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Well how come being PDF only prevent having a subscription model on it?I was wondering is there anyway to subscribe to it? If not why hasn't it been implemented? ;p?I believe there has not been a subscription to it as it is a PDF only product.
Every other subscription Paizo offers is for a physical copy of the book+PDF.
For the record, I'd also be interested in such a subscription.
I don't know how lucrative it would be, but as I order most of them, it would be one less thing I have to determine what I have not ordered and need to add to my Cart.
Director of Brand Strategy
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10% off is not good enough?
A vast majority of our subscribers benefit from the Pathfinder Advantage, which is already above 10%. Were we to do a subscription to Pathfinder Society Scenarios, we'd need to come up with another way to incentivize people to sign up. That said, I'll ask again:
If we offered a subscription for Pathfinder Society Scenarios with no benefits other than ease of use, would you subscribe?
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10% off is not good enough?A vast majority of our subscribers benefit from the Pathfinder Advantage, which is already above 10%. Were we to do a subscription to Pathfinder Society Scenarios, we'd need to come up with another way to incentivize people to sign up. That said, I'll ask again:
If we offered a subscription for Pathfinder Society Scenarios with no benefits other than ease of use, would you subscribe?
I would! It would mean I would have to spend a little more, as I wouldn't wait for the xmas code if there is one, but I already spend more than needed on my other subscriptions for faster shipping *shrug*
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10% off is not good enough?A vast majority of our subscribers benefit from the Pathfinder Advantage, which is already above 10%. Were we to do a subscription to Pathfinder Society Scenarios, we'd need to come up with another way to incentivize people to sign up. That said, I'll ask again:
If we offered a subscription for Pathfinder Society Scenarios with no benefits other than ease of use, would you subscribe?
I would for the simple fact that it would help me know what scenarios I have for ease of organization. What are your thoughts regarding the idea of subscription boons?
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Chief Technical Officer
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10% off is not good enough?A vast majority of our subscribers benefit from the Pathfinder Advantage, which is already above 10%. Were we to do a subscription to Pathfinder Society Scenarios, we'd need to come up with another way to incentivize people to sign up. That said, I'll ask again:
If we offered a subscription for Pathfinder Society Scenarios with no benefits other than ease of use, would you subscribe?
I'd also note that "ease of use" amounts to about half a dozen fewer clicks per month, since you still have to come to the site to download them anyway...
10% off is not good enough?A vast majority of our subscribers benefit from the Pathfinder Advantage, which is already above 10%. Were we to do a subscription to Pathfinder Society Scenarios, we'd need to come up with another way to incentivize people to sign up. That said, I'll ask again:
If we offered a subscription for Pathfinder Society Scenarios with no benefits other than ease of use, would you subscribe?
Only if I were forced to in order to not lose my Pathfinder Charter Superscriber tags.
Personally, I don't see a lot of benefit (for me, not to the world at large) for PDF-only adventures, especially the society ones which are much more limited than the actual modules and adventure path.
Right now I pay about $10 for a real physical module AND PDF, and the module is superior in many ways to society scenarios (written to fit in a 4-5 hour slot and without any new rules material). I don't want to have to pay $3-4 for ... nothing other than something I have to print out myself.
Don't get me wrong ... if I ran Pathfinder cons (talk to me again next year), I'd be very happy with it ... I just don't want to have to subscribe now, especially with a new, very expensive subscription (minis) looming on the horizon :)
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I'd also note that "ease of use" amounts to about half a dozen fewer clicks per month, since you still have to come to the site to download them anyway...10% off is not good enough?A vast majority of our subscribers benefit from the Pathfinder Advantage, which is already above 10%. Were we to do a subscription to Pathfinder Society Scenarios, we'd need to come up with another way to incentivize people to sign up. That said, I'll ask again:
If we offered a subscription for Pathfinder Society Scenarios with no benefits other than ease of use, would you subscribe?
They aren't that big; couldn't you send them out to subscriber's email? Even just a straight download link would be a nice perk.
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Chief Technical Officer
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They aren't that big; couldn't you send them out to subscriber's email? Even just a straight download link would be a nice perk.I'd also note that "ease of use" amounts to about half a dozen fewer clicks per month, since you still have to come to the site to download them anyway...10% off is not good enough?A vast majority of our subscribers benefit from the Pathfinder Advantage, which is already above 10%. Were we to do a subscription to Pathfinder Society Scenarios, we'd need to come up with another way to incentivize people to sign up. That said, I'll ask again:
If we offered a subscription for Pathfinder Society Scenarios with no benefits other than ease of use, would you subscribe?
We're not going to be emailing PDFs around, no matter the size. Not only is it not secure, but some mobile customers in particular might really be annoyed by such a thing.) Watermarking happens on-demand, and you must be logged into the site to initiate it.
Specifically, the "ease of use" I would mean this:
You'd get an email on the last Wednesday of each month saying "Hey, we just released two new scenarios! Come to your My Downloads page to download them!" And then you click each one to start the download.
This is as opposed to the current method, which is that you come to the site on the last Wednesday of each month, head to the scenarios page, click the two new "add to cart" buttons, go through checkout, and then go to your My Downloads page and click each one to start the download.
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If there was some benefit, I might subscribe.
(A non-stacking) 10% off is a good start, we don't all subscribe to the APs.
I can think of other worthwhile perks as well:
1) A free PDF with maps we can easily print out instead of being forced to resize everything.
2) A free PDF with paper minis created for the last 4 months of scenarios. Art can be taken from any of the previous paper mini sets, no (or limited) original art needed.
Either one (or both!) would be a huge incentive for me.
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We really can't afford to discount Pathfinder Society Scenarios beyond the Pathfinder Advantage discount that many purchasers already get. I mean, they are, to some degree, kind of a marketing expense, but we still don't want to *lose* money on them.
As I understand it, the Pathfinder Advantage discount is a 20% discount. We're not all subscribers though. If I subscribed to PF scenarios only, I would get a 10% discount. If someone subscribed to both, he would still only get a 20% discount. They don't stack.
For the record, I'd also be interested in such a subscription.I don't know how lucrative it would be, but as I order most of them, it would be one less thing I have to determine what I have not ordered and need to add to my Cart.
Apparently, the answer is "not very lucrative". If it was offered, I would subscribe, but I haven't missed any using the old fashioned method of the "6 extra clicks a month".
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Chief Technical Officer
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We really can't afford to discount Pathfinder Society Scenarios beyond the Pathfinder Advantage discount that many purchasers already get. I mean, they are, to some degree, kind of a marketing expense, but we still don't want to *lose* money on them.As I understand it, the Pathfinder Advantage discount is a 20% discount. We're not all subscribers though. If I subscribed to PF scenarios only, I would get a 10% discount. If someone subscribed to both, he would still only get a 20% discount. They don't stack.
I didn't actually mean we couldn't afford it on a percentage-per-purchase basis; I meant that we can't afford to make much less money on each monthly release than we do now. PFS Scenarios have never been heavy on profit, but ever since we launched the venture captain program (which allows a lot more GMs to come to the table without buying the scenarios themselves), they're pretty much break-even. And again, that's fine; that's kind of where they're designed to be, but there's really not wiggle room here.
Also, they're only $3.99 in the first place... does getting it for $3.60 really seem like that much of a benefit for most people?
(And the Pathfinder Advantage is actually 15%.)
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We really can't afford to discount Pathfinder Society Scenarios beyond the Pathfinder Advantage discount that many purchasers already get. I mean, they are, to some degree, kind of a marketing expense, but we still don't want to *lose* money on them.As I understand it, the Pathfinder Advantage discount is a 20% discount. We're not all subscribers though. If I subscribed to PF scenarios only, I would get a 10% discount. If someone subscribed to both, he would still only get a 20% discount. They don't stack.
I didn't actually mean we couldn't afford it on a percentage-per-purchase basis; I meant that we can't afford to make much less money on each monthly release than we do now. PFS Scenarios have never been heavy on profit, but ever since we launched the venture captain program (which allows a lot more GMs to come to the table without buying the scenarios themselves), they're pretty much break-even. And again, that's fine; that's kind of where they're designed to be, but there's really not wiggle room here.
Also, they're only $3.99 in the first place... does getting it for $3.60 really seem like that much of a benefit for most people?
(And the Pathfinder Advantage is actually 15%.)
What about my idea of giving a bonus 1xp, 2Presitage points and set gold biased on character level for every 2-4 months subscriber. Then again I just hate level 1 and I don't want to deal with that level range any more.
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Director of Brand Strategy
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What about my idea of giving a bonus 1xp, 2Presitage points and set gold biased on character level for every 2-4 months subscriber. Then again I just hate level 1 and I don't want to deal with that level range any more.
Any theoretical boons we would give would be boons, not XP, Prestige, or gold. Those are commodities that we have, to date, only given by playing. Were we to do something wherein players could gain in-game benefits simply for having their credit card auto-charged every month, I fear we'd have gone too far toward the pay-to-play model that we really don't want to emulate.
Additionally, setting up a pdf subscription and the sort of code that would be required to track how many months someone had been a subscriber and all that are likely IT challenges that wouldn't be worth the potential monetary gain, as, like Vic said above, we don't really make enough money on these to offset the additional time needed to implement a code-heavy program like the one suggested.
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PFS Scenarios have never been heavy on profit, but ever since we launched the venture captain program (which allows a lot more GMs to come to the table without buying the scenarios themselves), they're pretty much break-even.
I was aware that Venture-Captains get free PDF, I was not aware that they had licence to give those out to GMs.
The small amount a Venture-Captains you have really make a difference?
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Also, they're only $3.99 in the first place... does getting it for $3.60 really seem like that much of a benefit for most people?
That's a valid question.
FWIW, my experience (which is admittedly in brick-and-mortar retail alone, although 15+ years' worth of it) is that a discount offered to someone has some psychological value, regardless of its actual benefit. Saving $.39 for each release isn't much, to be sure, but it's something that the non-subscriber doesn't get.
As always, YMMV.
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I didn't actually mean we couldn't afford it on a percentage-per-purchase basis; I meant that we can't afford to make much less money on each monthly release than we do now.
For the casual gamer, like me, you would sell more.
The casual gamer only buys maybe 13 out of 28 scenarios in a year. So that's $60 unreaped profit. You lose only approximately $5 from the discount. That sounds like a good idea for you and a bad idea for me.
From your hard core guys who buy every scenario anyway, they probably already have the Pathfinder Advantage, so they wouldn't say anything.
So you'd be making money, if my assumptions are right.
I just read Mark's comment and you're right, maybe it's not worth the money.
Also, they're only $3.99 in the first place... does getting it for $3.60 really seem like that much of a benefit for most people?
You're right, a 10-15% discount doesn't mean that much.
I'd rather you look at my last two suggestions. Maps and minis, stuff to make my life easier. That sells (to me). That's worth the subscription on scenarios I might never use.
Anyway, it's just an idea.
Even if you don't like the idea of free PFS and a new subscription, what about the idea of doing paper minis that are based on a group of scenarios instead of adventure paths?
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What about my idea of giving a bonus 1xp, 2Presitage points and set gold biased on character level for every 2-4 months subscriber. Then again I just hate level 1 and I don't want to deal with that level range any more.Any theoretical boons we would give would be boons, not XP, Prestige, or gold.
Would taking the shirt-size of subscribers and shipping them the shirt of the current year (with their next order) when it is released be a possible bonus, rather than x% off?
Note: I have no idea how much the profit margin on a shirt is.
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Canadian Maplecakes
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Gearing back to the OP...
I would consider a subscription if rather than a discount, it incorporated some of the 'bonus' scenarios that tend to sit with VCs for a year before being released to the general public.
I would almost see something like getting a copy of Blood Under Absalom or Midnight Mauler as part of the subscription a few months before the general release.
Maybe not all the modules would be released like this (got to save some material for the VCs/special events), but it would be a neat perk of getting a subscription.
Just my 2.33 (repeating of course) cents.
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Well, something I have been kicking around SORT OF RELATES to a potential subscriber issue for PFS, so I'll bite with the following log-winded explanation first.
In terms of my current event I'm coordinating, I've been trying hard at the outset to build an event and a player base who keep coming back to play every week. There are a lot of factors involved in whether that works and I can't begin to describe them all here; moreover, many of you already know those myriad factors at play already. No point preaching to the converted on those issues.
But on the issues I can control, I've tried to do the following at the outset of my event:
A. Try to offer one table that is running one-off adventures while another table is running multi-session story arcs. There are good points to both approaches and bad points to both, too. By offering both at the same time at the same event, you maximize the strengths and minimize the weaknesses. It has definitely worked.
Moral of the story: a blend of multi-part arcs and stand-alone is a good thing.
B. Select adventures with good eye candy: Players who are new to PFS like to see cool maps on the table. Eye-candy is a good thing. It also makes many players feel they are getting something out of the game experience which they don't get at home. I dropped a few hundred dollars on flip-mats at Gencon so that I and my other GMs would have these on hand to run PFS. I have deliberately tried to select PFS scenarios which feature flip-mats as often as I can so that the players can have the benefit of using them. Apart from eye-candy, it also helps speed up game play, too, which is a factor in the store where I hold our event.
Moral of the Story:Flip-mats in PFS scenarios are A Good Thing.
C. When a flip-mat isn't available, I've been extracting, enlarging and printing out 1"=1" battlemaps, and creating larger city maps, wherever possible for use during play. Again, the idea is to present cool eye-candy for players and give them something they aren't getting at home. It appears to be working and the players at my event are now fully expecting this sort of map presentation during play. (We are explaining the technical process on the next episode of the podcast in detail. It is within all PFS GMs skill sets and budgets, imo).
Moral of the Story: Games+ Sweet Props/ Art = WIN
In order to improve upon this visual experience for players, I think Paizo could consider the following:
1. Licensed 3D Terrain. Now, I know that Paizo flirted with this before and it didn't really work all that well. I am referring here to the WorldWorks Games Papercraft sets for Legacy of Fire. There are a number of reasons why papercraft is unsuitable for PFS play. For one, papercraft really doesn't transport well. For two, it takes a lot of time to create and three, it's fiddly to deploy on the tabletop.
Papercraft is not practical for in-store PFS use, imo.
But the new Terraclips product lines are something else. They transport well and, depending on the layout, deploy quickly on the tabletop. Above all, stuff like this draws the eye and gets people EXCITED.
I would be very much in favor of seeing a licensed / Pathfinder branded Terraclips product line, and I would love to see maps constructed with the product inserted as illustrations for PFS use. This is amazing eye candy and shows off the game very well in stores. Visually, it creates excitement and draws the eye. Combined with Pathfinder Battles minis? I think this approach is a winning combination for positive buzz. If the whole Terraclips thing ever comes up for discussion within Paizo, please ALSO consider the usefulness of the product from an in-store marketing perspective through PFS and not simply through the lens of the Adventure Paths. I believe there is real untapped potential here in terms of PFS play.
I have ZERO idea in how that would work for a subscriber, but bundling one with the other seems a natural. You would want PFS GMs to use this stuff, right?
I suppose one way would be to offer some discount as a bundle for Prop Art and PFS scenario subscriptions. The same bundling would apply in some manner to Map subscriptions. Target and promote specific bundling of those two subscriptions together.
2. Higher-Resolution Scenario Maps: Related to this and my comments on map printing above, one of the issues that you encounter with extracting and enlarging a map for poster printing for use during PFS play is image quality. Resampling a 72 dpi image before enlarging helps, but depending on map size, this can still be a real problem. I believe (I can be corrected) that the map tiles being offered to subscribers of the Map Packs is to provide the .pdf that comes with that product at a higher image resolution than the normal 72 screen res. It's 150, right?
I am not suggesting to create some new separate product with a PFS scenario too. But if there a way to increase the resolution of the scenario specific maps that come with PFS scenarios that are not available in another form (i.e., maps OTHER than flip-mat images or for Map packs) and ensure those maps are embedded at a higher resolution in a PFS .pdf scenario? At 150 dpi instead of 72? This would help quite a bit and would hopefully not push the bandwidth delivery costs to an untenable range.
If that was the bonus that was offered to a subscriber? I'd sure as hell bite on that.
And even if not connected to some subscription, I'd still like to see this option somewhere in relation to scenario specific maps.
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My 2 cp:
Allow someone to purchase a "season" of PFS scenarios. Price $111.72 or $3.99 per scenarios release per month. At the end of the season, they get season special scenarios free.
For example, if I purchase PFS Season 3, in July of 2012 I would get Blood Under Absalom added to my download for free. This would amount to about a 3.5% discount.
Or another way of looking at it is right now they could purchase all of season 2 and get immediate access to all 29 scenarios. If they purchase Season 3, they get access as they are available, with the special at the end.
I like the idea of a subscription.
-Swiftbrook
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My 2 cp:
Allow someone to purchase a "season" of PFS scenarios. Price $111.72 or $3.99 per scenarios release per month. At the end of the season, they get season special scenarios free.
For example, if I purchase PFS Season 3, in July of 2012 I would get Blood Under Absalom added to my download for free. This would amount to about a 3.5% discount.
Or another way of looking at it is right now they could purchase all of season 2 and get immediate access to all 29 scenarios. If they purchase Season 3, they get access as they are available, with the special at the end.
I like the idea of a subscription.
-Swiftbrook
Totally agree with Swiftbrook. Besides, I would honestly love to get Blood Under Absalom period. And play that and the Ruby Phoenix Tournament back to back :). It would be also great for Socities that have to "fundraise" in order to get their modules cause they are all broke gamers.
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i have doubts about buying every scenario. even knocked down to $3 per, that adds up at the end of the year. even just the occasional purchase i make adds up, especially with printing cost added in. i bought about 10 so far and pay around 7 to 10 bucks each with pdf+print cost added. it is enough that i loan my print out to others to save them some money hoping they will do the same for me later. i also expect my costs may go up or at least become more regular after playing so much my first year of participating. that means with less options to play and more game get togethers than new published material, i will have to play less and gm more if i want to participate at all. i know sharing the pdf is a no no and do not do that.
i would love it if you set up something like for evey five you buy(however long that takes and not necessarily five published in a row), the next is free.
can someone point me to more info on that vc program?
Would consider depending on benefits.
Benefits wouldn't have to be PFS related either, not everyone officially participates in PFS when they buy these, some people just get them because they're adventures.
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If we offered a subscription for Pathfinder Society Scenarios with no benefits other than ease of use, would you subscribe?
I would, just add the tag to the forum ;op
I know it's only a few clicks, and it's easy; but a subscription, that would go monthly with the other ones, would really be nice and easier.
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My 2 cp:
Allow someone to purchase a "season" of PFS scenarios. Price $111.72 or $3.99 per scenarios release per month. At the end of the season, they get season special scenarios free.
For example, if I purchase PFS Season 3, in July of 2012 I would get Blood Under Absalom added to my download for free. This would amount to about a 3.5% discount.
Or another way of looking at it is right now they could purchase all of season 2 and get immediate access to all 29 scenarios. If they purchase Season 3, they get access as they are available, with the special at the end.
I like the idea of a subscription.
-Swiftbrook
I am up for Swiftbrooks idea although I would advance the subscription and have the cost go towards the next season, not the following...
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The issue in the past has been, that it's more difficult to give incentives on a PDF only subscription.
When asked "would you like a subscription to this line, if there were no benefits, other than ease of use" most people didn't even bother answering.....
One benefit that would convince me to join would be to offer the subscription in vtt formats. As someone who has just started a Pathfinder Society for Fantasy Grounds, the conversion time from pdf to FG is higher than I would like. I'm sure Paizo could find volunteers to assist with the conversion process so there is not a hard cost to them in offering it as part of the subscription. I'd love to see this explored more.
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I would subscribe if the only add-on was higher resolution maps, perhaps as a separate PDF like the game mastery map pack.
OR
I would subscribe to a year-pack IF it included a boon and/or a bonus scenario not available to non-subscribers.
I am in favor of this idea. It assures paizo with an upfront commitment while offering advantages to subscribers!!
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One benefit that would convince me to join would be to offer the subscription in vtt formats. As someone who has just started a Pathfinder Society for Fantasy Grounds, the conversion time from pdf to FG is higher than I would like. I'm sure Paizo could find volunteers to assist with the conversion process so there is not a hard cost to them in offering it as part of the subscription. I'd love to see this explored more.The issue in the past has been, that it's more difficult to give incentives on a PDF only subscription.
When asked "would you like a subscription to this line, if there were no benefits, other than ease of use" most people didn't even bother answering.....
OK, I'm a little bit behind on my file types. What is VTT and why is better than PDF?
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OK, I'm a little bit behind on my file types. What is VTT and why is better than PDF?
VTT = Virtual Table Top (allows you to play online in real-time, like you were playing at a face-to-face table - just virtualy).
The argument here is that if it was already in a Virtual Table Top format that it would save on GM prep time. Also known as reformatting the battle maps into a usable grid and creating enemies/tokens for the encounters in the VTT format.
A vast majority of our subscribers benefit from the Pathfinder Advantage, which is already above 10%. Were we to do a subscription to Pathfinder Society Scenarios, we'd need to come up with another way to incentivize people to sign up. That said, I'll ask again:
If we offered a subscription for Pathfinder Society Scenarios with no benefits other than ease of use, would you subscribe?
Yes, please, considering I just searched for a thread for it :). They're $4/each; I'm okay with not getting my subscriber discount. Doing the math, they add up to, what, the price of a 320 page hardcover per year? Yeah, I'm fine with that. I'm thinking about running scenarios online, and just having them in my downloads as they're available makes it much easier. Further, if I want to submit a scenario concept, I have a good pool of prior art to look over to be sure I'm not duplicating anything.
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My 2 cp:
Allow someone to purchase a "season" of PFS scenarios. Price $111.72 or $3.99 per scenarios release per month. At the end of the season, they get season special scenarios free.
For example, if I purchase PFS Season 3, in July of 2012 I would get Blood Under Absalom added to my download for free. This would amount to about a 3.5% discount.
Or another way of looking at it is right now they could purchase all of season 2 and get immediate access to all 29 scenarios. If they purchase Season 3, they get access as they are available, with the special at the end.
I like the idea of a subscription.
-Swiftbrook
I would be more inclined to purchase a "season" of scenarios.