Quick question for you folks at Paizo. If I were to buy products by WotC through Paizo, would you folks make any money on the sale or does the entire purchase just go to WotC?
Basically, here is what I'm getting at. I'm a table top player, and even before this recent announcement regarding license renewal with Dungeon and Dragon became reality; I kind of made my sense motive check with WotC about a year and half ago.
As a player and consumer, I've had no invested interest with WotC and their vision going forward for some time now. But that's neither here nor there. What I want to do is invest in you...PAIZO. So, if I were to buy something like Dungeon Tiles made by WotC through you...do you make money?
Face it guys, you're my new ambassador for table top gaming...here's hoping to your continued success and hopefully growing success!
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Paizo is an LLC, which is a limited liability company. It's a very flexible structure for an entity, and if I had to guess, I'd say they either have membership units of some type, but possibly stock.
You can't really invest in Paizo's securities because they are not a public company. Investing in private companies is very hard because you have to have an exemption from registration for the transaction. The most common exemption companies rely on is that the purchaser is an accredited investor (which means you are fairly wealthy). Most average joe's would not meet this standard.
Of course, all this assumes Paizo actually wants to raise outside money. If they don't, there's no sense in issuing you shares because all they end up doing is diluting control/ownership. If they did want to raise money, they'd most likely go to a private equity fund, an investment banker, or some other source of venture capital. Such entities would not be welcoming of the idea of a bunch of board lurkers investing even if it were permissible to have them do so. Such individuals would also likely request that the company change its structure because most investments are made in corporations and not LLC's.
As for Paizo going public, it's highly unlikely given that the cost of being a public company is very high due to compliance with laws. In addition, companies normally go public because they need access to a large amount of capital or the investors involved in the company are seeking to liquidate their investment. Paizo's not really in an aggressive growth mode where they would need the former and are unlikely to have institutional investors who would demand the later.
In short, there's a 99% chance you can't invest in nor will ever be able to invest in Paizo.
The thread title "Investing" was not meant in a Wall Street context.
What I mean by investing: "Investing in Paizo to succeed in its current business model and hopefully help them create a finanicial capital where they can grow with confidence and keep the table top hobby alive."
If Pazio can become successful and continue to increase its piece of the gaming industry pie, then its a win/win situation for the table top community and Paizo.
And Fatespinner...no apology needed. You had a question, and now you know. ; )
To answer the original question, yes, we do make money if you buy Wizards of the Coast products here on paizo.com.
Great! That's all I need to know. Thanks Gary.
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To answer the original question, yes, we do make money if you buy Wizards of the Coast products here on paizo.com.
I just realized, the majority of shopping I do here is for Paizo products. Most of it has been for map packs and item cards, with some other games like the D&D board game and the Order of the Stick game. In fact, I just bought a couple of flip mats I'm looking forward to springing on my players.
( muaa haa )