I figured I'd give it a few days for the controversy to cool down before posting this so here goes.
One enlightening thing to come out of the dustup was this insight into the financial situation of the people who build Pathfinder by Mark Seifter: https://twitter.com/MarkSeifter/status/1439296955088179201
He brought up some great points about the difficulty in providing a living wage at any TTRPG company that isn't raking in WOTC money, and recommended discovering and supporting the patreons (and the like) of the individual people that put the labor into these products.
I want to reference this section of his tweets specifically for context here (I am cutting some for length):
"The razor sharp margins in the industry, the low amount people are willing to pay for these books, is a huge factor in the poor pay. And this is not to say that there aren't ways out of this prophecy of doom other than just increased salaries."
"But what I am saying is that a movement to make RPG books cost closer to what they are worth will make a big difference, only if it's supported by the public at large"
"(we can't have like 1% of the fanbase support this, and the price goes up, and the other 99% stop buying or it just makes things worse)."
"One thing you can do if you want to personally "pay more" for Paizo books is to create your own price bump in your own mind, whatever it is, and then go find patreons of Paizo staff and similar places and donate the difference."
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There are a couple key things to think about here from the Paizo side as well as the customer side.
It's hard to mess with the base price of the products. You could squeeze people out of the customer base doing that, and as Mark said, just make things worse.
It's hard for customers to track down all these individual contributors and figure out ways to deal with their preferred means of tipping and payment processing.
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I have a proposal that may get to the root of both of these issues.
I would like to have an option to pay somewhere between the base PDF price and the hardback price for a Deluxe Patron version of each Pathfinder book that I purchase in digital form. What I would expect in exchange for this is for the price difference (factoring in taxes, transaction fees, and whatnot) to be directly distributed to the people in question (ideally with a ratio negotiated a little more towards those most in need), and for my digital product to be appended with a transparency report clearly showing where that money is going.
Appending a digital product with such a report should be much more fiscally viable than trying to produce multiple hardback variants, and the personalization process already exists for Paizo digital products.
There would obviously be some logistical startup costs to begin doing this, and I'd be curious to know if they would be worth it to help with employee/freelancer quality of life (from their perspective) and turnover (from a business perspective).
I think this could be a win/win/win for ethical consumers, the Paizo brand, and the people who make the game/world we love to act, strategize, play, and create in.
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My personal notes, secondary to that proposal, in case the feedback/perspective is useful.
I buy the digital products, I don't buy the hardbacks, and I'm not sure how indicative I am of the rest of the customer base.
The reasons I purchase digital Paizo products are as follows:
1. I don't like to keep hardcopies around of anything except for some old university texts that I paid way too much for to get rid of. They take up storage space on shelves, weigh more than a single laptop when traveling, and are material objects which I do not feel a need to collect.
2. PDFs have this little thing I can do called "Ctrl-F".
3. I can go anywhere and have my entire Pathfinder library available with an internet connection.
4. The reduced digital price compared to a hard-copy fits in my "windmill slam the new one without thinking about it" price range.
5. If a printing is updated, errata is included, etc. all I have to do is download the new PDF.
I have purchased all of the PF2e rulebooks and Lost Omens books released so far. If such an upgrade was added as an optional purchase in the store for already released items (and ex-employees/freelancers could be compensated appropriately), I would buy it for all of them retroactively, and would start utilizing that option for every future purchase. I'd subscribe to a Deluxe Patron PDF option if I could. The Lost Omens books are all about a $10 dollar difference between PDF and hardcopy (except for Mwangi Expanse, but that book is hella worth it). At the high end, $85 would get me squared away with the labor crews on Lost Omens so far, and I'd do that now if I had the option. The rulebooks have a higher spread at 30+ price differential, and that would take longer to work through, but it's doable.
I would like to be able to put my money where my mouth is in a reasonably efficient way that doesn't have me spending a ton of time cross-referencing credits and hunting down patreon accounts. Is this something Paizo can help me with?