So, when is Paizo Kickstarter coming?
The two most obvious projects IMO are
1. Hardcover paizo adventure paths
2. Hardcover Dumgeon adventure paths ( yes I know this one needs Wotc but they are all about bringing the hobby together right?)
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I'd rather see a Kickstarter for a "risky" topic (Dragon Empires hardcover? The Great Beyond hardcover? Distant Worlds hardcover).
Hardcover APs make no sense (why subscribe, if hardcovers will happen eventurally?) and WotC allowing Dungeon APs to be reprinted is less realistic than North Korea going democratic.
I'd bet their scheldues would be subject to change if they're offered tens of thousands of dollars.
Personally, I'd pledge for any Paizo product on Kickstarter, recent happenings have confirmed what happens when fans are given an opportunity to invest in something they like (the ones Gorbacz mentioned).
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I agree with DM_aka_Dudemeister. Kickstarter is great for creative people who lack funds, but less helpful for creative people who lack time. Unless...
Paizo Kickstarter proposal: Clone the staff. Excess funds will be put towards a basement full of extra SKRs dedicated to FAQ requests.
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I'd bet their scheldues would be subject to change if they're offered tens of thousands of dollars.
I'm equally willing to bet their schedules wouldn't. Money's very nice, but quality of life matters a whole bunch too.
A possibility. But, there are other options that can be used with Kickstarter, ones that do not require direct involment of Paizo. Re-printing out of print books, funding more AP dice sets (I'd gladly PAY for OPPORTUNITY to buy more of them) that Q-workshops makes, more Reaper miniatures for APs (Carrion Crown got skipped over), perhaps making a line of posters that use art from books, paying Wayne Reynolds to do more art...
And that is just off the top of my head for projects that I'd gladly give money for. There are many possibilities.
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Even products that we don't directly produce, such as the aforementioned reprints, AP dice sets, Reaper Miniatures, Pathfinder Paper Minis, etc., all go through Paizo for approval.
Staff is at critical mass--we simply don't have enough to do everything we want to do. But! We're hiring, which always changes things.
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Even products that we don't directly produce, such as the aforementioned reprints, AP dice sets, Reaper Miniatures, Pathfinder Paper Minis, etc., all go through Paizo for approval.
Staff is at critical mass--we simply don't have enough to do everything we want to do. But! We're hiring, which always changes things.
This is the point back when I found out there was rumor of making the Players Companion and Modules a monthly subscriptions thing.
Vic and others argued that the schedule wouldn't have a problem keeping up.
Perhaps the picture is starting to be seen.
Sorry.
Even products that we don't directly produce, such as the aforementioned reprints, AP dice sets, Reaper Miniatures, Pathfinder Paper Minis, etc., all go through Paizo for approval.
Staff is at critical mass--we simply don't have enough to do everything we want to do. But! We're hiring, which always changes things.
I need to finish my degree & get out to Seattle.:P
Palladium is also doing something similair. To what seems like great sucess.
Of course they need the funds more than Pzaio does. But they are doing it with product already in the pipe. So I don't how it would mess up Pazio schedule.
I can't see Paizo doing a kickstarter. They have the funds they need for their standard projects, so it would need to be something special that draws in the funds. But they have shown that they have the capitol to take the risk on many of the more expensive fan-requested projects, namely the mini lines and the MMO (though technically those are both licensed and thus less risk to Paizo than in house projects).
I can't really see any project that Paizo would need to run a kickstarter for. Perhaps a reprint, like OotS, with the pledge rewards being related to the product being reprinted. That way they could judge demand, and if there isn't enough of it then they don't raise any funds. But do any of the APs have stock that low? Even if they are sold out at Paizo, many can still be found sitting on store shelves.
I could see Goblin Works doing a kickstarter. They are a little early on in their development cycle though, and probably want more of the game defined before they do. Promising people something 2 years in advance is a little dangerous. It may be a good way of gauging interest, to see if they are shooting for too low numbers. When it comes for them to start ordering server hardware though, I could definetely see them running a kickstarter to pay for the infrastructure.
I can't really see any project that Paizo would need to run a kickstarter for.
It doesn't seem like their thing, nonetheless it might be a way to fund a product too risky/expensive - like a boxed set of some description (dungeons beneath kaer maga or Absolom being my dream). They've stated before that those old style boxed sets are uneconomic. Perhaps some kind of "pledge" system would alleviate that somewhat and make it a less risky proposition.
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Personally, I'd like to see a kickstarter for Epic Rules, alternate Golarion, and UnGolarioned Arcana. Things of that nature.
Not a fan of Psionics myself, so I wouldn't interested, but Psionics would be in the same sort of place. All those things that "we will get to one day".
There are (at least) 2 things that affect whether Paizo can do these types of books.
The first, money, can be solved by kickstarter. But that assumes that Paizo will not be able to get the funds to do the project on their own. Why should they raise funds through kickstarter and let them take a portion of the proffits if they have the money from their successful buisness to front the project anyway? Especially projects that are in their core buisness, like RPG rulebook production. Funds are not what prevents these books from being made. As long as funds from 1 book can pay for the next to be made, there is no need to do a kickstarter. Until they want to do multiple books in parallel, this will hold true. But they wont ever want to do that unless factor 2 is taken care of.
The second major factor is time. Each of those books would require months of work, taking personel off of their busy schedual. Paizo has figured out how many large rule books they can produce in a year, how many supliments they can fit in, and how long their bread and butter APs take to make. Somewhere on the boards, James Jacobs (I think) talks about how doing 4 rulebooks in 1 year was very stressful, and 3 worked better. This means that they have a practical limitation on the number of books they can do. Sure, they can hire more people, but it will still need work from others to make sure quality stays up. And do you run a kickstarter to hire more people? What happens when the project is over?
Also there is a limit to how many books the RPG market will consume in a given period of time. Flood the market with too many, and people wont be willing to buy them all. Because there is a limit on the number of books they can make, they need to plan ahead. Thus, they make the rulebooks that interest them the most. Personally, I am expecting to see Epic Rule equivalents by the end of 2014.
Overall, I would love to see more content. But a kickstarter wont solve the problems that prevent them from doing it.
Everything that kickstarter does for a company/ idea subscriptions do for paizo. There is basically no need for kickstarting anything.
Yeah, Paizo has no need of a Kickstarter at this point. We're funded internally and have a built in gauge of demand, as well as many combined decades of industry experience to gauge demand for items that don't have a subscription.
Also, Kickstarter and Amazon charge an arm and a leg.
My personal opinion is that Kickstarter is great for works that don't have an infrastructure in place. Paizo does have an infrastructure.
Everything that kickstarter does for a company/ idea subscriptions do for paizo. There is basically no need for kickstarting anything.Yeah, Paizo has no need of a Kickstarter at this point. We're funded internally and have a built in gauge of demand, as well as many combined decades of industry experience to gauge demand for items that don't have a subscription.
Also, Kickstarter and Amazon charge an arm and a leg.
My personal opinion is that Kickstarter is great for works that don't have an infrastructure in place. Paizo does have an infrastructure.
Maybe Pathfinder could start their own version of kickstarter for the purpose of products that are difficult to gauge. It is nice to have all the expenses and overhead done before beginning a project. This would be useful for any project. Alos nice to know you have the cash to hire a contracter for a limited product. Just my thoughts.
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Maybe Pathfinder could start their own version of kickstarter for the purpose of products that are difficult to gauge. It is nice to have all the expenses and overhead done before beginning a project. This would be useful for any project. Alos nice to know you have the cash to hire a contracter for a limited product. Just my thoughts.
Estimating the expenses, demand, overhead, and cash requirements for a given product is a not-insignificant portion of what I do. (Before I was the Finance Manager, I was the Financial Analyst.) This is one of the reasons that I have a bit of open distaste for a Kickstarter-esque idea for Paizo. It's not really necessary if you have a finance person who has a grasp of the time value of money and basic supply and demand models. This is a portion of what I mean when I say Paizo has an infrastructure in place.
(Now just watch Lisa announce a Kickstarter tomorrow and make me eat my words. Hehe.)
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Maybe Pathfinder could start their own version of kickstarter for the purpose of products that are difficult to gauge. It is nice to have all the expenses and overhead done before beginning a project. This would be useful for any project. Alos nice to know you have the cash to hire a contracter for a limited product. Just my thoughts.Estimating the expenses, demand, overhead, and cash requirements for a given product is a not-insignificant portion of what I do. (Before I was the Finance Manager, I was the Financial Analyst.) This is one of the reasons that I have a bit of open distaste for a Kickstarter-esque idea for Paizo. It's not really necessary if you have a finance person who has a grasp of the time value of money and basic supply and demand models. This is a portion of what I mean when I say Paizo has an infrastructure in place.
(Now just watch Lisa announce a Kickstarter tomorrow and make me eat my words. Hehe.)
Well, yeah, but there are projects that have a lot of folks saying yes please and a lot of folks saying hell no (Asian hardcover, Epixxx rules, Psionics, etc.). If you gauge their popularity by forum presence, you run the risk of catering to vocal minorities. If you kickstart, people can put their money where their mouth is.
Kickstarter is great for smaller companies that need capital for production runs. Paizo already has enough capital to produce whichever books they think will be profitable. Comparing Paizo, one of the two strongest brands in the RPG industry, with Palladium (which hasn't shown up as a top selling RPG since the 80s?) just isn't very informative.
The one place I could see Paizo trying a kickstarter style initiative is T-Shirts. Their biggest complaints about trying to sell T-Shirts is that people rarely buy the shirts they pledge for. I still doubt it'll be worth their while though.
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Well, yeah, but there are projects that have a lot of folks saying yes please and a lot of folks saying hell no (Asian hardcover, Epixxx rules, Psionics, etc.). If you gauge their popularity by forum presence, you run the risk of catering to vocal minorities. If you kickstart, people can put their money where their mouth is.
Well...I'm not about to part the curtain...but forum presence is one of the least significant factors in my models.
Honestly, I don't have any idea what the forum demand looks like for any of those books, but I could probably tell you with a reasonable degree of accuracy how many copies each of those would sell in a given time period. (Could, but won't. We don't share those types of numbers.)
Also, we've asked people to do that in the past. Back in the distant past, there were a couple t-shirts that we allowed people to vote on the designs of. We specified that a vote was a non-obligatory promise to buy it if it was produced. Produce it we did. The percentage of follow-through was...disappointing. So, we could do that again and see a demand that is much higher than the follow-through would be, or we could let Kickstarter and Amazon take their huge bite out of funding...or we could keep using the predictions and models that we currently use and allow us to make all those wonderful products you currently get to buy and all the new products and lines coming up (I'm looking at you, monster pawns!).
Well, yeah, but there are projects that have a lot of folks saying yes please and a lot of folks saying hell no (Asian hardcover, Epixxx rules, Psionics, etc.). If you gauge their popularity by forum presence, you run the risk of catering to vocal minorities. If you kickstart, people can put their money where their mouth is.
I'm sure forum interest is maybe 5% of what they use to gauge interest. They can see how many people buy, say, Psionics Unleashed, compared to other 3PP products. They have sales numbers for Dragon Empires and other products to let them gauge interest. If you want more epic material, have you purchased all of the level 15+ modules?
They have a ton of sources of information. They just don't really share them with us.
Well, yeah, but there are projects that have a lot of folks saying yes please and a lot of folks saying hell no (Asian hardcover, Epixxx rules, Psionics, etc.). If you gauge their popularity by forum presence, you run the risk of catering to vocal minorities. If you kickstart, people can put their money where their mouth is.I'm sure forum interest is maybe 5% of what they use to gauge interest. They can see how many people buy, say, Psionics Unleashed, compared to other 3PP products. They have sales numbers for Dragon Empires and other products to let them gauge interest. If you want more epic material, have you purchased all of the level 15+ modules?
They have a ton of sources of information. They just don't really share them with us.
And there goes deinol, exposing all of my secrets.
And there goes deinol, exposing all of my secrets.
I haven't bugged your office. I just paid attention when this sort of topic has come up before.
I have to say, running your own webstore is brilliant. Not only do you get to make money on other people's products, but you get to see market trends. Maybe it is only a smaller subsection of the market (people who buy Paizo products), but it's the part of the market you most want to keep an eye on. You can't easily buy that kind of market research.
And there goes deinol, exposing all of my secrets.
I haven't bugged your office. I just paid attention when this sort of topic has come up before.
I have to say, running your own webstore is brilliant. Not only do you get to make money on other people's products, but you get to see market trends. Maybe it is only a smaller subsection of the market (people who buy Paizo products), but it's the part of the market you most want to keep an eye on. You can't easily buy that kind of market research.
Lisa Stevens - (not necessarily evil) business genius.
Things that kickstarter style drive (couldn't you create your own version?) would work for would be the following:
- Out of print products. Why let the after market crowd make money when you can reprint old products this way?
- Updates to some of the OGL releases. Due to the nature of how most of the products are rules lite and would require less development time to bring up to date with PFRPG rules.
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I second Nukruh.
If there was any way of seeing a new printing of the Cheliax book, fer instance, or an updated version of the Taldor book, I'd be willing to pay a higher-than-normal price for them.
I agree that Paizo has no need for a Kickstarter campaign, but a kickstarter-style pledge system might help with these kind of proyects.
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Well...I'm not about to part the curtain...but forum presence is one of the least significant factors in my models.Honestly, I don't have any idea what the forum demand looks like for any of those books, but I could probably tell you with a reasonable degree of accuracy how many copies each of those would sell in a given time period. (Could, but won't. We don't share those types of numbers.)
Also, we've asked people to do that in the past. Back in the distant past, there were a couple t-shirts that we allowed people to vote on the designs of. We specified that a vote was a non-obligatory promise to buy it if it was produced. Produce it we did. The percentage of follow-through was...disappointing. So, we could do that again and see a demand that is much higher than the follow-through would be, or we could let Kickstarter and Amazon take their huge bite out of funding...or we could keep using the predictions and models that we currently use and allow us to make all those wonderful products you currently get to buy and all the new products and lines coming up (I'm looking at you, monster pawns!).
I feel better now knowing that bouts of nerdrage, "Quadratic Monks, Linear Bards", "Get your XXX out of my YYY" do not influence your business plans.
Having said that, I really want more pawns.
Having said that, I really want more pawns.
I advise patience.
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Having said that, I really want more pawns.
I WANT BISHOPS!!