mon;1061232That fits my experience. But there are still lots of people out there in their 30s who got into D&D 2000-2007 who see 3e D&D as ur-D&D, and are happy playing Pathfinder in their home groups til the cows come home. Pathfinder was never very successful in bringing in new players even in 2009-2013 but it retains a solid base of support to whom they can still sell stuff.

Edit: With the Great Wars of 2003-2008, 3e-PF seems to have a particularly strong play base in the US military, at least veterans of that era who spent long hours playing it on base. Isaac Arthur plays Pathfinder.

Yeah that's a safe and fairly durable market, but they might not stick around for the changeover to PF2, especially as they have a stack of PF books now and they're not going to want more forever and ever and ever.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1061057Only someone who confuses their personal love of 3.x with mass market demand could think this. Paizo was screwed the moment 5e hit the shelves. There wasn't anything they could do. PF2 is going to fail. PF2 could be the most brilliant RPG system ever devised, and it will fail. It could be everything that I, personally, or you, personally, want out of an RPG, and it will fail.

I have to disagree on this point. There are still a fair number who for whatever reasons love the brokenness of 3e/Pathfinder and have not jumped on the 5e bandwagon. One of my players and the group he plays with are exactly that. They do not like 5es ease of play.

All Paizo had to do was keep Pathfinder chugging along and just wait for WOTC to sadly near inevitably screw the pooch and then present the mutant offspring as 6e. Then pick up the pieces AGAIN. They could make a 5e D&D Pathfinder and rake in the fans if WOTC screws up spectacularly.

I am hoping WOTC dodged that bullet and sticks with 5e for a good long time, updating the game with expansion books rather than killing 5e for this insane marketing obsession of edition treadmilling.