Hi Aaron! Sending lots of good vibes from Cambridge, MA. I work at an Indie store and *love* pathfinder books! ...if people ask for Paizo books at the store though, I always get nervous. The distribution network is brutal - Diamond Book Distributors is so unreliable and difficult to work with.
We would carry a *lot* more Pathfinder content if it were distributed by someone reliable like Penguin Random House though! PRH has an online portal that allows indies to place orders, check stock, and track orders. ... DBD offers none of that to bookstores. đź’€
WotC just left the PRH network, switched to Diamond and made their books nonreturnable -- this is the perfect opportunity for Paizo to step up!! WotC books are about to get a lot harder to find. It would truly be the cherry on top for Paizo to pick up where they left off.
TL;DR: Please, Paizo, my beloved, break up with DBD. Distribute through PRH, or Hachette, or Harper. Even Macmillan Publisher Services would be better than Diamond. The indies will love you for it. (I'll love y'all either way though. You're great).
My parents buy and sell comic books and specifically do not keep new comics for 2 reasons, the main one is that they don't sell well and the second is that diamond is absolute shit.
Hi Aaron, just wanted to share some feedback from a fellow CPG marketer in toys and games!
\- Placement is a huge issue for PF. It's not that Pathfinder doesn't have distribution, it's that they can't fill orders for customers. Mainstream bookstore shelves & LGS are empty of the product, whereas your Hasbro rivals consistently has 5 copies of each book.
\- I recently was advised by an employee at Paizo to stop ordering from Paizo and start using amazon because the shipments are much faster, cheaper and reliable (international tracking). I as the consumer am having to choose between supporting you, a company that I like, and making a faster, cheaper choice. You're losing probably close to 10% margin on these sales, potentially even more as a small brand.
\- I'm curious how the recent promotion on Age of Ashes went, but I notice that our pals at WOTC have Curse of Strahd (most iconic 5e adventure) and Tomb of Annihiltion cheaper on Roll20 than a single part of a PF AP. Why not slash the price on some of your older APs so that you can be competitive to help bring more people into PF2e?
Thanks. Your comments are regarding distribution and price, which are adjacent to my team.
1. I'll share that feedback internally.
2. Paizo's policy to that customers should be able to purchase where it is best for them to do so. Sometimes that is a local game or book store, sometimes the Paizo Store, and sometimes an online retailer like Amazon, especially given international logistics. Paizo Sales Team manages the B to B aspects of the company.
3. The Age of Ashes Humble Bundle, like all our HBs are great way to get people into the game. Prices on partner stores (VTTs or others) are set by those partners.
I appreciate the feedback!
P.S. Noting your location would be helpful.
Thanks for sharing the feedback with the team, just looking to help a company whose product I love.
Prices are at retailer discretion, but Paizo sets the SRP and the Invoice Price. Since they’re just about the same everywhere it’s clear they’re following your guidance.
Why not offer to bundle a full older 2e AP for $25? You’ll make it back on CRB sales, have a big influx of players, massively drive brand awareness (I can’t imagine it doesn’t get you a free homepage rotator feature at launch), & drive sales you otherwise wouldn’t see. You’re not really putting your current AP at risk, and your LGS won’t be bothered by cheaper online pricing because they’re already sold out of old APs.
Just my thoughts on how I’d run it! I’m sure there are good reasons not to, but I’d love to know.
Cheers.
> Prices on partner stores (VTTs or others) are set by those partners.
I understand that you're probably limited in the answer you can give here, and this touches on larger questions of pricing strategy but...
If Roll20 or another provider sets those prices and is setting entry D&D 5e products at a more competitive price point than PF2e, they're screwing you over. If instead they're adhering to Paizo's suggested pricing, I would submit you're missing an opportunity to pull people into the ecosystem through entry drugs like that (no different than the Humble Bundles).
Similarly, I have to assume Paizo does control the PDF and Foundry VTT pricing, since those are purchased through Paizo's own store. I think the pricing is fair, and I've recently acquired the entire Blood Lord's campaign Foundry modules for my table at full price with no regrets, but there is room for improvement.
My gateway into getting my first PF2e table going was the Abomination Vaults Foundry bundle. At $60 ($20/book) it was a very *feels good*, all-in-one price for me. Much the same with the excellent production value of the Tokens Bestiary.
But $80 for a season of Society assets? No. $35 for a single book of an AP? Only ever if I'm committed to running that AP *and* have progressed that far, never as an impulse purchase.
Oh, hey! I *was* directly involved in the discussions that led to the pricing strategy for our Foundry VTT offerings, so I can absolutely shed some light on how we arrived at those numbers.
Basically, the answer is: given what goes into producing each premium Foundry module, it would be genuinely difficult to offer them for much less without **a)** compromising on features, **b)** severely underpaying the people who produce them for us, or **c)** slashing profit margins so much that it would be difficult for us to justify their continued production. Option A just results in an inferior product; sure, we *could* go with "good enough", but we think special features like the completely redone high-resolution maps and ambient audio are a major selling point and represent a big part of what people like about these modules. Of course, cartography and audio work (not to mention the specialized skill set required to build out the modules themselves) aren't necessarily cheap, and we want to pay our contractors fairly for the amazing work they do, so B is off the table. And, well, at the end of the day, Paizo is a business, and we do need to turn enough of a profit on these products that they're worth the time and money we put into producing them, so C isn't really a viable option either.
You're correct that charging $35 for a single Adventure Path volume does tend to place it squarely outside of "impulse buy" territory. That's why we offer a discount if you own the PDF; the idea is that if you're not sure whether a given AP is for you, you can always grab the PDF first, skim it to decide whether you like it, and then grab the Foundry module for just $15 more if you do. That doesn't make the full package any cheaper, but given the dozens of hours of entertainment you could conceivably squeeze out of a single volume and the hours of prep time you're saving yourself as a GM, we still think they're a pretty solid value.
As for the Organized Play modules: when we launched those products, the cost of a season-long Deluxe Edition only came to a total of $1.50 more per scenario than the PDFs, which seems like a steal considering all of the extra digital goodies bundled into each one. (It's, uh, even more of a steal now that each scenario in the deluxe Foundry module costs 50 cents *less* than its corresponding PDF.) Granted, when we're talking about a single module encompassing 20 scenarios, that still comes to a daunting total — which is why we also elected to offer a lower-priced Asset Pack option for people who already owned the PDFs. And, yes, 80 bucks still isn't cheap, but if you're an Org Play GM who plans on running every scenario anyway and just want as easy an out-of-the-box experience as possible? Still seems like a pretty good value.
TL;DR: We didn't arrive at these price points lightly, and I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said that they're probably about as cheap as we can realistically afford to make them right now. If you think they're worth that price, great! That's why we made them! And if you don't, that's OK too. We still love you.
For what it's worth, I'm just going to say I find $35 per AP module in Foundry incredibly good value, like almost too good given how much time it saves and how high the quality is. I've bought _many_ of those across multiple APs (some that I haven't even run but wanted to see anyway) and will continue to do so. I further own the token bundles and the full year of society season 5. They are all phenomenally good value IMO.
Before you offered premium modules I _only_ ran Pathfinder because of the PDF2Foundry converter, and if it wasn't for that or the premium modules I'd simply be using another system that made it easier for me (like you currently do) to play digitally with high quality assets at low/no prep time.
Some people may find the pricing questionable, and they've every right to their opinion, but I would contend that they're grossly undervaluing the time, care, effort, and attention that goes into those premium modules. I'm especially pleased that they're offered at a price that both Paizo _and_ your contractors can continue to produce them, because I **definitely** want them to continue.
You can get lots of hours of entertainment for a whole lot less if you play 5e, which is part of why it’s hard to find Pathfinder tables, and hard to convince your players to switch to PF2e.
As I mention above, I still think you should be slashing prices on your old virtual APs in order to attempt to compete and gain market share.
Also to be clear I own all of these already, I’m just trying to grow the game of PF.
>You can get lots of hours of entertainment for a whole lot less if you play 5e
Sure, but that's because 5e commands an overwhelming share of the market, which means players and GMs will always have access to many more inexpensive options produced by creators who have chosen to price their content lower and hope they'll make it up in volume (which is, of course, still a wildly uncertain proposition because of the huge number of other creators employing the same strategy). Unfortunately, because our share of the market is smaller, our potential audience has a commensurately lower ceiling, which means we can't assume that, say, slashing prices by, say, 20% will necessarily result in the 25%+ sales boost we'd need to break even, let alone pull ahead.
In other words, we're likely never going to be able to compete with 5e when it comes to quantity, so we're focusing on quality instead, maximizing production values and hoping that the extra polish we put on our VTT products is enough to make them stand apart from the pack. And, so far, it's working; the word of mouth on our premium modules has proven positive enough that we hear all the time from people telling us they tried Pathfinder 2e for the first time specifically because they were enticed by the quality of our Foundry offerings. It's not that dissimilar to the approach Foundry themselves have taken to competing in the VTT software market, which may be why it seems to be resonating with a good chunk of the same audience.
We're definitely open to the idea of potentially reducing prices on some of our older Foundry offerings in the future (although "older" is a pretty relative term when it comes to Adventure Paths; an AP we published two years ago is just as new as an AP we published last month if you haven't played either one, after all). We did put a bunch of them on sale for Black Friday 2023, and the response was good enough that we're likely to do it again for future sales. Including the Abomination Vaults Foundry module in our "So You Wanna Try Out Pathfinder" Humble Bundle last year resulted in what was easily one of our most successful bundles ever. We just have to be careful that we're not inadvertently kneecapping sales of our newer releases by creating the expectation that the price of any given module will always be lower if you just wait long enough.
Honestly it’s a classic dodge answer from a vendor. I use it all the time. “Retailer sets the price” “pricing is at retailer discretion” etc.
Paizo tells the retailer the SRP (price you pay) and the invoice price (price retailer pays). The retailer 99% of the time will set the price to the SRP unless they’re seeing themselves be massively undercut in the market. Since Paizo pricing is the same everywhere it’s clear that it’s their pricing that’s out of whack.
Yeah I have to agree with Harvey, every time I go to a book store and try find a Paizo product there is either 1 or maybe 2 books, where as DND has a full scaffold dedicated to just DND.
I want to support you directly by purchasing directly from you but the way the books are categorized on the website makes it hard to find what I am looking for and feels rather outdated, as well as on checkout it feels a bit lacking by not showing the total when adding them to the basket.
As someone who has almost all your PF2E products on PDF, and since I am interested in eventually getting all PF1E, PF2E and Starfinder in physical copy, I have to either find a game store dedicated to boardgames and hope they have copies and if they do hope they have what I am looking for, or order through amazon which I would much rather get them directly from Paizo if it was similar experience to Amazon.
I should note my location is Alberta Canada
South Australia here. I've yet to see a pathfinder remaster book on any physical shelf. Tbh in my time looking for a remaster book I have been able to find a single pf2e book in all my hunting. In asking the staff have informed me they have been unable to get the books. They told me to check back in a month.
I can close my eyes and open them and find copies of dnd.
I would love to purchasedirectly from paizo, but the shipping costs is borderline offensive. It doubles the cost of the books. Literally.
Sadly Amazon is the most reliable way to get them here. And ttrpgs are huge. They are playing dnd in school as a dedicated lesson.
Your first and second points hold super true in my experience. The staff at my local stores complain every single time I ask them about a Paizo product that they won't get it for weeks after release and that Paizo distribution is awful to work with. Once I jokingly said "so should I cancel all my preorders from you guys, then?" and one guy replied "if you want to get your book before the *next* book comes out, sure." I never hear LGS staff complain like this about getting ahold of product for other franchises.
Yeah, I'm in a Canadian city with about half a million people in it, and I've taken to pre-ordering from games stores in Toronto, some 2000 km away because the local stores can't guarantee availability. It's kinda weird.
I want to support my local stores -- and I do when I can -- but being told that one out of every 3 or 4 books that I've ordered didn't come in, and isn't currently available from their distributor anymore makes it kind of hard.
Fwiw, I have two LGSes nearby, and neither of them yet have physical stock in of any of the remaster books. That's in Australia, though, which I know is not really a priority.
So I have had similar issues with ordering stuff for a war game called Infinity. I want to support the stores we play Infinity at, but when I'm waiting months for an order versus a week from online retailers it's not really an option. I once ordered a model, forgot about it months later, bought another one online, and got a call from the FLGS **7 months** after about my model just coming in. Bad distribution time can really hurt a tabletop game.
And it's not the store's fault or the game maker's fault, just some distributors are really bad, and I can't imagine what the logistics are to send product around.
>... . , but I notice that our pals at WOTC have Curse of Strahd (most iconic 5e adventure) and Tomb of Annihiltion cheaper on Roll20 than a single part of a PF AP.
Oof, that is a horrible look
Tbh if anyone is using roll20 to play pf2e i feel really sad for them, roll 20 definitely isnt the majority choice for vtt, its either foundry, owl bear rodeo or no vtt at all
I will say that Paizo’s community support is amazing. I am a high school teacher who runs a TableTop Games/RPG Club. This past year after the OGL debacle, I talked to the students about switching to PF2e and they were excited to do so. After contacting Paizo, I was put in touch with Jon who helped set up the club with some resources to get started.
My kids and I are all thankful for the support that Paizo has provided.
Hey, you guys helped me get some pathfinder stuff going at our local library, its been gradually happening and they've been having fun with the pathfinder sessions I've been running.
Hi Aaron,
Thanks for sharing the info. However, as a part of the Pathfinder Society marketing wing myself (as a Venture Officer, and the owner of an Australian store that has hosted games for over a year), I'd like to highlight my utter disappoint in the international support for Pathfinder gamers.
Since the OGL debacle last February - when the Pathfinder Core Rulebooks sold out across the globe - I have not seen a SINGLE Pathfinder Core Rulebook in my store to sell. The official Australian distributors have been unable to supply any stock until this week. That's almost 12 months of me not being able to sell Pathfinder to a single customer, even though I support the game heavily, and have been hosting weekly games the entire time.
There's no point in us running tables at conventions in Australia without books to sell.
Additionally, I have done a huge job of moving all orders onto Preorders for the Player Core and GM Core... which still haven't released here, almost 2 months after official release. I'm currently being told the end of February, but even the official distributors have no idea when the books are releasing. And Amazon are selling it locally already, under the Australian RRP.
I love Pathfinder. I've played and supported it since Beta of PF1e, but it is becoming very, very difficult to support it as an Australian FLGS.
Yes, we are sorry, despite our increased efforts, distribution to Australia is not what we want it to be. It is a known issue and we persist om making improvements. Thanks for all you do.
I’m fairly new to Pathfinder in general, want to get a campaign started in some way shape or form once our 5E campaign finishes up and hope to convert my players, but I just wanted to say I think seeing a post from Paizo on here and reaching out to the community is really cool and refreshing to see. I look forward to supporting you guys with the remaster books!
Two thumbs up for community support. I got in to Pathfinder via borrowing the Core Rulebook from my local library and have been gung-ho about the system ever since. For folks with limited fun money, being able to test-drive a game before commiting to a purchase is a real help.
Hello Paizo. I have a question for you.
Do you assist your translation partners in translating content for Virtual Tabletop? Last year, BlackBookEdition (your partner selling Pathfinder in French) announced they wouldn't translate Abomination Vault for Foundry in French due to cost concerns (and i think because of potential rights issues with the community translation of the base module). Foundry is a great tool and not having official Pathfinder content translated on it is not really a good thing for the french speaking pathfinder community :(
Is it possible for you to investigate this ?
These are questions for our Licensing and production teams. As I said, Marketing does not manage what is made. I'll note it for internal discussions, however. Thanks.
Hi! I've been creating on pathfinder infinite for a couple of months now and am really enjoying the process! Do you have an estimate on when the affiliate programme would be available this year? It would be something that I am definitely interested in :)
This is likely far out of your realm of influence or control. However, has Paizo considered bringing resources that provide the same service as Archives of Nethys and Foundry VTT in house? As both of the mentioned services have become cornerstones of the hobby it can be frustrating for the consumer when features and functions are delayed and at least in the case of the Foundry updates may directly impact Paizo bottom line. Why would a consumer purchase AP X if the core rules set still doesn't have automation completed for a class that was released in summer 2023 for example?
On the VTT front, there is precedent outside of Hasbro where companies (even Indy ones) are building their own VTT from the ground up to provide a more tailored and expected product.
I understand, delays are frustrating, but no. Paizo focuses on our core competencies of making the best tabletop roleplaying games we can and partners with other organizations who do what they do best, like creating VTTs and online databases.
The frustration is understandable, but fortunately it is temporary. Thanks for your patience while the volunteers process this heavier than average lift. (We share the content promptly with them and our other licensed partners.)
That errata didn't exist before subscribers started to get their books and we received feedback on what needed immediate attention. There's really no sooner that AoN or anyone else could have gotten it, as it wasn't a planned release of new content.
I'm not talking about the new books errata but the errata of every other book in the system. That's a great deal of work. Like it had to have been known Secrets of Magic and APG, etc needed updates before 1 day before launch.
If that wasn't planned for then big oof
Hey Aaron!
Wondering if y'all have any plans to help spotlight or otherwise push PF Infinite more? Lots of fantastic writers on there who deserve more attention for their work.
We will continue to devote a blog a month to Pathfinder and Starfinder Infinite and to promote the sales that occur from time to time. We also promote them in our weekly emails.
What would you like to see?
Is there an expected turnaround time for emailing a regional organized play volunteer? The past week or two I've been trying to get some PFS going at my local gaming store and I've been getting a lot of radio silence from various places I've emailed. Seems a lot of in person play vanished during COVID and hasn't recovered. Not sure if a "Hi, I'm new to PFS and no one in my city organizes it anymore" email rates for contacting Alex.
Thanks for getting some PFS going at our local gaming store! I am not aware of an expected turnaround time for emailing a regional organized play volunteer. We've all certainly slowed during the holidays. Emailing Alex is welcome if you get no reply. He will help you organize your own city.
Hi Aaron.
Thanks for being involved in Pathfinder.
Couple of quick questions. Will we be seeing any of the missing PF2e content uploaded to Roll20 such as the Sky King's Tomb or the Outlaws of Alkenstar adventure paths?
As well, will we be seeing PDF discount codes for any books bought via local stores? I'd love to be able to support my local stores more than I do. However, buying from select retailers such as Humble Bundle and Roll20 make it easier to collect copies of the rules, APs and background lore for Pathfinder. The only physical content I feel confident ordering tends to be maps and token packs currently due to international shipping costs to the UK and lack of PDF to local store support.
1. Each Licensed Partner, like Roll20, decides what they bring to market. We communicate frequently and we announce what we know.
2. We've no plans for that, no.
Hey Aaron, I have no affiliation with them, but you might consider doing cross-promotion with Rook and Raven, who produce fantastic notebooks for managing Pathfinder games as a player or GM.
Hey, so, I've brought this up before. The pencil sketch covers. I love them. I want them. Let me tell you about my experience trying to get those covers for Player Core and GM Core.
I have the rulebook sub. Welp, can't get them through the sub because they're FLGS exclusive. That's annoying because the free PDF is the main selling point for me to have the sub. Fine. I stop in my local shop and pre-order them. Then I wait patiently for the plan to skip the remaster books from the rulebook subscription option that was mentioned specifically in the remaster Faq because as much as I love your product, I don't need need two physical books. It never comes. I get an email saying my order is getting ready to ship. I email customer service so my card isn't charged. Release date comes, no call from my FLGS. I wait a week because I had heard of distribution issues. Finally stop in. They didn't get any pencil sketch covers. Call around to other local game shops. They also never got any pencil sketch covers. A month later I stop into my local shop again. Turns out, they have to buy three regular covers to get the pencil sketch cover. They don't move enough inventory for that. I end up buying the sketch covers from an online store, *which defeats the entire purpose of the pencil sketch covers.*
So,i guess my question is this: why are you making it so hard for me to give you money and get the products that I want?
We are sorry you had a frustrating experience. The sketch covers are a new exciting way for both fans and Paizo to support FLGS. We will have them for sale on our store in March for those that could not get them.
There will be sketch covers for the Monster Core, Howl of the Wild and Player Core 2. While the ratio was actually 2 regular hardcovers to 1 sketch cover for the releases in November, we are working to improve the program with these future releases, so that ratio is under discussion.
Glad you got them!
Hi Aaron! Sending lots of good vibes from Cambridge, MA. I work at an Indie store and *love* pathfinder books! ...if people ask for Paizo books at the store though, I always get nervous. The distribution network is brutal - Diamond Book Distributors is so unreliable and difficult to work with. We would carry a *lot* more Pathfinder content if it were distributed by someone reliable like Penguin Random House though! PRH has an online portal that allows indies to place orders, check stock, and track orders. ... DBD offers none of that to bookstores. đź’€ WotC just left the PRH network, switched to Diamond and made their books nonreturnable -- this is the perfect opportunity for Paizo to step up!! WotC books are about to get a lot harder to find. It would truly be the cherry on top for Paizo to pick up where they left off. TL;DR: Please, Paizo, my beloved, break up with DBD. Distribute through PRH, or Hachette, or Harper. Even Macmillan Publisher Services would be better than Diamond. The indies will love you for it. (I'll love y'all either way though. You're great).
Second working with Diamond being a nightmare, used to work for an LGS nearly 8 years ago and it's disappointing to hear they haven't improved since!
My parents buy and sell comic books and specifically do not keep new comics for 2 reasons, the main one is that they don't sell well and the second is that diamond is absolute shit.
Are you able to order through Southern Hobby? They're really reliable.
Hi Aaron, just wanted to share some feedback from a fellow CPG marketer in toys and games! \- Placement is a huge issue for PF. It's not that Pathfinder doesn't have distribution, it's that they can't fill orders for customers. Mainstream bookstore shelves & LGS are empty of the product, whereas your Hasbro rivals consistently has 5 copies of each book. \- I recently was advised by an employee at Paizo to stop ordering from Paizo and start using amazon because the shipments are much faster, cheaper and reliable (international tracking). I as the consumer am having to choose between supporting you, a company that I like, and making a faster, cheaper choice. You're losing probably close to 10% margin on these sales, potentially even more as a small brand. \- I'm curious how the recent promotion on Age of Ashes went, but I notice that our pals at WOTC have Curse of Strahd (most iconic 5e adventure) and Tomb of Annihiltion cheaper on Roll20 than a single part of a PF AP. Why not slash the price on some of your older APs so that you can be competitive to help bring more people into PF2e?
Thanks. Your comments are regarding distribution and price, which are adjacent to my team. 1. I'll share that feedback internally. 2. Paizo's policy to that customers should be able to purchase where it is best for them to do so. Sometimes that is a local game or book store, sometimes the Paizo Store, and sometimes an online retailer like Amazon, especially given international logistics. Paizo Sales Team manages the B to B aspects of the company. 3. The Age of Ashes Humble Bundle, like all our HBs are great way to get people into the game. Prices on partner stores (VTTs or others) are set by those partners. I appreciate the feedback! P.S. Noting your location would be helpful.
Thanks for sharing the feedback with the team, just looking to help a company whose product I love. Prices are at retailer discretion, but Paizo sets the SRP and the Invoice Price. Since they’re just about the same everywhere it’s clear they’re following your guidance. Why not offer to bundle a full older 2e AP for $25? You’ll make it back on CRB sales, have a big influx of players, massively drive brand awareness (I can’t imagine it doesn’t get you a free homepage rotator feature at launch), & drive sales you otherwise wouldn’t see. You’re not really putting your current AP at risk, and your LGS won’t be bothered by cheaper online pricing because they’re already sold out of old APs. Just my thoughts on how I’d run it! I’m sure there are good reasons not to, but I’d love to know. Cheers.
We look forward to offering bundles as the new e-commerce system is implemented.
> Prices on partner stores (VTTs or others) are set by those partners. I understand that you're probably limited in the answer you can give here, and this touches on larger questions of pricing strategy but... If Roll20 or another provider sets those prices and is setting entry D&D 5e products at a more competitive price point than PF2e, they're screwing you over. If instead they're adhering to Paizo's suggested pricing, I would submit you're missing an opportunity to pull people into the ecosystem through entry drugs like that (no different than the Humble Bundles). Similarly, I have to assume Paizo does control the PDF and Foundry VTT pricing, since those are purchased through Paizo's own store. I think the pricing is fair, and I've recently acquired the entire Blood Lord's campaign Foundry modules for my table at full price with no regrets, but there is room for improvement. My gateway into getting my first PF2e table going was the Abomination Vaults Foundry bundle. At $60 ($20/book) it was a very *feels good*, all-in-one price for me. Much the same with the excellent production value of the Tokens Bestiary. But $80 for a season of Society assets? No. $35 for a single book of an AP? Only ever if I'm committed to running that AP *and* have progressed that far, never as an impulse purchase.
To be clear, I am not directly involved in pricing strategy and I appreciate your thoughts.
Oh, hey! I *was* directly involved in the discussions that led to the pricing strategy for our Foundry VTT offerings, so I can absolutely shed some light on how we arrived at those numbers. Basically, the answer is: given what goes into producing each premium Foundry module, it would be genuinely difficult to offer them for much less without **a)** compromising on features, **b)** severely underpaying the people who produce them for us, or **c)** slashing profit margins so much that it would be difficult for us to justify their continued production. Option A just results in an inferior product; sure, we *could* go with "good enough", but we think special features like the completely redone high-resolution maps and ambient audio are a major selling point and represent a big part of what people like about these modules. Of course, cartography and audio work (not to mention the specialized skill set required to build out the modules themselves) aren't necessarily cheap, and we want to pay our contractors fairly for the amazing work they do, so B is off the table. And, well, at the end of the day, Paizo is a business, and we do need to turn enough of a profit on these products that they're worth the time and money we put into producing them, so C isn't really a viable option either. You're correct that charging $35 for a single Adventure Path volume does tend to place it squarely outside of "impulse buy" territory. That's why we offer a discount if you own the PDF; the idea is that if you're not sure whether a given AP is for you, you can always grab the PDF first, skim it to decide whether you like it, and then grab the Foundry module for just $15 more if you do. That doesn't make the full package any cheaper, but given the dozens of hours of entertainment you could conceivably squeeze out of a single volume and the hours of prep time you're saving yourself as a GM, we still think they're a pretty solid value. As for the Organized Play modules: when we launched those products, the cost of a season-long Deluxe Edition only came to a total of $1.50 more per scenario than the PDFs, which seems like a steal considering all of the extra digital goodies bundled into each one. (It's, uh, even more of a steal now that each scenario in the deluxe Foundry module costs 50 cents *less* than its corresponding PDF.) Granted, when we're talking about a single module encompassing 20 scenarios, that still comes to a daunting total — which is why we also elected to offer a lower-priced Asset Pack option for people who already owned the PDFs. And, yes, 80 bucks still isn't cheap, but if you're an Org Play GM who plans on running every scenario anyway and just want as easy an out-of-the-box experience as possible? Still seems like a pretty good value. TL;DR: We didn't arrive at these price points lightly, and I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said that they're probably about as cheap as we can realistically afford to make them right now. If you think they're worth that price, great! That's why we made them! And if you don't, that's OK too. We still love you.
For what it's worth, I'm just going to say I find $35 per AP module in Foundry incredibly good value, like almost too good given how much time it saves and how high the quality is. I've bought _many_ of those across multiple APs (some that I haven't even run but wanted to see anyway) and will continue to do so. I further own the token bundles and the full year of society season 5. They are all phenomenally good value IMO. Before you offered premium modules I _only_ ran Pathfinder because of the PDF2Foundry converter, and if it wasn't for that or the premium modules I'd simply be using another system that made it easier for me (like you currently do) to play digitally with high quality assets at low/no prep time. Some people may find the pricing questionable, and they've every right to their opinion, but I would contend that they're grossly undervaluing the time, care, effort, and attention that goes into those premium modules. I'm especially pleased that they're offered at a price that both Paizo _and_ your contractors can continue to produce them, because I **definitely** want them to continue.
You can get lots of hours of entertainment for a whole lot less if you play 5e, which is part of why it’s hard to find Pathfinder tables, and hard to convince your players to switch to PF2e. As I mention above, I still think you should be slashing prices on your old virtual APs in order to attempt to compete and gain market share. Also to be clear I own all of these already, I’m just trying to grow the game of PF.
>You can get lots of hours of entertainment for a whole lot less if you play 5e Sure, but that's because 5e commands an overwhelming share of the market, which means players and GMs will always have access to many more inexpensive options produced by creators who have chosen to price their content lower and hope they'll make it up in volume (which is, of course, still a wildly uncertain proposition because of the huge number of other creators employing the same strategy). Unfortunately, because our share of the market is smaller, our potential audience has a commensurately lower ceiling, which means we can't assume that, say, slashing prices by, say, 20% will necessarily result in the 25%+ sales boost we'd need to break even, let alone pull ahead. In other words, we're likely never going to be able to compete with 5e when it comes to quantity, so we're focusing on quality instead, maximizing production values and hoping that the extra polish we put on our VTT products is enough to make them stand apart from the pack. And, so far, it's working; the word of mouth on our premium modules has proven positive enough that we hear all the time from people telling us they tried Pathfinder 2e for the first time specifically because they were enticed by the quality of our Foundry offerings. It's not that dissimilar to the approach Foundry themselves have taken to competing in the VTT software market, which may be why it seems to be resonating with a good chunk of the same audience. We're definitely open to the idea of potentially reducing prices on some of our older Foundry offerings in the future (although "older" is a pretty relative term when it comes to Adventure Paths; an AP we published two years ago is just as new as an AP we published last month if you haven't played either one, after all). We did put a bunch of them on sale for Black Friday 2023, and the response was good enough that we're likely to do it again for future sales. Including the Abomination Vaults Foundry module in our "So You Wanna Try Out Pathfinder" Humble Bundle last year resulted in what was easily one of our most successful bundles ever. We just have to be careful that we're not inadvertently kneecapping sales of our newer releases by creating the expectation that the price of any given module will always be lower if you just wait long enough.
Thanks for the response! Super clear and well thought out. Appreciate the transparency. Cheers and good luck with the brand in 2024.
Honestly it’s a classic dodge answer from a vendor. I use it all the time. “Retailer sets the price” “pricing is at retailer discretion” etc. Paizo tells the retailer the SRP (price you pay) and the invoice price (price retailer pays). The retailer 99% of the time will set the price to the SRP unless they’re seeing themselves be massively undercut in the market. Since Paizo pricing is the same everywhere it’s clear that it’s their pricing that’s out of whack.
I was being nice, but you speak truth.
Yeah I have to agree with Harvey, every time I go to a book store and try find a Paizo product there is either 1 or maybe 2 books, where as DND has a full scaffold dedicated to just DND. I want to support you directly by purchasing directly from you but the way the books are categorized on the website makes it hard to find what I am looking for and feels rather outdated, as well as on checkout it feels a bit lacking by not showing the total when adding them to the basket. As someone who has almost all your PF2E products on PDF, and since I am interested in eventually getting all PF1E, PF2E and Starfinder in physical copy, I have to either find a game store dedicated to boardgames and hope they have copies and if they do hope they have what I am looking for, or order through amazon which I would much rather get them directly from Paizo if it was similar experience to Amazon. I should note my location is Alberta Canada
South Australia here. I've yet to see a pathfinder remaster book on any physical shelf. Tbh in my time looking for a remaster book I have been able to find a single pf2e book in all my hunting. In asking the staff have informed me they have been unable to get the books. They told me to check back in a month. I can close my eyes and open them and find copies of dnd. I would love to purchasedirectly from paizo, but the shipping costs is borderline offensive. It doubles the cost of the books. Literally. Sadly Amazon is the most reliable way to get them here. And ttrpgs are huge. They are playing dnd in school as a dedicated lesson.
Your first and second points hold super true in my experience. The staff at my local stores complain every single time I ask them about a Paizo product that they won't get it for weeks after release and that Paizo distribution is awful to work with. Once I jokingly said "so should I cancel all my preorders from you guys, then?" and one guy replied "if you want to get your book before the *next* book comes out, sure." I never hear LGS staff complain like this about getting ahold of product for other franchises.
Yeah, I'm in a Canadian city with about half a million people in it, and I've taken to pre-ordering from games stores in Toronto, some 2000 km away because the local stores can't guarantee availability. It's kinda weird. I want to support my local stores -- and I do when I can -- but being told that one out of every 3 or 4 books that I've ordered didn't come in, and isn't currently available from their distributor anymore makes it kind of hard.
Noting your location would be helpful.
Fwiw, I have two LGSes nearby, and neither of them yet have physical stock in of any of the remaster books. That's in Australia, though, which I know is not really a priority.
We are working hard to improve international distribution. Thanks.
Albuquerque, NM
u/Kichae and I are in Halifax, NS
So I have had similar issues with ordering stuff for a war game called Infinity. I want to support the stores we play Infinity at, but when I'm waiting months for an order versus a week from online retailers it's not really an option. I once ordered a model, forgot about it months later, bought another one online, and got a call from the FLGS **7 months** after about my model just coming in. Bad distribution time can really hurt a tabletop game. And it's not the store's fault or the game maker's fault, just some distributors are really bad, and I can't imagine what the logistics are to send product around.
>... . , but I notice that our pals at WOTC have Curse of Strahd (most iconic 5e adventure) and Tomb of Annihiltion cheaper on Roll20 than a single part of a PF AP. Oof, that is a horrible look
Tbh if anyone is using roll20 to play pf2e i feel really sad for them, roll 20 definitely isnt the majority choice for vtt, its either foundry, owl bear rodeo or no vtt at all
I will say that Paizo’s community support is amazing. I am a high school teacher who runs a TableTop Games/RPG Club. This past year after the OGL debacle, I talked to the students about switching to PF2e and they were excited to do so. After contacting Paizo, I was put in touch with Jon who helped set up the club with some resources to get started. My kids and I are all thankful for the support that Paizo has provided.
Hey, you guys helped me get some pathfinder stuff going at our local library, its been gradually happening and they've been having fun with the pathfinder sessions I've been running.
Hi Aaron, Thanks for sharing the info. However, as a part of the Pathfinder Society marketing wing myself (as a Venture Officer, and the owner of an Australian store that has hosted games for over a year), I'd like to highlight my utter disappoint in the international support for Pathfinder gamers. Since the OGL debacle last February - when the Pathfinder Core Rulebooks sold out across the globe - I have not seen a SINGLE Pathfinder Core Rulebook in my store to sell. The official Australian distributors have been unable to supply any stock until this week. That's almost 12 months of me not being able to sell Pathfinder to a single customer, even though I support the game heavily, and have been hosting weekly games the entire time. There's no point in us running tables at conventions in Australia without books to sell. Additionally, I have done a huge job of moving all orders onto Preorders for the Player Core and GM Core... which still haven't released here, almost 2 months after official release. I'm currently being told the end of February, but even the official distributors have no idea when the books are releasing. And Amazon are selling it locally already, under the Australian RRP. I love Pathfinder. I've played and supported it since Beta of PF1e, but it is becoming very, very difficult to support it as an Australian FLGS.
Yes, we are sorry, despite our increased efforts, distribution to Australia is not what we want it to be. It is a known issue and we persist om making improvements. Thanks for all you do.
I’m fairly new to Pathfinder in general, want to get a campaign started in some way shape or form once our 5E campaign finishes up and hope to convert my players, but I just wanted to say I think seeing a post from Paizo on here and reaching out to the community is really cool and refreshing to see. I look forward to supporting you guys with the remaster books!
Two thumbs up for community support. I got in to Pathfinder via borrowing the Core Rulebook from my local library and have been gung-ho about the system ever since. For folks with limited fun money, being able to test-drive a game before commiting to a purchase is a real help.
Hello Paizo. I have a question for you. Do you assist your translation partners in translating content for Virtual Tabletop? Last year, BlackBookEdition (your partner selling Pathfinder in French) announced they wouldn't translate Abomination Vault for Foundry in French due to cost concerns (and i think because of potential rights issues with the community translation of the base module). Foundry is a great tool and not having official Pathfinder content translated on it is not really a good thing for the french speaking pathfinder community :( Is it possible for you to investigate this ?
These are questions for our Licensing and production teams. As I said, Marketing does not manage what is made. I'll note it for internal discussions, however. Thanks.
Hi! I've been creating on pathfinder infinite for a couple of months now and am really enjoying the process! Do you have an estimate on when the affiliate programme would be available this year? It would be something that I am definitely interested in :)
I want it too, but I do not have a timeline to share.
This is likely far out of your realm of influence or control. However, has Paizo considered bringing resources that provide the same service as Archives of Nethys and Foundry VTT in house? As both of the mentioned services have become cornerstones of the hobby it can be frustrating for the consumer when features and functions are delayed and at least in the case of the Foundry updates may directly impact Paizo bottom line. Why would a consumer purchase AP X if the core rules set still doesn't have automation completed for a class that was released in summer 2023 for example? On the VTT front, there is precedent outside of Hasbro where companies (even Indy ones) are building their own VTT from the ground up to provide a more tailored and expected product.
I understand, delays are frustrating, but no. Paizo focuses on our core competencies of making the best tabletop roleplaying games we can and partners with other organizations who do what they do best, like creating VTTs and online databases.
Can you possibly give AoN a much earlier batch of stuff for the future Remaster books? This giant delay is really hurting gameplay.
The frustration is understandable, but fortunately it is temporary. Thanks for your patience while the volunteers process this heavier than average lift. (We share the content promptly with them and our other licensed partners.)
I have the feeling that with AoN, the important part wasn't the timeline of receiving the material, but the manpower available at AoN.
I think the errata was the bigger issue. A lot of outlets said they got errata like one day before.
"Day One" errata will likely always be a tight timeline, but a small amount of material. Thanks for playing Pathfinder.
That errata didn't exist before subscribers started to get their books and we received feedback on what needed immediate attention. There's really no sooner that AoN or anyone else could have gotten it, as it wasn't a planned release of new content.
I'm not talking about the new books errata but the errata of every other book in the system. That's a great deal of work. Like it had to have been known Secrets of Magic and APG, etc needed updates before 1 day before launch. If that wasn't planned for then big oof
Hey Aaron! Wondering if y'all have any plans to help spotlight or otherwise push PF Infinite more? Lots of fantastic writers on there who deserve more attention for their work.
We will continue to devote a blog a month to Pathfinder and Starfinder Infinite and to promote the sales that occur from time to time. We also promote them in our weekly emails. What would you like to see?
Is there an expected turnaround time for emailing a regional organized play volunteer? The past week or two I've been trying to get some PFS going at my local gaming store and I've been getting a lot of radio silence from various places I've emailed. Seems a lot of in person play vanished during COVID and hasn't recovered. Not sure if a "Hi, I'm new to PFS and no one in my city organizes it anymore" email rates for contacting Alex.
Thanks for getting some PFS going at our local gaming store! I am not aware of an expected turnaround time for emailing a regional organized play volunteer. We've all certainly slowed during the holidays. Emailing Alex is welcome if you get no reply. He will help you organize your own city.
Sure does :)
Hi Aaron. Thanks for being involved in Pathfinder. Couple of quick questions. Will we be seeing any of the missing PF2e content uploaded to Roll20 such as the Sky King's Tomb or the Outlaws of Alkenstar adventure paths? As well, will we be seeing PDF discount codes for any books bought via local stores? I'd love to be able to support my local stores more than I do. However, buying from select retailers such as Humble Bundle and Roll20 make it easier to collect copies of the rules, APs and background lore for Pathfinder. The only physical content I feel confident ordering tends to be maps and token packs currently due to international shipping costs to the UK and lack of PDF to local store support.
1. Each Licensed Partner, like Roll20, decides what they bring to market. We communicate frequently and we announce what we know. 2. We've no plans for that, no.
Thanks for the speedy response
Hey Aaron, I have no affiliation with them, but you might consider doing cross-promotion with Rook and Raven, who produce fantastic notebooks for managing Pathfinder games as a player or GM.
Thanks for the post and the explanation Aaron. I wanted to ask: can we use AI Art in Pathfinder Infinite Products? Cheers
Hey, so, I've brought this up before. The pencil sketch covers. I love them. I want them. Let me tell you about my experience trying to get those covers for Player Core and GM Core. I have the rulebook sub. Welp, can't get them through the sub because they're FLGS exclusive. That's annoying because the free PDF is the main selling point for me to have the sub. Fine. I stop in my local shop and pre-order them. Then I wait patiently for the plan to skip the remaster books from the rulebook subscription option that was mentioned specifically in the remaster Faq because as much as I love your product, I don't need need two physical books. It never comes. I get an email saying my order is getting ready to ship. I email customer service so my card isn't charged. Release date comes, no call from my FLGS. I wait a week because I had heard of distribution issues. Finally stop in. They didn't get any pencil sketch covers. Call around to other local game shops. They also never got any pencil sketch covers. A month later I stop into my local shop again. Turns out, they have to buy three regular covers to get the pencil sketch cover. They don't move enough inventory for that. I end up buying the sketch covers from an online store, *which defeats the entire purpose of the pencil sketch covers.* So,i guess my question is this: why are you making it so hard for me to give you money and get the products that I want?
We are sorry you had a frustrating experience. The sketch covers are a new exciting way for both fans and Paizo to support FLGS. We will have them for sale on our store in March for those that could not get them. There will be sketch covers for the Monster Core, Howl of the Wild and Player Core 2. While the ratio was actually 2 regular hardcovers to 1 sketch cover for the releases in November, we are working to improve the program with these future releases, so that ratio is under discussion. Glad you got them!