Paper I wrote on Paizo for my Marketing Class


Paizo General Discussion

Silver Crusade

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I thought you all might find this fascinating. My point of view on how Paizo Publishing has been successful.

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PAIZO PUBLISHING

Paizo Publishing is a company that provides a roleplaying game, several adventures, and a marketplace with which to purchase things online. They also publish novels, accessories, and include the customer in major product decisions, especially in the testing phase of their products. They have the leading online hobby store (which isn’t necessarily true), and offer many different products from many different publishers. They ship their products all over the planet.

The best known product they have for someone like me is their PATHFINDER ROLEPLAYING GAME, which is published on paper, in PDF, and for free on their PRD and a competitive website – http://www.pfd20srd.com. They also produce ADVENTURE PATHS, which are whole campaigns that support the PATHFINDER roleplaying game. They also provide one world system – Golarion – for a player’s adventuring needs. Beyond those, they have provided stand-alone adventure scenarios for purchase.

Of the services they provide one is an online store which costumers can use to purchase their products. A PATHFINDER REFERENCE DOCUMENT – which allows you to download the core game rules for free to play – and a store blog.

To maintain a distinct competitive advantage over other companies of their ilk, including Wizards of the Coast – who currently publishes DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS – Paizo has embraced market and customer cooperation. Paizo maintains a competitive edge by supporting the Third Party d20 Market. They allow customers to review their products and the products others put out. They also review products in their store blog. Various employees give their comments and recommendations on the best their competitors have to offer. Although, of all the products and services and advantages they correctly implement its got to be Customer Service. Back in the year 2000, WotC gained a huge competitive advantage by introducing the Open Game License, and making DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS open to all to add to and expand upon.

Wizards of the Coast lost this competitive advantage when they stopped supporting the OGL and the d20 system altogether. They also did not provide support to the d20 market, which caused a boom to go bust around five years after the OGL was introduced. During that time, Wizards of the Coast’ customer service fell down the tubes. Wizards of the Coast reaped their rewards when they announced a new Edition of Dungeons and Dragons (4th Edition) in 2008. They also treated their loyal customers like drones when they turned too unethical marketing practices.

By this time, to stay in business, Paizo Publishing – which published DUNGEON and DRAGON magazines, began working on Pathfinder as a response to 4th Edition. They opened up the system to playtest and everything skyrocketed for them. Paizo Publishing involves the customer in a whole new way. Their greatest strength in earning customer loyalty isn’t the Adventure path, it’s their customer service.


Customer service is a good point- but I submit that its more accurate to call it customer ENGAGEMENT. They treat and entreat the players and purchasers of their products in a very individual and personal way, bringing on a -dare i say?- almost fanatical loyalty. It is an EARNED loyalty, which makes it in many ways even more hard core. The customer knows the company is listening to them, meeting the interests the customer wants, and even supporting those that can meet those needs outside their own products. Its that willingness to create & support the community that brings the people back.


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Hope your teacher doesn't click the link. You got it wrong.

Also - and I'm just reacting as someone proofreading would - I'd recommend expanding a bunch of it to explain many of the concepts you refer to. The idea of an RPG should be reasonable to assume your teacher understands, but "supporting the Third Party d20 Market" won't mean anything. "What's a d20 market?" If you re-read your essay from the perspective of someone who doesn't already know all this, you'll discover a bunch of it will be confusing.

I'd recommend doubling your word-count to make things clearer and more engaging for the reader.


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Not to nitpick, but "fascinating" is a bit strong.

You provide a most basic descrption of Paizo with a few facts, that you imho fail to tailor to the "consumer" of your paper (d20?, OGL?). Some of the statements are at least debatable ("WotC gaining a huge advantage by the OGL" is certainly a view not shared by quite some people).

You close your really short paper (though maybe you had to be this brief) with a statement that is very generalistic and hints that you don't really understand what the term "customer service" (as opposed to "customer relations") encompasses.

If I were you, I would expand the word count to explain a few terms. I would also use a distinct example to portray the point you want to make, for instance the detailed process how the Pathfinder RPG came to be and exactly why you think that Paizos relation to it's fans (fans as opposed to "mere" customers) is the main reason for it's success.

As a Paizo fan, I would say that the main reason for Paizos success is that Paizo gave the 3.5 fans what they wanted when they wanted it in the a way they wanted it AFTER doing a great job on existing formats (i.e. Dungeon and Dragon magazines).

"Customer Service" is really just the tiniest part of this.

Silver Crusade

Well, he gave me an "A" anyway, so I did something right. (35 pts./35 pts.)

I did a SWOT analysis of Paizo Publishing just now.

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Paizo Publishing’s Customers and Competitors
Oh, identifying Paizo Publishing’s customers. Yes, I can do that; I am intimately familiar with Paizo Publishing’s customers. (Paizo Publishing, 2010) (Wizards of the Coast, 1999) (Fogel, 2013)
1. Paizo’s customers all have internet access. This is pretty important since most of the business they do is through their internet store.
2. They are about between the ages of 20 and 50. They are a little older than the typical user at Wizards of the Coast. They are very seasoned customers in this market, and they are not ready to accept a stunning change.
3. They all want adventures to play their roleplaying games. Paizo’s biggest sellers are the Adventure Path products. Such products allow the typical Paizo customer to use their in house game – Pathfinder – to play for an evening’s entertainment.
4. Paizo’s Customers also trust the Pathfinder RPG. The Pathfinder RPG compatible logo means that there is strong brand recognition. This has contributed greatly to Paizo’s success.
5. The typical Paizo customer is included and engaged in product production at Paizo. Every once in a while, Paizo Publishing has an engaging open public playtest with one of their products. The typical Paizo customer can download the pre-release materials and make comments on them. The Paizo Publishing writers will often take their suggestions into account for further and final development of the product.
6. Finally, their game is free. It’s available on the Paizo Website as the PRD. And thanks to the OGL, anyone can use the game to make a derivative. So there are people directly competing with Paizo Publishing who are their most loyal customers.
7. One last thing: the typical Paizo Publishing customer is highly intelligent and creative. Any visit to their boards shows this to be in evidence.

The Market is small. You are dealing with about as much as 2% of the population, and not all of them want to buy for Pathfinder. I would say that at any given time, Paizo’s market comprises about 30 million people, that’s one percent of the market. When I purchase a Paizo product (people mostly share them with me), and I get to read through them I am often happy that I have something to work with to help me create an evening of free entertainment for a group of people. Usually, I am happy with the purchase or the share. It fills the need of having not enough information on an area that I get to explore further. As for social influences, I only purchase these resources so I can provide an evening’s worth of free entertainment to a group of people who want to be entertained by playing a game through an interactive novel with an alter ego.

COMPETITORS
The primary competitors for Paizo Publishing are many. There are far too many of them to list. But I’ll list a few. Note though, all of these are targeting a small market so you have to have something so powerful as to make a lot of money at it. Paizo’s primary competitors include: Alluria Publishing (beautiful products), Dreamscarred Press (their target market is a subset), Rite Publishing, Necromancers of the North, Jon Brazer Enterprises, Northwinter Press, and Raging Swan Press.

Secondary Competitors include: Wizards of the Coast, Steve Jackson Games, Alderac Entertainment, Green Ronin Publishing, Mongoose Publishing, Chaosium, Fantasy Flight Games, DrivethruRPG, RPGnow, and Your Games Now.

BARRIERS
The strongest barriers for Paizo have always been timing and Wizards of the Coast. When Wizards of the Coast started to belittle most of their customers’ intelligences by viewing them as little more than robotic consumers; everything changed for Paizo Publishing. Although the timing wasn’t right, Wizards of the Coast abandoned their primary market for a younger set.
As a result, Wizards’ former customer base was left orphaned and Paizo Publishing produced Pathfinder, taking up almost all of Wizards of the Coast’s former customer base. This happened because of the OGL – the Open Gaming License. Wizards’ very revolutionary OGL was an instrument for their fall from grace. If the OGL didn’t exist, Wizards’ former customer base wouldn’t have abandoned them. So the OGL was a two edged sword. If the community it generated is respected, then you have a distinct competitive advantage. If not, you lost your competitive edge and possibly your profits.

COMPANY ANALYIS (SWOT)
I am not privy to Paizo Publishing’s internal workings but I’ll do my best as an outsider. The primary goal of every company is to make money. Their objectives, from my perspective, is to provide outstanding customer service by engaging the customer, to make sure that there is a convenient place to purchase products online, and to provide competitive products. They also do their best to support the 3rd Party Market.

INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT

STRENGTHS:
1. Experienced, professional developers such as Sean K. Reynolds and Eric Mona.
2. A small company unowned by a larger conglomerate.
3. The embrace of the OGL as a strength.
4. Direct buy through an internet store.

WEAKNESSES:
1. Needing warehouse space for their products.
2. Products are printed outside of the U.S.
3. No Print on Demand services.
4. Their website’s design is stale.

OUTSIDE ENVIRONMENT
OPPORTUNITIES:
1. Print on Demand services for their discontinued products inside the United States of America.
2. The Embrace of their direct competitors. Competitors are allowed to advertise onsite.
3. The publishing of Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition this August is a big event. It could provide an opportunity for Paizo Publishing, or . . .

THREATS
1. The publishing of Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition can be a direct threat. Dungeons and Dragons is a 39 year-old brand, being released on 1974 at January 1st. It’s venerable, it’s recognizable, and it can be a direct threat to Paizo’s profits.
2. Recent history has shown in this industry that if you are positioned as the leader, treating your customers as robot consumer drones, belittling their intelligence, and abandoning your competitive edge – in this case the OGL – can make you lose your market lead. Wizards of the Coast had a monopoly in their own minds. Paizo Publishing currently has the market lead.
3. Again, abandoning the OGL is a big threat to your business if you are the leader (or a direct competitor). Having many companies produce derivatives of your product is actually a boon, as they will increase the value of your products. Those competing companies – producing derivatives – are your biggest strength.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service Manager

GM Elton wrote:

1. Paizo’s customers all have internet access. This is pretty important since most of the business they do is through their internet store.

"All" is a bit strong of a term actually. A good chunk of our customers do have internet access, but certainly not "all".

We do have a subset of customers who have little or no internet access. Some of them are people who converted from the magazine days when we took a lot more orders via mail, some of them are prisoners, some don't trust any online shopping experience, some just don't like technology and some I don't know the reasons behind the lack of internet options.


Oh, I can just imagine the rules lawyering (and subsequent events there after) of a "nice" round table game in prison.... lol

I wonder if any play LG alignment??

In any case, kudos to all.


Argen wrote:
Oh, I can just imagine the rules lawyering (and subsequent events there after) of a "nice" round table game in prison

Not in Wisconsin

Although to be fair, the ruling was against D&D, not Pathfinder...

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