Paizo Subscriptions Update

Obviously not for Paizo, since their loyalty incentive rewards you for subscribing to multiple product lines, not for how long you've been consistently purchasing stuff. So, yes, reducing the number of your subs is a reduction in customer loyalty.

In the end, Paizo cares about their bottom line and very little about their customers

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

Obviously not for Paizo, since their loyalty incentive rewards you for subscribing to multiple product lines, not for how long you've been consistently purchasing stuff. So, yes, reducing the number of your subs is a reduction in customer loyalty.

In the end, Paizo cares about their bottom line and very little about their customers

Wow, that's pretty rude. Sure, as a business they care about being able to make money and stay in business, or obviously grow and be even more successful, but dropping that line as if they're your average big corporation is really rude to how much love the developers and others put into the products.

No need to take your salt that this particular product line wasn't financially viable for them and turn it into venom for the company.

Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

Obviously not for Paizo, since their loyalty incentive rewards you for subscribing to multiple product lines, not for how long you've been consistently purchasing stuff. So, yes, reducing the number of your subs is a reduction in customer loyalty.

In the end, Paizo cares about their bottom line and very little about their customers

Wow, that's pretty rude. Sure, as a business they care about being able to make money and stay in business, or obviously grow and be even more successful, but dropping that line as if they're your average big corporation is really rude to how much love the developers and others put into the products.

No need to take your salt that this particular product line wasn't financially viable for them and turn it into venom for the company.

Terevalis is in the "my book hasn't shipped yet, why hasn't it shipped yet, has it shipped yet, Paizo is a terrible company, but now I added another book to my order to support Paizo because I love them, maybe this will make my book ship faster, oh no, it hasn't shipped yet, why hasn't it shipped yet, has it shipped yet" phase of the month which means he'll be going through an emotional rollercoaster that can be difficult to understand for most of us.

Once his Dark Archive will be on its way, he'll go back to normal (until the next major book is on the horizon, that is).

VestOfHolding wrote:

Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

Obviously not for Paizo, since their loyalty incentive rewards you for subscribing to multiple product lines, not for how long you've been consistently purchasing stuff. So, yes, reducing the number of your subs is a reduction in customer loyalty.

In the end, Paizo cares about their bottom line and very little about their customers

Wow, that's pretty rude. Sure, as a business they care about being able to make money and stay in business, or obviously grow and be even more successful, but dropping that line as if they're your average big corporation is really rude to how much love the developers and others put into the products.

No need to take your salt that this particular product line wasn't financially viable for them and turn it into venom for the company.

Terevalis is in the "my book hasn't shipped yet, why hasn't it shipped yet, has it shipped yet, Paizo is a terrible company, but now I added another book to my order to support Paizo because I love them, maybe this will make my book ship faster, oh no, it hasn't shipped yet, why hasn't it shipped yet, has it shipped yet" phase of the month which means he'll be going through an emotional rollercoaster that can be difficult to understand for most of us.

Once his Dark Archive will be on its way, he'll go back to normal (until the next major book is on the horizon, that is).

No, their CS has been crappy for a while, you just tend to worship everything they do, until you don't, then you go back to loving everything they do, until you dont.

Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

Obviously not for Paizo, since their loyalty incentive rewards you for subscribing to multiple product lines, not for how long you've been consistently purchasing stuff. So, yes, reducing the number of your subs is a reduction in customer loyalty.

In the end, Paizo cares about their bottom line and very little about their customers

Wow, that's pretty rude. Sure, as a business they care about being able to make money and stay in business, or obviously grow and be even more successful, but dropping that line as if they're your average big corporation is really rude to how much love the developers and others put into the products.

No need to take your salt that this particular product line wasn't financially viable for them and turn it into venom for the company.

don't.

Looking at their lack of CS for the past month or two, ya, their lack of care for customers is telling.

VestOfHolding wrote:

Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

Obviously not for Paizo, since their loyalty incentive rewards you for subscribing to multiple product lines, not for how long you've been consistently purchasing stuff. So, yes, reducing the number of your subs is a reduction in customer loyalty.

In the end, Paizo cares about their bottom line and very little about their customers

Wow, that's pretty rude. Sure, as a business they care about being able to make money and stay in business, or obviously grow and be even more successful, but dropping that line as if they're your average big corporation is really rude to how much love the developers and others put into the products.

No need to take your salt that this particular product line wasn't financially viable for them and turn it into venom for the company.

don't.

Looking at their lack of CS for the past month or two, ya, their lack of care for customers is telling.

I am pretty sure they would love going back to excellent CS quality right now. I do not think they do this to hurt the customers on purpose.

After all, less customers = bottom line in a worse shape.

The Raven Black wrote:

Steve Geddes wrote:

It’s not a value judgement as to which kind of customer they prefer.

When pdf subscriptions come in, some customers will drop their print subscriptions. That means less sales, smaller print runs, higher per unit costs and less profit.

Some customers will end up buying more PDFs than they do now - that will mean more profit. The tipping point will be when the latter group is substantially larger than the former.

It won’t be a slur against anyone’s loyalty. It will be a business decision.

I am not sure why customers who have print subscriptions now would drop them if there were pdf subscriptions.

You could even make the pdf subscriptions available only at street date, which would keep potential early access the specific benefit of print subscriptions.

I’m not sure why either, but when it comes up, some subscribers say they’d prefer a pdf only option.

I suspect when PDF subs happen, it will be streetdate and that will mean they’ll have a way of delaying PDFs until then for everyone (which is what they would have done if it had been possible initially)

During last year's disappointing times and with the unexpected impact and poor management of EU VAT by Paizo, I cancelled all my subscriptions. Money was lean after that so I did not resubscribe.

I am doing better now, so I will go back to buying Paizo products, but pdf only.

I would be interested in pdf-subscriptions so that I automatically get them and to give Paizo the benefits they get from having subscribers.

From what I read on the boards, most people interested in pdf-only subs are already only buying pdf products from Paizo.

Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:

VestOfHolding wrote:

Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

Obviously not for Paizo, since their loyalty incentive rewards you for subscribing to multiple product lines, not for how long you've been consistently purchasing stuff. So, yes, reducing the number of your subs is a reduction in customer loyalty.

In the end, Paizo cares about their bottom line and very little about their customers

Wow, that's pretty rude. Sure, as a business they care about being able to make money and stay in business, or obviously grow and be even more successful, but dropping that line as if they're your average big corporation is really rude to how much love the developers and others put into the products.

No need to take your salt that this particular product line wasn't financially viable for them and turn it into venom for the company.

don't.

Looking at their lack of CS for the past month or two, ya, their lack of care for customers is telling.

I am pretty sure they would love going back to excellent CS quality right now. I do not think they do this to hurt the customers on purpose.

After all, less customers = bottom line in a worse shape.

CS has dropped since Sara Marie and Diego left. The new person is not visible on the forums, and they need to get their act together if they do not want to lose more fans and customers than they have. That is on them. Whether they mean to ignore or not, that is the end result.

During last year's disappointing times and with the unexpected impact and poor management of EU VAT by Paizo, I cancelled all my subscriptions. Money was lean after that so I did not resubscribe.

I am doing better now, so I will go back to buying Paizo products, but pdf only.

I would be interested in pdf-subscriptions so that I automatically get them and to give Paizo the benefits they get from having subscribers.

From what I read on the boards, most people interested in pdf-only subs are already only buying pdf products from Paizo.

For sure. Me too. Ironically, those people whose purchasing patterns won’t change much aren’t relevant to the decision though. Even though that cohort is likely to be most satisfied with the change.

Some pdf-only customers will buy more and that increase in sales is what matters. Some print sales will drop - that’s the two groups that are relevant.

The likely switch to streetdate only is also some bad press that could well impact print subscriber numbers (granted my discussions about that with them date back to when “the pandemic” meant bird flu).

And since you have to come to Paizo anyhow to personalise and download each pdf - what benefit is there really in a sub beyond saving a few mouse clicks a month? Contrast that with the inherent conservatism any company has around tinkering with such a core component of its business model.

CS has dropped since Sara Marie and Diego left. The new person is not visible on the forums, and they need to get their act together if they do not want to lose more fans and customers than they have. That is on them. Whether they mean to ignore or not, that is the end result.

The real question is if losing those fans/customers actually loses them any real money. If all those fans are is just a drain on manhours without sales to make up the cost, they’re better off without them.

And since you have to come to Paizo anyhow to personalise and download each pdf - what benefit is there really in a sub beyond saving a few mouse clicks a month? Contrast that with the inherent conservatism any company has around tinkering with such a core component of its business model.

Doing so makes it easier for customers to buy products, which is always a good thing for a company, improves goodwill given the number of comments requesting the feature, and to a limited level would actually help customer retention by requiring an extra step to unsubscribe, instead of just stopping buying.

However that does need to be balanced against the time and effort required to set up something like PDF only subscriptions, and potential loss of print subscriptions.

Given we already have PDF only subscriptions for the Pathfinder and Starfinder Society material, the first seems to be a relatively simple issue to resolve on the technical side, but the second is a point that customers don't have the data to evaluate.

Given the changes to the international shipping situation which show no signs of being resolved in less than multiple years, my personal opinion is that Paizo should seriously reconsider the question of whether digital only subscriptions are now a more viable option than in the past, but I genuinely don't know what the results of such an evaluation would be from their business perspective.

Things have definitely changed. I pretty much agree with you - it’s a business decision, not an adjudication on which cohort of customer they “like”.

Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:

CS has dropped since Sara Marie and Diego left. The new person is not visible on the forums, and they need to get their act together if they do not want to lose more fans and customers than they have. That is on them. Whether they mean to ignore or not, that is the end result.

The real question is if losing those fans/customers actually loses them any real money. If all those fans are is just a drain on manhours without sales to make up the cost, they’re better off without them.

I know I was pretty low maintenance and I'm no longer a customer.

Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:

CS has dropped since Sara Marie and Diego left. The new person is not visible on the forums, and they need to get their act together if they do not want to lose more fans and customers than they have. That is on them. Whether they mean to ignore or not, that is the end result.

The real question is if losing those fans/customers actually loses them any real money. If all those fans are is just a drain on manhours without sales to make up the cost, they’re better off without them.

Look at what they are doing to European customers and ignoring people for weeks and weeks is bad, people tske their business elsewhere

Look at what they are doing to European customers and ignoring people for weeks and weeks is bad, people tske their business elsewhere

What if there was no European business worth speaking of to begin with?

I know I was pretty low maintenance and I'm no longer a customer.

You and I are definitely low maintenance, but how much in sales do we individually generate? Meanwhile, how much do the problem customers generate?

(Hint: Your cheapest customers tend to make you work the hardest.)

captain yesterday wrote:

I know I was pretty low maintenance and I'm no longer a customer.

You and I are definitely low maintenance, but how much in sales do we individually generate? Meanwhile, how much do the problem customers generate?

(Hint: Your cheapest customers tend to make you work the hardest.)

That is true!

I am not sure why customers who have print subscriptions now would drop them if there were pdf subscriptions.

You could even make the pdf subscriptions available only at street date, which would keep potential early access the specific benefit of print subscriptions.

I personally would drop my print subscriptions in a heartbeat if PDF subscriptions were an option. I would also resubscribe to several lines I had dropped, such as Starfinder AP and Lost Omens.

Might keep my adventure line subs up, but the AP would definitely go.

Given the changes to the international shipping situation which show no signs of being resolved in less than multiple years

Might actually get a LOT worse and fast pretty soon. If railworkers go on strike, the US finished goods and agriculture markets are going to come to a screaming halt.

No, not screeching. There will definitely be screams.

Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:

Look at what they are doing to European customers and ignoring people for weeks and weeks is bad, people tske their business elsewhere

What if there was no European business worth speaking of to begin with?

These customers are choosing to support Paizo directly, therefore are worthy of respect and consideration. Not to be ignored, their money is just as valuable as yours and mine.

These customers are choosing to support Paizo directly, therefore are worthy of respect and consideration. Not to be ignored, their money is just as valuable as yours and mine.

Respect and consideration don't pay bills.

Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:

These customers are choosing to support Paizo directly, therefore are worthy of respect and consideration. Not to be ignored, their money is just as valuable as yours and mine.

Respect and consideration don't pay bills.

Nor does screwing them out of import taxes

Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:

These customers are choosing to support Paizo directly, therefore are worthy of respect and consideration. Not to be ignored, their money is just as valuable as yours and mine.

Respect and consideration don't pay bills.

Nor does screwing them out of import taxes and having terrible CS

You say that, but it hasn't put them out of business yet. Maybe it will soon. Maybe it won't.

You say that as if having poor CS is something they should glory in, it isn't the win you think it is.

That's your interpretation, not mine.

Fwiw, the VAT issue wasnt paizos error. It was an issue with how some countries customs processes, as I understand it. (They collected taxes again, even though paizo had already collected and reported it correctly).

My understanding is that Paizo messed up or did not fill out the proper paperwork

Do you have a reference for that?

Many companies, heck even Kickstarters, took into account the new EU VAT regulation and found solutions so that customers would not be taken by surprise. Paizo did nothing for months until, recently, Brian Bauman was kind and dedicated enough to help find solutions for the customers.

Needless to say a lot of goodwill disappeared before that.

I honestly believe Paizo focusing on FLGS and the US market only is a big obstacle to their success.

Do you have a reference for that?

I wouldnt call it "screwing customers" but they did make an error by the looks.

They're sorting it and reimbursing losses to customers who were charged a second time via store credit, but it's slow going.

Brian Bauman is doing a stellar job, as ever, in that thread.

I honestly believe Paizo focusing on FLGS and the US market only is a big obstacle to their success.

One does wonder whether there are some legacy issues/opinions/approaches that made sense when paizo was founded that are less relevant today.

I honestly believe Paizo focusing on FLGS and the US market only is a big obstacle to their success.

No company can exist long-term without growth. Any plan that involves limiting your growth potential is going to a losing one long term.

I can see a short term focus on US sales to counteract a drop off in internal sales due to shipping costs outside of their control, but a PDF subscription would help counter that. Keep and hopefully grow the international base while mitigating the associated costs.

Put the PDF sub at higher price than sale price, with a handful of digital perks. Early access (which should be a thing for all subscribers anyhow), art work, digital character sheets for new classes, whatever. Just to make it appealing and to mitigate the potential rev loss from people switching sub types.

It can be used as trial model for more digital only subscriptions, to dove-tail into a VTT sub model down the line as well.

Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:

These customers are choosing to support Paizo directly, therefore are worthy of respect and consideration. Not to be ignored, their money is just as valuable as yours and mine.

Respect and consideration don't pay bills.

It’s a B2C business in a niche market. These pay a considerable amount of the bills.

Direct consumer interaction and transparency can keep business like Paizo alive in bad times. It’s pure ignorance to think otherwise

This fellow is talking sense, heed his sage wisdom!

Rysky wrote:

Do you have a reference for that?

I wouldnt call it "screwing customers" but they did make an error by the looks.

They're sorting it and reimbursing losses to customers who were charged a second time via store credit, but it's slow going.

Brian Bauman is doing a stellar job, as ever, in that thread.

Only for the customers who kept proofs of the extra expenses.

Since this was very recently announced on a single ongoing thread by the awesome Brian Bauman, many many customers just lost money. I know I did.

And very likely some are still losing money right now and will not get reimbursed.

I guess most people impacted are just not making that much of a fuss about it. I know I did not.

Steve Geddes wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Do you have a reference for that?

I wouldnt call it "screwing customers" but they did make an error by the looks.

They're sorting it and reimbursing losses to customers who were charged a second time via store credit, but it's slow going.

Brian Bauman is doing a stellar job, as ever, in that thread.

Only for the customers who kept proofs of the extra expenses.

Since this was very recently announced on a single ongoing thread by the awesome Brian Bauman, many many customers just lost money. I know I did.

And very likely some are still losing money right now and will not get reimbursed.

I guess most people impacted are just not making that much of a fuss about it. I know I did not.

That’s disappointing. I feel for you.

Obviously Paizo can’t act to remedy the issue if people don’t say anything. However, if the problem stemmed from Paizo’s VAT reporting systems, one would have hoped they would have a less demanding standard of proof. Especially given how far back the issue goes.

The Raven Black wrote:

Steve Geddes wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Do you have a reference for that?

I wouldnt call it "screwing customers" but they did make an error by the looks.

They're sorting it and reimbursing losses to customers who were charged a second time via store credit, but it's slow going.

Brian Bauman is doing a stellar job, as ever, in that thread.

Only for the customers who kept proofs of the extra expenses.

Since this was very recently announced on a single ongoing thread by the awesome Brian Bauman, many many customers just lost money. I know I did.

And very likely some are still losing money right now and will not get reimbursed.

I guess most people impacted are just not making that much of a fuss about it. I know I did not.

That’s disappointing. I feel for you.

Obviously Paizo can’t act to remedy the issue if people don’t say anything. However, if the problem stemmed from Paizo’s VAT reporting systems, one would have hoped they would have a less demanding standard of proof. Especially given how far back the issue goes.

TBH I'm already extremely happy that Brian Bauman does all he can to help people with this and make it so that some customers get some money back, even though I am not one of those anymore.

He's definitely a great guy.

It’s a B2C business in a niche market. These pay a considerable amount of the bills.

Only if that niche market has enough revenue to offset expenses.

It’s pure ignorance to think otherwise.

Those who are complaining about the tax are the ones we know about and have been vocal. We don't know how many have done so via email which may or may not have been answered. I believe one of the European customers asked if the European subscribers could get an email update and IIRC the response was Paizo doesn't readily have access to that information

My impression is that Paizo had built up a lot of good will with its customer service in the past. And the community cut them a lot of slack when the pandemic hit/ coupled with an extreme back log of customer service requests around the 2020 PaizoCon Online related issues. That's when we saw the 1000s long queue, and months long delays. We had some transparency with the daily updates for how deep the back log was. A ticket based system can work, and is often more efficient, but we lost the insight into things, and some harder problems appear to get pushed aside in favor of the easy ones to address, and then they just linger, until something forces the issue.

For many customers, the era of cutting them some slack from their past good will is reaching/has reached its breaking point and it is the type of dynamic that often only appears as a minor problem in sales/returns until it becomes a tidal wave. The loss of good will/reputation will likely hurt them if they don't regain it; and I feel like they've been blind to how deep into the 'good will budget' they've been going.

People say that every six months. People also make empty promises.

All the people who swore up and down they'd be supersubscribers if only Paizo management entered negotiations with the union never materialized and instead we get the usual chorus of people saying "I'm not going to pay extra for print, I don't want print, please give me your cheapest option (and I'll probably just use the SRD anyways)".

Because most of the people here are all talk.

People say that every six months. People also make empty promises.

All the people who swore up and down they'd be supersubscribers if only Paizo management entered negotiations with the union never materialized and instead we get the usual chorus of people saying "I'm not going to pay extra for print, I don't want print, please give me your cheapest option (and I'll probably just use the SRD anyways)".

Because most of the people here are all talk.

I have been a subscriber of various subscriptions for at 15 yrs.

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

It’s a B2C business in a niche market. These pay a considerable amount of the bills.

Only if that niche market has enough revenue to offset expenses.

It’s pure ignorance to think otherwise.

The last 5 years have seen the biggest growth in the TTRPG market in decades. The last 3 years have seen the birth of VTTRPG’s.

The potential is there.

But we weren’t talking about VTTs or even just the TTRPG market. We were talking about the European Paizo customer market.

I’d love for them to grow it to the point they can afford a Europe-based warehouse. I don’t think they are there yet.

But we weren’t talking about VTTs or even just the TTRPG market. We were talking about the European Paizo customer market.

I’d love for them to grow it to the point they can afford a Europe-based warehouse. I don’t think they are there yet.

They probably never will be but that doesn't mean European subscribers should be treated poorly.

It's a good thing no one has suggested that.

People say that every six months. People also make empty promises.

All the people who swore up and down they'd be supersubscribers if only Paizo management entered negotiations with the union never materialized and instead we get the usual chorus of people saying "I'm not going to pay extra for print, I don't want print, please give me your cheapest option (and I'll probably just use the SRD anyways)".

Because most of the people here are all talk.

All is doing a LOT of work here. *points at superscriber status*

I miss my charter subscriber tag.

But we weren’t talking about VTTs or even just the TTRPG market. We were talking about the European Paizo customer market.

I’d love for them to grow it to the point they can afford a Europe-based warehouse. I don’t think they are there yet.

If they keep on thinking of the US as their true market and anything else to be coincidental benefits, they will never get there.