Introducing Paizo Plus

I suspect part of the point is to reward customers who are frequent but arent subscribers (Like me) as well as subscribers

I feel like this aspect has perhaps been a bit lost in all the discussion. I'm not a subscriber because I generally only use digital copies and wouldn't want to create more dead trees by ordering print copies only to not have a use for them (not to mention the greater expense); but I do buy most every PDF book that Paizo releases aside from Society scenarios. For people like me this new version is a fantastic upgrade which means I may actually start being able to pick up scenarios with more regularity. After having been a more or less regular customer since Burnt Offerings, it'll be really nice to no longer be left out of the bonuses just because the format I happen to purchase in isn't the one that's rewarded.

<Snipped for brevity>

Know that I am one of those rare people who hasn't closed their social media accounts because I've never had any. I am seriously disappointed by anyone who still does anything to do with Twitter in particular. I am on your side, in a large part for the same reason you are even though it doesn't impact me personally. I don't know if Paizo is endorsing that platform or not but I hope not.

So... disregard that reward. Some things aren't for me. Some aren't for you.

<Snipped for brevity>

Many of the social media platforms indicated have changed their policies to be more 'in-line' with what Twitter is doing since January.

Like one indicates, this one's to them is exceptionally limited -- the time that a platform use was attempted, said platform wanted way too much personal information that this one was unwilling to impart.

So it becomes less 'one platform/ignore it' and 'ignore all platforms' and it starts adding up, plus gives a really bad feeling for the direction of Paizo.

Thank you for the post and the summary, this is the salient point that this one was having a hard time 'boiling down to'.

'd like to close by circling back... if Paizo is still doing business on Twitter - and encouraging customers to do so - that's a bad thing in my opinion and shame on them. If the profit from that exposure is the difference between solvency (ie. paying their staff's wages) and insolvency well... I'd like to think if I was business-owner I'd do the right thing, no matter how hard that decision was.

I don't know if Paizo has a Twitter account. I don't care. You say that if Paizo "doing business on Twitter" (I don't know what that means) is the difference between solvency and insolvency Paizo should "do the right thing" which means they should dissolve the company. Seems to me that's cutting off your nose to spite your face. IOW, stupid. I don't see Paizo as stupid.

Anguish wrote:

'd like to close by circling back... if Paizo is still doing business on Twitter - and encouraging customers to do so - that's a bad thing in my opinion and shame on them. If the profit from that exposure is the difference between solvency (ie. paying their staff's wages) and insolvency well... I'd like to think if I was business-owner I'd do the right thing, no matter how hard that decision was.

I don't know if Paizo has a Twitter account. I don't care. You say that if Paizo "doing business on Twitter" (I don't know what that means) is the difference between solvency and insolvency Paizo should "do the right thing" which means they should dissolve the company. Seems to me that's cutting off your nose to spite your face. IOW, stupid. I don't see Paizo as stupid.

This is getting a bit off-topic but I think that's overly reductive and this might be worth discussing.

Can we accept the baseline truth that to many people, Twitter's policies over the last few years have leaned evil? It doesn't matter if you personally believe freedom of expression outweighs expectation of protection from abuse, just that we're on the same page that many people invert those two in importance.

Twitter has stopped moderating against racism, phobia and religious persecution. You might be okay with that without being racist, 'phobic and the like because of how much you value freedom of expression. I am not accusing you of endorsing nasty behaviour.

But.

To many people Twitter explicitly allowing, enabling and to a degree encouraging evil, hurtful behaviour is unacceptably evil.

The question of dissolving a company over it is entirely a question of how much evil you are willing to overlook to keep from having to get a job that doesn't involve overlooking it. I grant none of us are paladins, so tolerating some little evils is probably par for the course. But for some people, Twitter's policies aren't little evils. They're big, existential evils.

What is stupid - in my opinion - is accepting the big evils because opposing them is hard.

Oh, and "doing business on Twitter" includes such things as announcing products, events, and in general using it to interact with customers.

From the point of view of a low spender:

TL;DR: New website cool. Flat discounts cool. Gold/reward tier decays too quickly. Reward tiers feel steep. Little incentive for non-Society buyers. Potential wasteful spending because of gold decay emails is not cool. Please add payment providers other than credit cards.

I'm excited for the new website and store; the old one is awful. And before I write my somewhat disappointed thoughts as a low spender about the program, I'd like to add a wish for the new website:

Please bring in another payment provider that doesn't rely on credit cards. I know Americans can't live without a credit card, and a credit card is one of the things given to children right after birth, alongside a gun and a flag (yes, this is a bit tongue-in-cheek). But I don't own one, and getting one is just an unnecessary cost for me since I don't have a use for it. I'm aware that PayPal charges high fees, and smaller businesses don't like to use it, even ignoring who's behind PayPal in the first place. But there are other providers,like SEPA Direct Debit, Giropay, etc, so I hope you consider that for the new website. There are at least dozens of us worldwide without credit cards, maybe even hundreds.

Anyway, the Plus Program.

It's nice that there's a loyalty program where everybody can potentially benefit from, not just subscribers. And I really hope that the current subscribers won't get hosed by this new system, meaning that they at least get the same discounts as before, as long as they spend roughly the same amount of money. And the fact that it is a flat discount is also something I appreciate.

But I'm a low spender. I buy maybe 1-3 books per year, and the occasional Humble Bundle if it contains enough cool stuff that I don't have yet. I wish I could donate (or give to friends) some of those items that I theoretically have bought 2-3 times by now, but that's another topic.

And on that basis, I don't know if I can benefit from this Paizo Plus program in a meaningful way, or any way at all that isn't Society content, because my friends and I never really use it. I've read how important it is to Paizo, and maybe we should give it a try at some point, but that time is not now, at least.

I don't know if my brain is just useless or if that blog post is a bit misleading when it says that you get 70 gold on Day 1. It's 25 for joining, and 30 for all the socials. Maybe another 5 if you can write a review of content you already bought from Paizo. So, 55 Gold. Even if you add the 25 Birthday Gold, which will happen only next year for me (yay...), it doesn't add up. If my brain is just useless, then the calculation is obviously more generous.

Which means I have to spend another 20€ to get to 75 Gold (5€ discount).
I sincerely hope that Paizo will round up: A Player Core 2 costs 19.99€. So I'd have to buy that and probably get 19 gold, and then have to buy another product to get that 1 missing gold. That would be kind of awful.

And I wouldn't even be able to use that gold discount on a product that they already discounted. So if they run a lengthy 10% discount on Player Core 2, I wouldn't be able to use my coupon for that product. Also a bit disheartening.

But I could buy a Society PDF, a cornerstone of Paizo's play philosophy. I would even get the first one for free. Kind of cool. I randomly picked Season 4 for this; maybe others would be more beneficial for me. So, now I have the first Season 4 Society book. If I want the complete set, then it seems I have to spend another 163€. If I apply my Gold discounts properly, I'd still have to pay 142−143€, and still have 39−40 gold left (quick maths). And maybe another 10€ discount from reviews, maybe even 20€ stretched over the year, but I'm a bit too lazy now to calculate that. Still quite a hefty amount left for a quick initial fix. Yes, you can stretch it over a year or so because that content also needs to be played, hopefully, but buying and using are two different hobbies. With that in mind, it is highly unlikely for me to use my discounts for Society stuff (roughly calculated on the basis that 0.99€ won't get rounded up).

Which brings me to my next point: The loyalty point/reward tier decay.

In my opinion, this time span is too short, whether it is for calculating the Reward Tier, or the gold decay. It gives Paizo another foot into your hobby's door; they will be able to contact you once, twice, multiple times a year to tell you that your bonus is going to diminish soon, and maybe you should check back into that hobby that you are kind of part of. And you also got that Gold, you basically paid for it, so letting it go to waste doesn't feel good. Which may lead to irresponsible spending because you potentially drop down to a discount level that has no benefit for you, be it from 80 Gold to 71 Gold, or 150 Gold to 104 Gold.

It's similar for calculating your reward tiers. And as a side note, at least for me, having to spend 250 USD a year in the Paizo store to stay Master tier, or 750€ to stay legendary, just for the increased discount and potential bonus awards, seems incredibly steep. Especially with a yearly decay attached to it. I think the increased gold rates and discounts are a good idea though, and probably equalize the current subscriber's discounts, so that they won't be worse off in this new system.

I'm not a fan of the Legendary Loot exclusives though. That's kind of disheartening, unless they are in a similar price range of 750€. That seems quite disheartening to me who's unlikely to ever leave Expert Tier, and might even be worse for Master Tier spenders. Imagine you spend 500€ a year on Paizo products in the Paizo store and get left out of an exclusive offer just because you didn't pay another 200.

And that's it for me. Per year, I maybe get 60−80 Gold from buying stuff, let it be 100, plus roughly 15 Gold if I write reviews. So, a single 5€ discount per year. That's quite sobering. I get why you probably don't allow Humble Bundle reviews when you want to increase customer engagement directly with Paizo. But not allowing those is also just an assumption.

I'm obviously making assumptions, and some info still needs to be clarified, like for reviews, for example. It feels kind of neat, but also not really after I looked into it. Then again, I don't trust my brain when confronted with math.

But I also need to make my voice heard even if it won't change anything, because if I don't talk about my potential problems with it, then nobody will.

Good luck with that new system, I hope it works out for you guys, and hopefully it is better for me than what I understand from this preview.

Why not just go forward with Paizo Plus, but continue to thank your biggest supporters (4 or 6+ subscription customers) by automatically adding scenarios to their account, just like you always have?

Seems like everyone wins:
-All customers get a rewards program, incentivizing them to spend more money at Paizo.com
-Multi-subscription customers continue to get incentivized with a little something extra to maintain their many subscriptions.
-Paizo continues to get practically guarantee monthly subscription sales. Depending on the month and the subscriptions held, this can be literally hundreds of dollars worth of guaranteed sales for Paizo from just a single subscriber! There is very little downside for Paizo to do this since providing these digital-only scenarios to multi-subscription holders basically costs Paizo nothing.

One question I don’t recall being answered but is fairly important to me: can the discounts for spending gold be used on subscription payments? For example, if I spend 75 gold for a $5 off coupon, can that coupon be applied to the next month’s subscription?

From the point of view of a low spender:

But I'm a low spender. I buy maybe 1-3 books per year, and the occasional Humble Bundle if it contains enough cool stuff that I don't have yet. I wish I could donate (or give to friends) some of those items that I theoretically have bought 2-3 times by now, but that's another topic.

Fire the accountants. I think they are the reason behind gold expiring after a year. At least make it two years before it expires.

This is indeed sad times!

Subscriptions here, point systems there.
Buy more, earn more.
Reward here, expiration there.

What a mess!

I mean, why not introduce Paizo coin too while you´re at it?
Could be something like buy 100 Paizo Coins for $10 and then set the prices in your store to be 10 Paizo Coins over what people typically can afford. That way they have to buy at least 200 Paizo Coins to be able to buy something but then they end up with a balance they can´t do anything with unless they buy more Paizo Coins. The microtransaction trap! Neat!

Yeah... great idea... I dunno, feels like Paizo is taking steps in the wrong direction.

¯\(°_o)/¯

Some updates from me about various topics:

Lots of discussion about Twitter/X.

X will no longer be incentivized through Paizo Plus. The graphic has been updated to reflect this.

TL;DR: New website cool. Flat discounts cool. Gold/reward tier decays too quickly. Reward tiers feel steep. Little incentive for non-Society buyers. Potential wasteful spending because of gold decay emails is not cool. Please add payment providers other than credit cards.

Regarding gold decay, we'll review it over the course of the first year and make a decision as to whether we need to extend the expiration. As with the limit of 1 review/week, we're starting with these limits in place to make sure everything works the way we expect it to and give us insights into how everyone uses the program. One of the goals with Paizo Plus was to make the program flexible enough so that non-subscribers got benefit out of it as well.

Please bring in another payment provider that doesn't rely on credit cards. I know Americans can't live without a credit card, and a credit card is one of the things given to children right after birth, alongside a gun and a flag (yes, this is a bit tongue-in-cheek). But I don't own one, and getting one is just an unnecessary cost for me since I don't have a use for it. I'm aware that PayPal charges high fees, and smaller businesses don't like to use it, even ignoring who's behind PayPal in the first place. But there are other providers,like SEPA Direct Debit, Giropay, etc, so I hope you consider that for the new website. There are at least dozens of us worldwide without credit cards, maybe even hundreds.

As revealed in my April Tech Update blog, Paizo will be offering additional payment methods with the new store. Reposting below:

We will be expanding payment methods with the new store. Here are a few that we are targeting for launch.

Credit Cards: American Express, Aura, Diners Club, Discover, ELO, Hipercard, JCB, Mada, Mastercard, RuPay (India), UnionPay, Visa.

Digital Wallets: Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal.

Online Bank Transfers: Sofort

Some of these payment methods are region specific (like Hipercard for Brazil or RuPay for India), so you won’t be flooded with options when you checkout. Not all payment methods can be used for subscription payments because some providers don’t allow recurring payments, but you’ll see available options as you go through checkout for subscriptions.

One question I don’t recall being answered but is fairly important to me: can the discounts for spending gold be used on subscription payments? For example, if I spend 75 gold for a $5 off coupon, can that coupon be applied to the next month’s subscription?

No. Neither the current system nor the upcoming new system will automatically apply coupons.

-Jim

Why not just go forward with Paizo Plus, but continue to thank your biggest supporters (4 or 6+ subscription customers) by automatically adding scenarios to their account, just like you always have?

Because Paizo wants the perks to be about the same as they currently are but with the added benefit of people having the option to get what they want instead of only giving them the scenarios.

Why would they keep it as it currently is PLUS give people extra stuff?

At least with Paizo Plus it's, minimum, the same rewards for subscribers (albeit, with more work from the customer to pick what they want to get for free) with the added benefit of people that don't have 4+ subscriptions getting some rewards as well.

Some updates from me about various topics:

Quote:

Lots of discussion about Twitter/X.

X will no longer be incentivized through Paizo Plus. The graphic has been updated to reflect this.

That is super cool. Kudos to everyone at the company who championed that as well as those who allowed it.

Nice! Both about not pushing Xitter, and about this program in general. Looking forward to picking up some fun scenarios with the rulebook purchases.

I have heard a lot of fussing over the PFS and SFS scenarios. There IS another way. Become a Venture Agent and host weekly games at your favorite game shop. Those who do this gain access to ALL PFS and SFS Scenarios free, so long as they are active. Even if you decide to stop, those you got prior are still yours to keep. it's a great way to support Pathfinder and Starfinder Society in your area and get some free scenarios at the same time.

Several years ago I asked my FLGS why they didn't host any Pathfinder games (I would add Starfinder but I think this was before Starfinder). The answer: "We used to, but the guy (the Venture Agent) never showed up. We're not doing that again." <shrug>

I assume the ‘censorship’ is similar to the policies that Paizo enforce here.

I'm a bit disappointed regarding how complex the structure seems and I worry it's exploitative.

Instead of just saying, Spend X Dollars get X dollars off - the use of gold reminds me of monetization methods from some games where you always buy a form of currency instead of directly using dollars to cause people to have a degree of separation from dollar to currency and therefore psychologically be less aware of how much they're spending. That said - I understand the need because you're rewarding other behaviors besides purchases (reviews).

My BIGGER concern is the baked in FOMO aspect that also reminds me of certain predatory aspects in some games - FOMO also tends to work better (be more psychologically effective) upon certain groups of people disproportionally (for example, some neurodivergent people depending on the condition) and can lead to unhealthy spending. (I know Paizo is a company but there's a different relationship in how I see Paizo relative to its customers and some monetized games and their customers where unhealthy spending is actively encouraged regardless of detriment to the base). The idea that it's both locked behind a monetary AND limited quantity threshold vs. just one or the other I think is what makes it feel more heavily reliant on FOMO to me.

You can use Gold to access perks, but you MUST spend a dollar amount to reach a certain tier - you can't earn access by writing reviews/etc if I'm understanding the program correctly?

So it's a hard gatekeep on those who can afford to spend a certain amount - especially with an expiring time limit. $750/year is 62.50/month which for some people is a bill or groceries for a week.

It just feels bad - we're going into a likely worsening recession in the US where more people are going to be struggling due to more loss of social safety nets - and this is just one more thing people who can't spend a lot of money won't have access to. Yes, it's just game stuff - but I never like when escapism hobbies remind one of what they're trying to escape.

I know it's just business but - the idea of "if you can't spend $750 in a year - you can't even get the opportunity to get something" just is not something I'd expect in an incentive program from you guys.

Jim Butler wrote:

Some updates from me about various topics:

Quote:

Lots of discussion about Twitter/X.

X will no longer be incentivized through Paizo Plus. The graphic has been updated to reflect this.

For the record, offering incentives for Bluesky is just as offensive to some of us as offering incentives for Twitter/X is for others. We just usually aren't as whiney about it. So I assume this is an oil the greasy wheel tactic, instead of being a corporate position on advocating censorship of diverse ideas like Bluesky does.

Which diverse ideas does Bluesky advocate censoring?

For the record, offering incentives for Bluesky is just as offensive to some of us as offering incentives for Twitter/X is for others.

lol. lfmao.

Only allowing purchasers to review a product makes the reviews totally not worth paying attention to, as far as I am concerned, because player reviews are just as important as GM feedback. If you're saying that you can't deal with a few junk reviews and so only will allow purchasers to write reviews, just remove the reviews entirely.

Jim Butler wrote:

Some updates from me about various topics:

Quote:

Lots of discussion about Twitter/X.

X will no longer be incentivized through Paizo Plus. The graphic has been updated to reflect this.

For the record, offering incentives for Bluesky is just as offensive to some of us as offering incentives for Twitter/X is for others. We just usually aren't as whiney about it. So I assume this is an oil the greasy wheel tactic, instead of being a corporate position on advocating censorship of diverse ideas like Bluesky does.

Bluesky's speech policy:

Hate speech and harassment:
Bluesky explicitly prohibits content that promotes hate or extremist conduct targeting people based on their race, gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, disability, or sexual orientation.

Abusive or harassing labeling:
Users are prohibited from using labels in a way that is abusive, harassing, or targeting specific accounts, groups, or protected characteristics.

Harmful or malicious labeling:
Labels should not contain profanity, spurious allegations, derogatory terms, or harmful tags. Labeling should not be done maliciously, knowingly mischaracterizing content as harmful when it is not.

Impersonation:
Misleading impersonation of other individuals, organizations, or entities is also prohibited.

Excessive violence and harmful content:
Depictions of excessive violence, torture, dismemberment, or non-consensual sexual activity are not allowed.

From a more direct personal concern -- given recent movements to try and force MasterCard to not pay companies that engage in alternative lifestyles/LGBTQIA+ community, what is my form of payment going to need to be if they pull the plug on Paizo?

Once gold is redeemed for a discount coupon, does that discount coupon expire? If yes, what is the time limit on coupon redemption? Or is this instead tied directly to the checkout rather than a separate redemption step (with no coupons or codes given)?

Can multiple discount coupons be redeemed on a single purchase? For example, can I get $40 off a single purchase by spending 600 gold on 2x $20 off coupons?

This looks like it would be great for people who buy a lot of stuff without subscriptions or don't really care about the society scenarios, but I think it may be worse for me. It will definitely be a hassle.

I have six subscriptions, which for now gives me 15% off all purchases and free Starfinder and Pathfinder scenarios, and I've been happy with this.

I'm trying to crunch the numbers to see if the gold I'll earn over a year will be enough to get all of the scenarios. I don't think it will.

If there's two scenarios for each system per month and you're at legendary tier for the 15% discount, then $9 x 15% x 2 = $15.30 for Pathfinder + $5 x 15% x 2 = $8.50 for Starfinder comes to a total of $23.80 for each month's scenarios.

That could be 150 gold with $6.20 left over or 100 gold + $3.80 out of pocket. I don't know if that $6.20 would get carried over, but any vouchers I've ever spent here have been use it or lose it, so I assume these would work the same.

So if you want all of the scenarios as they are published, and assuming you have enough gold, you're either going to be (a) paying a little out of pocket each month, (b) wasting a bunch of gold, or (c) busting out your old linear programming textbook to determine the best mix of scenarios to buy to minimize the wasted gold and out-of-pocket expense.

The answer to (c) is:

• - on months 2, 4, and 6, spend 200 gold to get four SF scenarios and three PF scenarios (missing one PF scenario each time)
  
• - on month 8, spend 350 gold + 55 cents to get four SF scenarios and seven PF scenarios (catching up on PF)
  
• - The cycle repeats on month 10.

If my math is right (or if my maths are right), then over the course of a year that equals an average of 1425 gold, minus 25 for birthday and at 1.5 gold per dollar spent is $933/year. That's more than I'm spending now.

Edited to add: Those figures assume 2 scenarios per system every month. If a season is 20 scenarios plus two specials, then the minimum legendary spending + birthday bonus + writing five reviews earns just enough gold for all the non-special scenarios.

When is this anticipated to start? I'm pretty close to the line between master and legendary, and I want to make sure I'm on the good side of the line when they do the tally.

I'm going to cancel my Advantage subscriptions and take an a la carte approach. If the gold adds up to a discount, I'll spend it but I'm not interested in understanding the tier-system. My wife has been begging me to cut my hobby expenses and this seems a perfect opportunity.

So if you want all of the scenarios as they are published, and assuming you have enough gold, you're either going to be (a) paying a little out of pocket each month, (b) wasting a bunch of gold, or (c) busting out your old linear programming textbook to determine the best mix of scenarios to buy to minimize the wasted gold and out-of-pocket expense.

The answer to (c) is:

- on months 2, 4, and 6, spend 200 gold to get four SF scenarios and three PF scenarios (missing one PF scenario each time)
- on month 8, spend 350 gold + 55 cents to get four SF scenarios and seven PF scenarios (catching up on PF)
- The cycle repeats on month 10.
If my math is right (or if my maths are right), then over the course of a year that equals an average of 1425 gold, minus 25 for birthday and at 1.5 gold per dollar spent is $933/year. That's more than I'm spending now.

Edited to add: Those figures assume 2 scenarios per system every month. If a season is 20 scenarios plus two specials, then the minimum legendary spending + birthday bonus + writing five reviews earns just enough gold for all the non-special scenarios.

See? Simple! Gotta love streamlining for access and availability while delivering savings!!!

Leave a Review: 5 gold with an initial limit of 1 per week (260 gold/year if you write a review every week). You can only write reviews of products you have purchased through Paizo.

Hey folks --

As a freelancer and society GM, I'm a little concerned about this detail. I always look for player reviews on my Society adventures. Does this change mean that players who have not purchased an adventure will be no longer able to leave reviews?

Hmm

Jim Butler gave some more details on that further here. Hopefully they'll eventually find a way to ease their concerns without killing off player reviews.

I'm going to cancel my Advantage subscriptions and take an a la carte approach. If the gold adds up to a discount, I'll spend it but I'm not interested in understanding the tier-system. My wife has been begging me to cut my hobby expenses and this seems a perfect opportunity.

Yeah, I think this money grab is going to majorly backfire on them. I'll also be canceling subscriptions once this goes into effect.

I already cancelled all my subs. Nothing to do with "Paizo Plus" really. I just a) can't afford to keep buying everything and b) don't have any place to put it anyway.