Speaking of Combat Pads, did I hear that you're updating this? What's changing?
Okay, I'm going to go ahead and spoil it. The new GameMastery Combat Pad contains...
Okay, I'm going to go ahead and spoil it. The new GameMastery Combat Pad contains...
** spoiler omitted **
~BOOM~~ ~cough, cough, wheeze~
My money is on the combat pads saying pathfinder on them. :)Speaking of Combat Pads, did I hear that you're updating this? What's changing?We're not quite ready to say. Soon!
Now THAT would be a surprise...
Speaking of Combat Pads, did I hear that you're updating this? What's changing?We're not quite ready to say. Soon!
But...I have money NOW!
Someone asked me where I bought some of the flip-maps I had and I said paizo. Next game session he said he couldn't find some of them so now I know why :).
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Completely agreeing with Vic's last point. Anime DVDs are kind of the same damned-either-way with me. Either I buy the volumes as they release, and have them take more shelf space, or wait until the boxset releases and kick the publisher in the teeth with lost revenue for the individual volumes. I like to support my favorite industries, but the options kind of suck for both parties.
Or like my self of 13 years ago, you buy each VHS of Ranma individually (all 7 seasons), then transfer to DVD when that comes out... then beat your head into the wall and crack the wallet one last time for the box set...
Hmm... haven't watched that in ages...
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Completely agreeing with Vic's last point. Anime DVDs are kind of the same damned-either-way with me. Either I buy the volumes as they release, and have them take more shelf space, or wait until the boxset releases and kick the publisher in the teeth with lost revenue for the individual volumes. I like to support my favorite industries, but the options kind of suck for both parties.
For comic book fans, a related issue would be the "waiting for the trades" problem that has plagued the industry for quite some time.
I´m firmly in the "I want it now" camp.
Even with the translated (german) version of the game, I keep buying the original stuff, as the translations can´t keep up with the original material. AFAICT, Ulisses (the German distributor/translator) has not even decided yet if they translate any adventure path. I think it is even more difficult for the translated versions to be marketed - the market is much smaller, and folks like me fracture that market even further. But from what I read, the PF basic rulebook seems to sell quite well.
Stefan
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I do ask though that your team revisit this option later on. Great works of art always deserve another run at some point future (just ask Disney.)Yeah—like I've said, the "no reprints" rule doesn't apply to everything... and "reinvention" is also possible. So long as it's done in a way that is as appealing as a completely new product, and doesn't train people to always wait for the reinvention.
Looking at this thread now, many months alter, I have to ask if this has changed... have any other products become "evergreens" or grounds for "re-inventing"? Off the top of my head, I would think that Seeker of Secrets would be an "evergreen" and that the new quality materials used for Map Packs would make them ripe for "re-inventing". Just a thought.
As more players discover Pathfinder, the more they will feel they have "missed out" when they see some of these products in use and find they are permanently out-of-print. YMMV.
As more players discover Pathfinder, the more they will feel they have "missed out" when they see some of these products in use and find they are permanently out-of-print. YMMV.
Already there. :(
As more players discover Pathfinder, the more they will feel they have "missed out" when they see some of these products in use and find they are permanently out-of-print. YMMV.Already there. :(
I cry myself to sleep at night knowing I will never have the much vaunted, legendary Woodlands flip mat.* Which grew even more disappointing when I got the new Forest one, and it's so dark anything I draw on it with dry erase markers doesn't show up. I just want to kill my PCs near some trees, is that so hard? :(
In seriousness, I understand the cost issues about re-prints, but I also do wonder how newer customers feel about limited access to certain materials--especially if they are often referenced by more experienced customers... and how such material could be re-presented in an effective manner. Not being a numbers/economics person, I of course have no idea.
*This may possibly be hyperbole
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We don't plan to ever bring back any out-of-print Map Packs or Flip-Mats—at least not in the exact same form.
Now, I know a bunch of you are thinking that reprinting is easy and cheap, because we've already done all the work, and paid for all of the art and such, so reprinting a sold-out product is a no-brainer for easy cash in the bank. Seems obvious—but it's not true.
First of all, the printing costs are usually the highest costs associated with most products. And since print costs are based strongly on volume, that means for a reprint, we pretty much need to print—and sell—almost as much as we did the first time around so that we can charge the same retail price. And while there's a number of people would buy a reprint of a sold-out product, there's also a *very* large number of people who already own the original printing and have no interest in buying a reprint.
Next, keep in mind that most sales for a new product happen in the first month or two, and then taper off over the next couple of months to—hopefully—a slow-but-steady trickle. (You might notice that it usually takes a few years to sell out most of our products. And we've planned things so that that works for us.) Past sales—and our current subscribers—give us the knowledge we need to set print runs and retail prices to ensure that that first burst of sales pretty much covers our costs, allowing the profits to come in slowly over the next year or two, or three. That's one of our primary strategies for staying in business: Cover...etc...
We may not like the truth, but you give us the honest answer anyway. You will have me as a customer for life as long as this form of transparency exists in your company. Kudos Paizo !
+1
In addition, it is a great education for folks who are considering jumping into 3pp waters. Every tidbit shared makes the 3pp support for Pathfinder that much stronger - either by giving start-ups that education to build a stronger foundation or by potential start-ups opting to shop their ideas to established companies and thus broadening their product-base.
Chief Technical Officer
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Every few months, Erik sits down to extend the product schedule out a few months into the future, and when it comes to choosing Flip-Mats, he looks at things that tie in nicely to other planned releases, and also at new takes on Flip-Mats that have sold out since the last time he extended the schedule.
Forest themes always do pretty well, which is why Forest Path, Woodlands, and Forest have all sold out, and we now have Deep Forest; I'm sure that once Deep Forest is gone, Erik will schedule a replacement for it.
I was looking to pick up the Waterfront Tavern so I looked at amazon.com to see if they had one. They do but look at the price
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&fi eld-keywords=waterfront+tavern+paizo.
For the Record I think anyone who pays $900.00 is nuts, as for that price I can get the PDF, buy a very good printer to print it , go get it then laminated, and still have change in my pocket.
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Why not just have PDFs of these things since they were obviously created on a computer to start? If you keep PDFs and sell them online or on a per demand basis (i.e. someone emails for it) you make an easy few bucks right there.
The buyer can figure out how to print out the map like through a good printer or kinkos or whatever.
All of our Flip-Maps and Map Packs are available as PDFs. If a customer wants to get them printed, they can.
Pretty much everything Paizo makes stays available as PDF... a lot of the people complaining of wanting reprints available are people who don't want PDFs for one reason or another.
Is there a general field people have for their main job or is it pretty random?
Very random. Think about the variety of jobs gamers hold and it's pretty much the same.
I have a question ... pardon me if it's been answered previously. Have you considered making POD versions of some of your back catalog available as well as PDFs?
With a couple of exceptions (card and Planet Stories come to mind), the majority of Paizo's back catalog is available in PDF form.
I have a question ... pardon me if it's been answered previously. Have you considered making POD versions of some of your back catalog available as well as PDFs?
As I understand things, one significant barrier to POD for the out of print items is quality control. I believe that it's improving a lot but that early on the results POD would give were quite mixed.
Presumably there are also issues about cutting into the sales of current titles, as well.
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(This was initially composed as a response to a question in this thread, but I didn't want to take that thread so far off topic.)
...allow the community to request an OoP product go back into production. Paizo could set a pre-order threshold (maybe public/maybe not) for each OoP item (ie. Map Pack: Village) and once enough people add it to their cart from the list, a print run is set.We don't plan to ever bring back any out-of-print Map Packs or Flip-Mats—at least not in the exact same form.
Now, I know a bunch of you are thinking that reprinting is easy and cheap, because we've already done all the work, and paid for all of the art and such, so reprinting a sold-out product is a no-brainer for easy cash in the bank. Seems obvious—but it's not true.
First of all, the printing costs are usually the highest costs associated with most products. And since print costs are based strongly on volume, that means for a reprint, we pretty much need to print—and sell—almost as much as we did the first time around so that we can charge the same retail price. And while there's a number of people would buy a reprint of a sold-out product, there's also a *very* large number of people who already own the original printing and have no interest in buying a reprint.
Next, keep in mind that most sales for a new product happen in the first month or two, and then taper off over the next couple of months to—hopefully—a slow-but-steady trickle. (You might notice that it usually takes a few years to sell out most of our products. And we've planned things so that that works for us.) Past sales—and our current subscribers—give us the knowledge we need to set print runs and retail prices to ensure that that first burst of sales pretty much covers our costs, allowing the profits to come in slowly over the next year or two, or three. That's one of our primary strategies for staying in business: Cover...
Vic, would you do a release of maps, pawns and/or figurine packs for existing paths going to a hard cover, like with Rise of The Ruin Lords?
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Chief Technical Officer
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Vic, would you do a release of maps, pawns and/or figurine packs for existing paths going to a hard cover, like with Rise of The Ruin Lords?
I'm not 100% sure what you're asking, but if we were to do another AP compilation, you can assume it will be a pretty big event, and we would likely come up with some new complimentary products for it. (I don't really know if we'd reprint out-of-print accessories for one; that's not something we've had the occasion to discuss. I would guess that we'd more likely try to come up with something new rather than reprint something old, though.)
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No it's not. Subscriptions don't get you past products.That's what subscriptions are for.The problem with this policy is that you don't actually offer new products that satisfy the demand for all previous products. For instance, I am searching far and wide for even a used Friends or Foe and Urban NPC face card set for my DMing uses, it just seems like I will never find them.
You offer nothing that fills that void. Yeah sure, you have other face cards, but none as beneficial as those.
You really should consider a planned printing, people suggest products they want and then they commit to buy and right before you go to printing those players have to pay in advance to cover costs. I bet you would be surprised how many of us would buy these products if re-printed.
If you haven't already done so, it may be helpful to read Vic's OP on the first page of this thread. It's a pretty thorough explanation of why reprinting old material doesn't work very well for Paizo and debunks some of peoples' commonly expressed misconceptions about what's involved in reprinting.
-Skeld
The problem with this policy is that you don't actually offer new products that satisfy the demand for all previous products. For instance, I am searching far and wide for even a used Friends or Foe and Urban NPC face card set for my DMing uses, it just seems like I will never find them.
You offer nothing that fills that void. Yeah sure, you have other face cards, but none as beneficial as those.
You really should consider a planned printing, people suggest products they want and then they commit to buy and right before you go to printing those players have to pay in advance to cover costs. I bet you would be surprised how many of us would buy these products if re-printed.
The alternative is to buy the Face Cards decks for the individual adventure paths/modules. I too was too late to the game to pick up the urban NPCS or Friends and Foes cards so I'm filling that void as stated above. SO far, I've picked up the Wrath of the Righteous, Shattered Star and Rise of the Runelords face decks and they offer a pretty good variety of NPC faces.
Don't let the Enemies or Dungeon Dwellers decks slip away.
Besides the fact that I am very well versed in printing and the costs associate with it, I will not call out all your fallacies.
You could at least issue PDF sheets for purchase for those of us not afraid to get some card stock and press print on our home setups.
Since the OP was posted six years ago, they have started releasing .pdfs for a lot more of their products (I used to complain a lot about their not putting out .pdfs of the maps and now they do, yay! [Probably not because of my complaining though.]). And just recently they started experimenting with reprinting a few old flip mats that had been OOP a long time ago (and thus a huge chunk of Paizo fans probably missed entirely).
If they decide printing .pdfs of cards is viable they'll probably try it... at least perhaps if fans ask nicely.
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Inlight of the new Flip-mat Classics Line of Reprints, are there any plans on reprinting the Darklands and Deep Forest maps? These are both used in the Confirmation scenario for PFS and I know Darklands is used in at least 5 other PFS scenarios. From a GM perspective it really puts a damper on running scenarios when we have to hand draw 3-6 full size maps for some scenarios because the flip maps are out of print. I think Silverhex Chronicles is probably the worst offender for using a ton of maps, but The Confirmation which is right there with it.
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Darklands would be a great addition. It's used in a ton of scenarios.
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Developer
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I know Erik is looking at extending the Classics line with other currently out-of-print Flip-Mats, and the ones that are used in PFS scenarios are especially likely candidates.
To build on this, I've also had several conversations with Erik to identify good candidates, emphasizing ones that are especially helpful for Pathfinder Society GMs.