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I was planning on getting a Pathfinder Chronicles subscriptions, but I am also interested in getting most of the previous Pathfinder Chronicles products. As I've understood, I cannot combine these orders for matters I do not understand nor care about, but there's another issue that troubles my mind.
Since I tend to spend many hours in front of a computer, I'm fond of the PDF versions as well. Now, with a subscription I would get the PDFs from the products I get. But even if I would have an ongoing Pathfinder Chronicles subscription going on, buying previous products wouldn't give me the benefit, or am I wrong?
I'm asking this because I hope Paizo isn't ... favoring old customers over new ones. Let's say a new customer hears about Pathfinder RPG's success and browses through some of the free goodies, and approves the quality Paizo produces. Now the customer, in his or her great wealth, applies for Pathfinder Chronicles subscription and in addition orders the rest of the paperback products under the same line of products (Pathfinder Chronicles).
How are these situations handled? I might have missed some important bits. I couldn't find any exact information, and I've heard negative answers from other people I've asked from.
Director of Brand Strategy
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Free pdfs are an incentive to be a subscriber. If one could get all the benefits of subscribing retroactively, why subscribe all along? Just save up your money and buy everything all at once after subscribing, get the free pdfs and then cancel...So no, you only get pdfs for products as they ship when first released under your subscription.
Yeah, I'm not too happy with this, either, it's the main reason why I'm not a superscriber (wanted to get into the modules later, but since I'd have had to buy a number of PDFs separately, It wasn't an option for me - and, of course, it's far too late now)
Limited "catch up" offers would definetly be appreciated, like "subscribe now to PFAP and get the subscriber deal for previous adventures in the current AP."
I understand reasoning behind this, and yes, it does favour old customers - which is a good thing, since it breeds customer loyalty.
And I agree that there should be a real benefit to subscribing earlier rather than later.
But I also understand the newcomers, as I'd have been a newcomer of sorts with modules as well (at first, I didn't want to get them since I wasn't interested in single modules, but after I realised that the modules do have some extra Chronicles info as well as nice new art, I wanted to get in there, too. But I'm a completionist, and not prepared to pay extra for the older PDFS).
I guess some sort of compromise would be nice. My ideas:
A possible scenario (actual numbers can be way off)
You get 25% off the price of a PDF if you buy it at the same time as the print product.
If you subscribe to a line and buy the older titles in that as both print and PDF, you get another 25% off the PDF price - but not as cash, but "subscriber credit".
Example: Look at Pathfinder Companions (print for 9.99, pdf for 6.99 - let's call it an even 10 and 7).
In my example, if you buy a companion as Print+PDF, you get them for 15.25 (10 + 7 x 0.75).
If you subscribe to companions, you get the subscription sets of PDF and Print for an even 10 bucks. If you buy older companions as PDF+Print, you get them for 15.25, and also get 1.75 off the next subscription companion (i.e. 8.25)
If you subscribed now and got 10 old companions (I know, there aren't that many, so let's say it's a couple of years in the future), you'd get them for 152.5 and also 17.5 credit, meaning the next companion is free and the one after that only costs 2.5.
I think something like that would be a nice incentive for late arrivals without making subscribing early unattractive.
By the way: I think it's very important to reward loyal customers. Piss off loyal customers, and they might go away. Look how wizards' decision to go out of their way to drive old customers away has cost them lots of customers. I'm one of them, I used to buy lots of wizards' stuff - D&D books, FR novels, miniatures - but when they made clear that I don't matter to them as customers, I took the hint and stopped buying altogether. Saved me something between 100 and 150 € a month - a lot of which goes to Paizo now.
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This seems to start conversation. Good.
I admit the importance of awarding loyal customers, but there are multiple reasons why one has not started subscribing earlier. One possible would be that the person hasn't heard of Paizo's stuff before.
Offering a notable percentage off from the price of previous product from the same line (such as Companion) would encourage the customer to buy them off, and not steer the customer to buy those older products from Amazon. You might see what my point here is. ;)
Frankly speaking selling PDFs is just a bonus. There are no real material costs selling more and more of them, so even giving a 75% discount for the PDF when a subscriber buys both the paperback and the PDF shouldn't hurt at all. It ain't free, but it sure gives more of a reason to become a subscriber, even at a later stage.
Trouble might be if people would just start subscribing and cancel them outright. Though even then it'd easily mean they'd buy everything at once. Not something I would find to be a bad thing. :)
Offering a notable percentage off from the price of previous product from the same line (such as Companion) would encourage the customer to buy them off, and not steer the customer to buy those older products from Amazon. You might see what my point here is. ;)
I think Paizo won't be mortified if someone got the stuff from Amazon, instead.
Trouble might be if people would just start subscribing and cancel them outright. Though even then it'd easily mean they'd buy everything at once. Not something I would find to be a bad thing. :)
The problem with that is that they can buy everything at once later. They can wait the AP out and get it after the last part has been released.
And yes, that is a bad thing. It means that during the AP's run, they don't sell the books.
For the same reason, they don't do hardcovers of APs after they have been released: People would wait, not buying the APs.
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The big problem with allowing people to just retro buy it all at once is some would cancel and only restart from time to time. The problem with that is paizo would have no gauge on how many books to print nor would they have a steady income that subscriptions currently bring in. Which would make it harder for them to stay in business and expand. As they would have unpredictable spikes in income.
Plus you get into, it cost less to have more books made at one time. So the subscription tells them they need X number for the subscribers and then they tack on x amount for those to keep in stock to sell online and to sell to stores and amazon ect. I am just it makes it much easier on them as a company and helps them out a great deal in the long run.
PDFs for previously released issues must be purchased separately. However, please note that we *do* provide a discount to Pathfinder Adventure Path subscribers. The Pathfinder Advantage provides a 15% discount to all items in our store, excluding non-Paizo PDFs. This discount applies to back issues of any of our subscriptions in print and PDF format.
Have you thought about a package deal? An extra discount if you buy both PDF and Print?
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I subscribed late and I am not complaining.
They had a special offer of 40% off PDFs not long ago.
I do not think they are disadventaging new subscribers as I get the same deal as everyone else who is subscribed.
I think you guys need to let this go and hunt for deals for outstanding products. Also keep your eyes open. Discount codes pop up all the time and you will get the opportunity to pick up stuff cheap.
I subscribed late and I am not complaining.
They had a special offer of 40% off PDFs not long ago.
I do not think they are disadventaging new subscribers as I get the same deal as everyone else who is subscribed.
I think you guys need to let this go and hunt for deals for outstanding products. Also keep your eyes open. Discount codes pop up all the time and you will get the opportunity to pick up stuff cheap.
With all due respect, and I do mean this respectfully, I refuse to let this go. I am a subscriber and I am complaining; and I'm doing so because of my loyalty to Paizo, not in spite of it.
The subscription and 'Pathfinder Advantage' structure as it is, forces me--financially--to buy previously published adventure paths and campaign setting material from Amazon, because they offer the same product for a better price.
The reason this is disturbing to me is threefold, (i.) I would rather support Paizo over Amazon, (ii.) neither 'Pathfinder Advantage' nor my subscriptions provide me with an incentive to purchase previously printed APs and CS material from Paizo over Amazon (especially if you have 'Amazon Prime') and (iii.) It is well within Paizo's capability to provide me with said incentive, i.e. free pdfs for purchased material if you are a subscriber of that particular line.
Why not handle it this way.
First, if you've subscribed to a particular line, you get the normal benefit. Second, if you purchase any print content from that line after your subscription, you're provided with a free pdf of that content. To avoid abuse in the way of subscribing for a short time, buying a ton of content, and then cancelling you do three things (one of which is already in place).
1.) You do not grant free pdfs for content one has purchased before your subscription.
2.) You only grant free pdfs for content purchased (I'm not asking to get a free pdf for every AP ever printed just because I subscribe.)
2.) You do not grant free pdfs for content purchased before your first subscription shipment (already in place).
Worries about abuse will always exist, but other companies do this by providing trial periods, or by putting a minimum cap on the length of the initial subscription. And even if Paizo doesn't do these things, I highly doubt anyone would subscribe, buy $2,000 worth of content, and cancel. More than likely you'll see an increase in subscriptions as people realize that the free pdf for future purchased content in that line is more product for your dollar than Amazon offers, and so folks will continue with their subscriptions knowing that--when their group finally gets around to pitching in for 'Rise of the Runelords'--the free pdfs of that AP are waiting at Paizo.com, and not at Amazon where you can get the whole AP in hardcover for less that $40.
This doesn't insult long-time subscribers because new subscribers are paying exactly the same amount of money as old timers have, and it doesn't insult and punish new subscribers for not knowing Paizo existed or not having the cash to subscribe earlier.
I may be wrong but hey, I'm just looking for Paizo to give me more savvy incentives to continue supporting them, save out of blind loyalty, which is a fickle thing to base an online business model upon.
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Chief Technical Officer
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The plan you propose would essentially take the same benefits that monthly subscribers get and give them to people who drop in every six months and buy six months worth of product. But frankly, even though the credit card processing costs are higher, we'd rather get $13 a month for six months than $78 every six months; predictable monthly income, and predictable print run sizing, are the entire point of our subscription business.
Also, we want to make sure that the best time to subscribe is always "the sooner, the better". What you're proposing effectively provides retroactive subscriber benefits, and changes the best time to subscribe to "whenever."
Finally, note that the Pathfinder Advantage *does* provide a 15% discount on Paizo books and PDFs (and a lot more) so current AP subscribers *do* actually get a better deal on picking up older products... it's just not as good a deal as if you had subscribed while those products were current.
I know! You get free PDFs with back orders, but only if you're a Charter Superscriber! Yeah, that's the ticket! Those 1075 should get something for their loyalty!!
0:)
What's interesting to me is as of 6/24/2008 there were slightly more than 250 charter superscribers and "thousands" of charter subscribers ... and now there's just over a thousand charter subscribers ...
It would be incredibly cool to see some kind of "loyalty sale" for long-term subscribers to enable them to pickup older PDFs at a deeper discount over the 15% Pathfinder Advantage.
Something like "You've subscribed for X years to X product line, so here's a 75% discount on back-issue PDFs" or something like that.
Assuming that we're talking something like a 2-3+ year subscription term, I don't see that such a program would discourage subscriptions...
Obviously, my own preferences and behaviors are anecdotal, but there's some lost sales for Paizo due to the pricing of back-issue PDFs. I jumped on the subscription train at AP #28.
That's 27 PDFs that I don't have, and at $11.89 (adjusted for Pathfinder Advantage discount), $321.03 to acquire them.
As much as I'd like to have them, I'm going to learn to live without for that price.
If they were $3.50/each for long-time subscribers (whatever that term may be), I'd totally pick them up once I reached that term (along with the rest of the PDF back catalog that I don't have because I didn't subscribe from the start of all of the lines).
There's money to be made here...
I have just recently become a subscriber. I started with AP 59... so my math looks a little different.
That would be 58 x 11.89 = wow
I look at this as playing catch up. Every once in a while I will buy a PDF. 11.89 isn't a bad price for a 96 page PDF. I get to pick and choose and leave the lemons. Now, at least that's my rational side. As for the completionist in me... that's another story.
It is also worth mentioning the 10 year sale this summer. It helped me do a whole lot of catchup!
I also greatly prefer to read a paper copy over PDF. This leads me to prioritize completing the paper set before considering the electronic. Now if the powers that be would consider a reprint of Cheliax or Elves... I could save a bundle.
Arriving late to the game shouldn't imply I have lost out. I take it that I have saved money over the last 5 years while playing Rollmaster... and now that my group wants to move out of the 1980s we have set on PF.
So that leaves me playing catch up, but I don't feel that old product should be given to me! Now to go do a little shopping...
I look at this as playing catch up. Every once in a while I will buy a PDF. 11.89 isn't a bad price for a 96 page PDF. I get to pick and choose and leave the lemons. Now, at least that's my rational side. As for the completionist in me... that's another story.
As a standalone product, it's not a horrible price. As an ancillary/supporting product to the print copy that I already own? It's not that fabulous.
So that leaves me playing catch up, but I don't feel that old product should be given to me! Now to go do a little shopping...
Given, certainly not, but I'd definitely like to see some kind of concession made to long-time subscribers that didn't get in on the ground floor.
Not that I feel I'm entitled to any such thing - as I mentioned, if pricing isn't to my liking, I'l have to learn to do without. :)
What about 50% off back-catalog PDFs of books purchased in a product line for which you have a current subscription?
So, say you are subscribed to Pathfinder Modules and you pick-up Hangman's Noose print-edition. Then you decide you'd like to have the PDF to go with it. Because you previously purchased Hangman's Noose print-edition AND you're currently subscribed to the Pathfinder Modules line, you could get the PDF of Hangman's Noose for 50% off. That method does three things:
1.) Requires current subscription to the product line.
2.) Requires a previous purchase of the print product in that product line.
3.) Still costs more for the PDF than the free PDF with subscriptions.
Therefore customers still have a great incentive to stay subscribers (Free PDF) but still get a discount on the PDF of books they already have in print copies, provided those print copies were also from the Paizo store.
I loved when Paizo marked all their PDFs down super low that one time in response to WotC yanking all of their PDFs from the shop. I picked up a few PDFs for books I already had in print at that point.
Anyway, I think it would be nifty if some kind of program like this were done that provides a lesser discount (as opposed to no discount) for people who want to pick up a PDF of a book they already own.
So that leaves me playing catch up, but I don't feel that old product should be given to me! Now to go do a little shopping...Given, certainly not, but I'd definitely like to see some kind of concession made to long-time subscribers that didn't get in on the ground floor.
Not that I feel I'm entitled to any such thing - as I mentioned, if pricing isn't to my liking, I'l have to learn to do without. :)
I think your idea of only making steep "backcatalog discounts" available after a year or two's continuous subscription is a good one. That would still mean there's incentive to subscribe immediately.
I do still see a problem - I'm one who, after I signed up for my various subscriptions, did go back and pick up all the PDFs which came out before I subscribed. I got those at "only" the discount provided by my PF advantage. I essentially took Paizo's word for it that there wasnt going to be a cheaper way - it wouldnt bug me personally if the kind of scheme you're suggesting were offered but there'd probably be somebody who got upset over giving their money over early only for a better deal to be offered later.
I do still see a problem - I'm one who, after I signed up for my various subscriptions, did go back and pick up all the PDFs which came out before I subscribed. I got those at "only" the discount provided by my PF advantage. I essentially took Paizo's word for it that there wasnt going to be a cheaper way - it wouldnt bug me personally if the kind of scheme you're suggesting were offered but there'd probably be somebody who got upset over giving their money over early only for a better deal to be offered later.
Obviously, I can recognize that I'm biased, but:
I think that buyers and sellers need to accept that there are no absolutes. Early adopters usually pay "more" for something.
I've paid "regular" price for several Paizo products, only to see them deeply discounted during the 10th Anniversary sale.
It happens.
I don't feel that a seller should feel obligated to shut themselves off from a particular avenue of income because early adopters have a false perception that they're somehow being disadvantaged.
Ask yourself this: Why did Paizo put deep discounts on the physical copies of the various APs during the recent sale? They were clearing out backstock that wasn't moving.
With a digital product, you obviously don't have the same issue of storing a product that's not selling, but you do have the similar issue of "it's not selling" and you can use similar tactics to encourage some sales.
Especially with a digital product, if the sales of the print/PDF combination of products has already paid off the development costs, every subsequent sale of the digital product is pure profit.
I surely can't be the only Paizo subscriber who would take advantage of such a sale, but, of course, it's ultimately up to Paizo if they think the profit benefits outweigh whatever potential risks may be associated.
I just don't think they should cater to a customer or customers who would be offended because they paid more for it at one time.
That's a fact of life in commerce. Prices fluctuate. Something on sale this week wasn't on sale last week. Obviously, the customers who paid the higher price for the object felt that the price was appropriate, else they wouldn't have paid it.
The difference I see is that paizo have consistently said there's no "backorder benefit" beyond the PF advantage. I think you could argue they've given the impression that it isn't going to change. As such, me going and completing my collection could be seen as taking them at their word, not as being an early adopter.
I'm just playing devil's advocate really. I wouldn't have a problem with it and think the idea of providing a "pdf backorder benefit" after two continuous years of subscription (or something) is a good one.
Oh, they have definitely said that. And honestly, I don't think that they're going to change that anytime soon.
And that's fine. That's their decision as a business.
But it's one I disagree with, and hence I propose something that doesn't nullify their primary concern with subscription losses, and note that I've got even more money than I spend now that I'd like to give them.
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Additionally, while we currently have occasional "why are you penalizing new customers" threads pop up because folks either just discovered PF or did not become a subscriber for one reason or another, offering a deep discount on back catalog items after repeated stating that the 15% discount is the only ongoing discount that would be available (not including limited specials/sales as these are short lived events), we would inevitably see "why are you penalizing existing customers" thread pop up.
Would I be irked? Maybe a bit.
Would I go off like I have seen happen in some "why are you penalizing new customers" thread? No, because at the end of the day the products are quality products and worth the price more often than not.
On the flip side of the "it happens" coin, sometimes one finds out about a product or offer late or after it expired. This happens as well and it is not the fault of the company who is producing the product.
Just 2cp, YMMV.
The only issue I have there is referring to any of this as "penalizing" customers - new, old or current.
Those that actually believe that they're somehow being penalized should be slapped, repeatedly.
With an Abrams tank.
I don't feel penalized for not getting in on the ground floor with Paizo. I could have been a charter subscriber - I think that I joined up right around the time the Dragon/Dungeon announcement was made.
I chose not to.
In hindsight, that kinda sucks. But do I feel penalized for choosing not to subscribe? Nope.
Those that do? I lump them in the same category as those who would feel that something is somehow being taken away from them by extending some kind of deal to late adopters.
But that's me. :)
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Chief Technical Officer
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I've paid "regular" price for several Paizo products, only to see them deeply discounted during the 10th Anniversary sale.
It happens.
I'd just like to mention that when we do sales like that, we're always careful to price anything released in the past few years at a point where subscribers still got a better deal when you factor in the value of the subscriber discounts and benefits (like free PDFs).
Vic, I wasn't complaining, by any means.
I'm most definitely NOT on the side of the fence that would complain about their subscriber benefit were you to provide that benefit to new subscribers so they could stock up on the back catalog.