Paizo / Pathfinder 2e and the Current Market


Pathfinder Second Edition General Discussion

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Howdy All,

Over on Enworld there's a sort of mini-flame war brewing over whether or not Pathfinder 2e should be considered a failure or not - mostly revolving around the number of people playing on virtual table tops.

Given that Paizo has multiple books slated for release in the future, (Secrets of Magic, Guns and Gears, etc), it doesn't really seem to me like Paizo is hurting.

I think it's unrealistic to expect Paizo to dominate the market as they did with PF1e considering the stars really aligned for their success, but I also don't really think 'success' needs to equate to being the #1 product on the market player base wise.

What do you all think? It only concerns me because I don't want to be on a downward trajectory, you know?


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Paizo staff have a rule that basically says "Don't bring drama from other sites to our forums. "

There's also a rule about not posting provocative topics
Posts or threads made solely to provoke conflict do not contribute to the inviting place we'd like our community to be.

Flagging for the mods to take care of.


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CrystalSeas wrote:

Paizo staff have a rule that basically says "Don't bring drama from other sites to our forums. "

There's also a rule about not posting provocative topics
Posts or threads made solely to provoke conflict do not contribute to the inviting place we'd like our community to be.

Flagging for the mods to take care of.

Errrr...k...


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

People having a flamewar about market share based on incredibly sketchy data (number of open VTT listings aren't actually a great indicator of playerbase) isn't something worth anyone's time or concern.


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People, in a general sense, have a tendency to assume their own opinion or experience to be the majority opinion or experience.

I mention that because folks that are not interested in PF2 themselves find it very easy to interpret information as supporting the idea that "nobody else likes it either" even when the information they are working from is too narrow in scope to draw that conclusion from.

For example, I've seen people try to say that PF2 must not be doing well because the Roll20 report on what percentage of their users are playing PF2 games via the site showed that it was a very small percentage... but unless Roll20 is actually where the majority of PF2 players are playing their games, that is basically as irrelevant as me saying "only 10 people have ever play PF2 at my house." Most people don't play at my house, so that number doesn't mean anything.

The evidence that is actually worth using? That'd be Paizo. For so long as they are continuing forward with their PF2 release schedule, assume that means they are profiting from said plan. If instead they make some sort of pivot, or other significant change of plans, then we have evidence that the game isn't doing as well as they need it to (and that's another important thing to remember... a game doesn't have to outsell any specific other game in order to be successful, since a lot of folks play more than one game)


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Obviously pathfinder 2e is a small fish to 5e but so is world of darkness and people have been playing that for decades.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

So, what are the numbers?

1. Is Roll20 representative of the entire TTRPG playerbase?
I would argue that no, it's likely not, if only because it's an aging platform and and its userbase will lean toward people who have been using it, and systems they're used to on it, more than newer systems. If you're picking up a new game, why not check out Foundry while you're at it?

2. What is the VTT market share of Roll20?
No idea, really. I started loathing Roll20 probably 3 years ago when I got fed up with how clunky and bothersome its UI is. If its market share is low, the likelihood of its numbers being accurate for the TTRPG market is also lower.

3. How does the quantity of home games compare to VTT games?
Sure, COVID-19 has impacted this, but where is it at? The more home games, the less reliable the Roll20 data is.

4. What is the percentage of Roll20 games for Pathfinder 1st Edition?
Q4 2020 from the Orr Group puts it at 3.69%

5. What is the percentage of Roll20 games for Pathfinder 2nd Edition?
Q4 2020 from the Orr Group puts it at 1.58%

6. What is the threshold for "Success"?
I would argue being in the top 5 games on Roll20 after two years is pretty good. Roll20 has 8 million users, so that's roughly 133,000 PF2 players on just Roll20. Depending on the proportions in (2) and (3), that's some very good numbers for a TTRPG that's not D&D.

Liberty's Edge

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I believe Roll20 strongly supports 5e, and Paizo products less so.

It would be hardly surprising then that their stats give better numbers to the former than the latter.

But it only reflects what is happening at Roll20 and not the current market.

Also pretty much what everyone said above.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
WatersLethe wrote:

So, what are the numbers?

1. Is Roll20 representative of the entire TTRPG playerbase?
I would argue that no, it's likely not, if only because it's an aging platform and and its userbase will lean toward people who have been using it, and systems they're used to on it, more than newer systems. If you're picking up a new game, why not check out Foundry while you're at it?

2. What is the VTT market share of Roll20?
No idea, really. I started loathing Roll20 probably 3 years ago when I got fed up with how clunky and bothersome its UI is. If its market share is low, the likelihood of its numbers being accurate for the TTRPG market is also lower.

3. How does the quantity of home games compare to VTT games?
Sure, COVID-19 has impacted this, but where is it at? The more home games, the less reliable the Roll20 data is.

4. What is the percentage of Roll20 games for Pathfinder 1st Edition?
Q4 2020 from the Orr Group puts it at 3.69%

5. What is the percentage of Roll20 games for Pathfinder 2nd Edition?
Q4 2020 from the Orr Group puts it at 1.58%

6. What is the threshold for "Success"?
I would argue being in the top 5 games on Roll20 after two years is pretty good. Roll20 has 8 million users, so that's roughly 133,000 PF2 players on just Roll20. Depending on the proportions in (2) and (3), that's some very good numbers for a TTRPG that's not D&D.

Another relevant number would be the percentage of PF2 games on Fantasy Grounds, which has done a much better job than Roll20 of supporting PF2. I believe that in the most recently reported quarter it was around 6%. (So a substantially higher percentage than on Roll20.)


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It really depends on Paizo meeting their sales targets and being profitable. Since we don't have access to Paizo's financial information it's really hard to speculate about it.

Personally, roll20's clunky UI is better suited for a math light game like 5E so that may skew the numbers.

Additionally, if Paizo's goal for Pathfinder 2E was to surpass D&D it clearly failed by most market measures. However, if wanted to capture a market niche, then it was clearly more succesful.

Humbly,
Yawar


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Reading "didn't become the largest game in the world" as a flop would only make sense to the most thoroughly unhinged analyst.


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I think Paizo's goal is to sell enough books to keep the lights on and pay their employees and maybe make a profit. I don't see anything to suggest that isn't going well.

Paizo Employee

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YawarFiesta wrote:

It really depends on Paizo meeting their sales targets and being profitable. Since we don't have access to Paizo's financial information it's really hard to speculate about it.

Personally, roll20's clunky UI is better suited for a math light game like 5E so that may skew the numbers.

Additionally, if Paizo's goal for Pathfinder 2E was to surpass D&D it clearly failed by most market measures. However, if wanted to capture a market niche, then it was clearly more succesful.

Humbly,
Yawar

Paizo never has and never will surpass D&D when WotC is actually trying. Even the window during which Pathfinder was the #1 RPG on icv2 happened during the timeframe where WotC had already announced 5E, was winding down 4E, and was in the middle of restructuring their distribution network to start doing direct distribution to Amazon.

PF2 reaching even a fraction of the sales of 5E can still be a wild, mind-blowing success because 5E has the benefit of 50 years of name recognition and a multi-billion-dollar division of the most powerful toy company in the world backing it. Paizo is still barely more than a mom & pop shop transitioning into its second generation of leadership, with less than a hundred employees and exactly one leased physical location that houses all of the offices, server room(s), and warehouse for the entire company.

A 3pp company might have 1 or 2 full-time employees (who still have day jobs) and an average product sale for a well-known 3pp company is equivalent to about 2% of the people who have registered organized play characters for PFS. WotC is as much larger in scope than Paizo as Paizo is larger than one of those 3pps. And just like how a 3pp can be successful with a tiny fraction of the sales that Paizo has, Paizo can be successful with a fraction of the sales that WotC has, because the size of the market is so large and the scope of the two are so different that any direct comparison misses the point.

D&D and MtG combined make more money than Transformers, Power Rangers, My Little Pony, and Monopoly combined, as was revealed in recent shake-ups following WotC's last earnings call. That's ridiculous. That means that 5E isn't just a juggernaut in the market, it is now the engine that generates the market that every other game exists within. And that's not unusual, D&D has long been the centerpiece of the TTRPG world and is really the thing that opened the door for everything that's come since.

PF2 has been consistently blowing past benchmarks established by PF1 and Starfinder, which themselves were record-setting product lines for Paizo. That's really the only metric of success that's truly relevant, and outselling every product line the company produced prior to it at unheard of speeds definitely checks that "success" box.


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A d20 alternative that is actually trying to highlight diverse inspirations and voices is a very appealing thing these days.


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The idea that they need to be D&D to be a success is patently absurd. D&D is not only the face of the hobby, it is also backed by a huge corporation. Survival of the fittest doesn't mean being the best. It's about finding a niche to survive in.

Liberty's Edge

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To me, this question feels more like asking: "Who sells more beer, Anheuser-Busch, or Founders Brewing Co?"

There have been about 50 or so years of SOLID cultural presence internationally for D&D. It's like Kleenex, everyone here probably knows exactly what I'm talking about as they've more than likely talked to people who aren't in the hobby and described Pathfinder or even any number of other RPGs as being "like D&D" at some point.

If WotC just STOPPED doing active marketing for D&D 5e completely starting today and stopped writing new supplements altogether I would just about guarantee that the game would almost certainly coast into remaining the most widely played and popular RPG system on the market for ... well, probably at least another 10 or 20 years because their presence is just THAT big, but I figured everyone knew this already.

Hasbro and WotC literally have more accountants and full-time legal counsel retained for their RPG and Card Game business than Paizo has staff across their entire business platform. Their whole operation is STILL incredibly small compared to their sales and team who actually develops the game though given that D&D has licenses for tens of thousands of different products ranging from actual toys, to merchandise like clothes, collectibles, collectibles, television and movies, video games, board games, and standalone miniature games... and that doesn't even include the actual GAME itself. I wouldn't be surprised if I learned that WotC and Hasbro earn 100x as much revenue by these income streams than they currently do or EVER could from selling D&D Beyond service + physical books and minis.


Ssalarn wrote:
YawarFiesta wrote:

It really depends on Paizo meeting their sales targets and being profitable. Since we don't have access to Paizo's financial information it's really hard to speculate about it.

Personally, roll20's clunky UI is better suited for a math light game like 5E so that may skew the numbers.

Additionally, if Paizo's goal for Pathfinder 2E was to surpass D&D it clearly failed by most market measures. However, if wanted to capture a market niche, then it was clearly more succesful.

Humbly,
Yawar

Paizo never has and never will surpass D&D when WotC is actually trying. Even the window during which Pathfinder was the #1 RPG on icv2 happened during the timeframe where WotC had already announced 5E, was winding down 4E, and was in the middle of restructuring their distribution network to start doing direct distribution to Amazon.

PF2 reaching even a fraction of the sales of 5E can still be a wild, mind-blowing success because 5E has the benefit of 50 years of name recognition and a multi-billion-dollar division of the most powerful toy company in the world backing it. Paizo is still barely more than a mom & pop shop transitioning into its second generation of leadership, with less than a hundred employees and exactly one leased physical location that houses all of the offices, server room(s), and warehouse for the entire company.

A 3pp company might have 1 or 2 full-time employees (who still have day jobs) and an average product sale for a well-known 3pp company is equivalent to about 2% of the people who have registered organized play characters for PFS. WotC is as much larger in scope than Paizo as Paizo is larger than one of those 3pps. And just like how a 3pp can be successful with a tiny fraction of the sales that Paizo has, Paizo can be successful with a fraction of the sales that WotC has, because the size of the market is so large and the scope of the two are so different that any direct comparison misses the point.

D&D and MtG combined make more money than...

That is exactly my point. Pathfinder 2E having captured around 6% (based solely on the statics from roll20) of the market, could be considered successfully finding a niche audience.

For example, the soulsbourne series does not make as much money as Fortnite, but is still successful.

My point is: "Failing to beat D&D is only a failure if that was your expectative. Finding a market niche is a success."

Humbly,
Yawar


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HammerJack wrote:
Reading "didn't become the largest game in the world" as a flop would only make sense to the most thoroughly unhinged analyst.

Well, you say that, but I can't even list the number of games that died because they failed to outperform League of Legends.

Fortunately Paizo isn't run by deranged investors.


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Let's start by addressing the question of failure, as that's not really relevant to what's actually being asked here. The metrics of success are set by Paizo's leadership and ultimately the product could be a "success" even if they sold 0 units, as long as that was what the company projected.

One of the implied questions is: "Is 2e as popular as 1e was." and the answer to that question is a resounding no. Which is unsurprising as 1e was born out of a dissatisfaction to its largest competitor (4e).

Now the scary question is: "Is 2e as popular as 1e is." and after more than a year on the market, all signs point to a resounding no. Roll20 is the de facto VTT of choice in the current era, while other solutions exist, they don't have the market share of Roll20, and their data shows that 1e games outnumber 2e games by over 2 to 1. You can even corroborate this with looking at the ratio of 1e discussion to 2e discussion on other sites.

What does this mean for 2e fans? Well not much, currently Paizo is still going to be releasing their books.

What do I think this means in the long run? I think that this means that a new edition is liable to come out sooner rather than later, and with a larger bent toward 1e mechanics, which again doesn't matter to 2e fans, they'll still have their books.


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Fargoth's Hiding Place wrote:
Now the scary question is: "Is 2e as popular as 1e is." and after more than a year on the market, all signs point to a resounding no. Roll20 is the de facto VTT of choice in the current era, while other solutions exist, they don't have the market share of Roll20, and their data shows that 1e games outnumber 2e games by over 2 to 1. You can even corroborate this with looking at the ratio of 1e discussion to 2e discussion on other sites.

While that may be generically true for TTRPGs in general, only a masochist would want to play PF2 on Roll20 compared to any of the other solutions.


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Roll20 should definitely not be used as an indicator for 2e success. Mainly because the support for 2e is absolutely abysmal while fantasy grounds and especially foundry are far superior at running the system.

Most people i know who run 2e have moved over to foundry and i assume that's the case for many others.


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Cyouni wrote:
While that may be generically true for TTRPGs in general, only a masochist would want to play PF2 on Roll20 compared to any of the other solutions.

Oh don't get me wrong, that's not an endorsement of Roll20, merely the case of what is. Roll20 has one of the largest brand-awareness and lowest barriers of entry for any VTT, being free, and needing a computer built in the last decade to function adequately.

I'll take Foundry any day for damn near anything, system built or not.


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Davido1000 wrote:

Roll20 should definitely not be used as an indicator for 2e success. Mainly because the support for 2e is absolutely abysmal while fantasy grounds and especially foundry are far superior at running the system.

Most people i know who run 2e have moved over to foundry and i assume that's the case for many others.

I really don't think that's the case, I think that's just hopeful thinking. Foundry requires $50 and the ability to troubleshoot for network errors (port forwarding) or a subscription to forge. Fantasy Grounds more so.

Grand Archive

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Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

On the other hand, one of the biggest Pathfinder discord servers (a bit more than 11.9K members) saw its PF1 discussion overshadowed by PF2 discussions, and by a lot. Also, an overwhelming number of new members first post in one of the PF2 channels and stays there.

Alternatively, The most popular Pathfinder subreddit saw a similar switch of new members mostly focusing on PF2 talk, AND that's with a specifically PF2 focused subreddit being created by other peoples. AND the number of new daily members shot up VERY considerably since the release of PF2, and bump each new book releases.

I wouldn't trust blindly the Roll20 numbers. And I would CERTAINLY NOT use them exclusively as an indication of the whole industry state.

Paizo Employee

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Fargoth's Hiding Place wrote:


One of the implied questions is: "Is 2e as popular as 1e was." and the answer to that question is a resounding no. Which is unsurprising as 1e was born out of a dissatisfaction to its largest competitor (4e).

Now the scary question is: "Is 2e as popular as 1e is." and after more than a year on the market, all signs point to a resounding no. Roll20 is the de facto VTT of choice in the current era, while other solutions exist, they don't have the market share of Roll20, and their data shows that 1e games outnumber 2e games by over 2 to 1. You can even corroborate this with looking at the ratio of 1e discussion to 2e discussion on other sites.

Neither of these assertions actually have much backing them up, and they're probably wrong. PF1 at its height didn't sell as many books per print run as PF2 does now. And you can look at the company dynamics as well- The design team is bigger than it's ever been, with 4 designers plus a director of game design. A far cry from the days of three designers including Bulmahn. The customer service department has almost doubled in size since the release of PF2. The editing department has almost doubled in size since the release of PF2. The organized play team has added 2 new members since the ramp-up to PF2 began and has retained those positions through multiple promotions and shifts in the department.

So if you're talking about popularity as a percentage of all TTRPG players everywhere in the year 2015, then yeah, PF2 isn't as popular as PF1 by that metric. But if you're talking about things like sales metrics, media engagement, actual number of consumers, etc. then PF2 is very much more popular than PF1. The difference is that PF2 is in a robust and healthy gaming market while PF1 was stepping into a split market that was abandoned and reworked just a few years in, with little competition and no big movers and shakers making significant plays beyond Paizo themselves.

"But I'm on Facebook and Reddit and it doesn't get nearly as many posts as PF1 does" you might say. Turns out, there's a reason for that. It's not that PF2 is less popular by number of players, it's that a small handful of "PF1 Forever!" gamers are so toxicly obnoxious that new people join the communities and then immediately leave to find more hospitable climes. So even as PF1 is dying off, it seems stronger to the people who are most invested in it because the shrinking communities become more and more insular and devolve into echo chambers that don't get exposed to what's happening in the broader world of games and Pathfinder in particular.


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Davido1000 wrote:

Roll20 should definitely not be used as an indicator for 2e success. Mainly because the support for 2e is absolutely abysmal while fantasy grounds and especially foundry are far superior at running the system.

Most people i know who run 2e have moved over to foundry and i assume that's the case for many others.

Yeah, I've been running PF2 over on Roll20 for about a year now, and there are a lot of things that are super clunky — some PF2-specific, others general. I've been looking into switching platform, but I don't think I will. I'm already pretty heavily invested in Roll20, and buying the same books again for e.g. Fantasy Grounds would cost something like $200. And things are looking better on the horizon, so in a few months our gaming group will hopefully be able to start playing at a physical location again, and I'm not going to spend that sort of money for something that'll hopefully be over by fall.


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Ssalarn wrote:
So if you're talking about popularity as a percentage of all TTRPG players everywhere in the year 2015, then yeah, PF2 isn't as popular as PF1 by that metric. But if you're talking about things like sales metrics, media engagement, actual number of consumers, etc. then PF2 is very much more popular than PF1. The difference is that PF2 is in a robust and healthy gaming market while PF1 was stepping into a split market that was abandoned and reworked just a few years in, with little competition and no big movers and shakers making significant plays beyond Paizo themselves.

Exactly. The RPG market has been growing enormously since the release of D&D5. According to ICV2's estimates, the US/Canada market for RPGs was about $15M in 2013. In 2019, it was $80M. I haven't seen one for 2020, but I don't think the RPG market shrank. So the RPG market has more than quintupled since 2013, so even if Pathfinder had, say, 20% of the market back then and 5% now, that's still growth in real numbers. A smaller share of a much larger pie still gets you more pie.

Mmm, pie.


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Elfteiroh wrote:

On the other hand, one of the biggest Pathfinder discord servers (a bit more than 11.9K members) saw its PF1 discussion overshadowed by PF2 discussions, and by a lot. Also, an overwhelming number of new members first post in one of the PF2 channels and stays there.

Alternatively, The most popular Pathfinder subreddit saw a similar switch of new members mostly focusing on PF2 talk, AND that's with a specifically PF2 focused subreddit being created by other peoples. AND the number of new daily members shot up VERY considerably since the release of PF2, and bump each new book releases.

I wouldn't trust blindly the Roll20 numbers. And I would CERTAINLY NOT use them exclusively as an indication of the whole industry state.

Reddit usage of Pathfinder subs (the main 3 combined) sees a rough 50/50 distribution on activity, with slight advantage on Second Edition. The main Pathfinder Discord has about an 80% PF2, 20% PF1. Sales are definitely higher for PF2, as reprints of PF1 haven't happened (instead, large sales of warehouse stock were done to make space). Safe to say PF1 isn't selling. We also know from paizo that PF2 sells more than Starfinder.

If we only count TTRPG sales, Paizo is still the second-largest company in the market, with Chaosium (CoC) lagging behind as third, but barely competing in sales volume, and WotC (D&D) being the titan at the top. We're talking magnitude differences here, like CoC being 1/10th of Pathfinder sales and other games being 1/10th of CoC sales.

Pathfinder is doing fine.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

What a strange concept that the #2 selling RPG would be a “failure.”

Fall 2020 RPG sales rankings

Silver Crusade

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dirtypool wrote:
What a strange concept that the #2 selling RPG would be a “failure.”

Hey, gotta keep rabidly pursuing wealth for the sake wealth, right?

/sarcasm


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Rysky wrote:
dirtypool wrote:
What a strange concept that the #2 selling RPG would be a “failure.”

Hey, gotta keep rabidly pursuing wealth for the sake wealth, right?

/sarcasm

Go go Gadget-capitalization.

I guess if #1 is the only one that can be a success then those indie creators should just pack it in.


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While I generally agree with the responses above, I think PF2 players are missing an opportunity for some self-examination.

Did PF2 miss an opportunity this year? A *lot* of people started playing D&D. Like ... a LOT.

I barely know anyone who started playing Pathfinder. There hasn't been an influx of new players asking basic questions on the forums. I haven't walked more new players through their first game in the last year than I did in the previous year (PbP).

Did the PF player base grow to expectations?


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Rysky wrote:
dirtypool wrote:
What a strange concept that the #2 selling RPG would be a “failure.”

Hey, gotta keep rabidly pursuing wealth for the sake wealth, right?

/sarcasm

Games are not for fun. Games are for line on graph go up

Silver Crusade

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Arachnofiend wrote:
Rysky wrote:
dirtypool wrote:
What a strange concept that the #2 selling RPG would be a “failure.”

Hey, gotta keep rabidly pursuing wealth for the sake wealth, right?

/sarcasm

Games are not for fun. Games are for line on graph go up

Stonks go brr brr


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Watery Soup wrote:
While I generally agree with the responses above, I think PF2 players are missing an opportunity for some self-examination.

I’m not quite sure what we’re meant to be reflecting on in this examination. We are representative of the group that has adopted PF2, we are neither those who haven’t yet chosen to play the game nor are we the staff of employees who develop and market the game. Are we meant to be looking within ourselves for an answer as to why other players haven’t adopted the game, or what business practices Paizo should use to entice those players? Will self reflection provide any answers?

“Watery Soup” wrote:
Did PF2 miss an opportunity this year? A *lot* of people started playing D&D. Like ... a LOT.

Did a lot of people start playing D&D this year or did the already massive player base that wasn’t using VTT’s start using VTT’s because of the pandemic creating significant growth in online platform usage while growth in book sales reflected a smaller percentage of uptick from 2019 to 2020?

Since we’re talking about an industry that is practically allergic to sharing sales data, we have precious little to go off of beyond Amazon. Those numbers don’t seem to be as massive an increase as people are claiming. Tasha’s sold better than Wildemount - but not by massive numbers as far as Amazon shows.

“Watery Soup” wrote:
Did the PF player base grow to expectations?

Whose expectations are we discussing? Paizo isn’t exactly known for letting us know what their expectations are for the sales or adoption of their product and their senior leadership keeps stating that they are pleased with where they are. Why do we need to Monday morning quarterback this? This was the #2 game before the pandemic and it still is. Things are growing throughout the industry.

Silver Crusade

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Watery Soup wrote:

While I generally agree with the responses above, I think PF2 players are missing an opportunity for some self-examination.

Did PF2 miss an opportunity this year? A *lot* of people started playing D&D. Like ... a LOT.

I barely know anyone who started playing Pathfinder. There hasn't been an influx of new players asking basic questions on the forums. I haven't walked more new players through their first game in the last year than I did in the previous year (PbP).

Did the PF player base grow to expectations?

Is there any evidence you can provide that "a LOT" of people starting playing D5 at the expense of P2 other than you personally haven't had any newbies?

Obviously not saying D5 hasn't grown, but the claim that it's skyrocketing and P2 isn't moving at all in terms of new players.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Oh hey, I'm in that brewing mess! Really it's a handful of users who have that strong "Why Wasn't I Consulted?" Thing going on. They want to treat pf2e as a failure because they want that to vindicate their views on what paizo should do / should have done. It's kind of funny too, the user who is most prolific got a lot of pushback here and stopped posting on these forums after getting called out.

One of those threads did give me the idea of producing a number of 'essentials pf2e' characters for people intimidated by options that aren't full pregens, but instead are a preselected set of feats you would take to simplify the customization, like an expanded quick build made to simulate ye Olde 5e style wall of features.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Rysky wrote:
Watery Soup wrote:

While I generally agree with the responses above, I think PF2 players are missing an opportunity for some self-examination.

Did PF2 miss an opportunity this year? A *lot* of people started playing D&D. Like ... a LOT.

I barely know anyone who started playing Pathfinder. There hasn't been an influx of new players asking basic questions on the forums. I haven't walked more new players through their first game in the last year than I did in the previous year (PbP).

Did the PF player base grow to expectations?

Is there any evidence you can provide that "a LOT" of people starting playing D5 at the expense of P2 other than you personally haven't had any newbies?

Obviously not saying D5 hasn't grown, but the claim that it's skyrocketing and P2 isn't moving at all in terms of new players.

Backing you up here, we actually get a lot of newbie posts on the subreddit, mostly FROM 5e.


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dirtypool wrote:
Did a lot of people start playing D&D this year or did the already massive player base that wasn’t using VTT’s start using VTT’s

The former.

I actually don't play on VTT all that much so I don't have my finger on that pulse either.

A lot of families I know have started playing D&D. And a lot of people have been writing about a lot of people picking up, or re-picking up, D&D.

Quote:
Whose expectations are we discussing?

Ours, collectively.

Rysky wrote:
the claim that [D5]'s skyrocketing and P2 isn't moving at all in terms of new players

Do you think PF2 has gotten a proportional share of the new RPG players this past year?

Silver Crusade

Watery Soup wrote:
Do you think PF2 has gotten a proportional share of the new RPG players this past year?

Define proportional?

I'd say it's grown, yes.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Watery Soup wrote:
The former.

Based on what data do you draw that conclusion?

“Watery Soup” wrote:

I actually don't play on VTT all that much so I don't have my finger on that pulse either.

A lot of families I know have started playing D&D. And a lot of people have been writing about a lot of people picking up, or re-picking up, D&D.

So you don’t really have a handle on the VTT uptick data which is the prime evidence cited in the debate on the other forum, you only are referring to people you know personally and anecdotes you have seen, but you have come to the conclusion that this is a moment for introspection for us to ponder en masse why we haven’t grown more as a player base. Even though you have no real evidence of if or how we have grown or not grown as a player base?

“Watery Soup” wrote:
Ours, collectively.

Are we a monolith now? PF2 met my expectations this year, how do we determine how my expectations align with the rest of the collective?

“Watery Soup” wrote:
Rysky wrote:
the claim that [D5]'s skyrocketing and P2 isn't moving at all in terms of new players
Do you think PF2 has gotten a proportional share of the new RPG players this past year?

First we would have to prove how many new players joined the hobby this year, but alas our bass-ackward hobby reports data like that by calling stores and asking them to guesstimate what sold best last quarter so we’re all really just whistling in the dark when it comes to real numbers.

Did you have fun playing PF2 last year? Do you plan on having fun playing PF2 this year? Is fun playing PF2 contingent upon how many people play PF2 in relation to D&D?


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dirtypool wrote:
Based on what data do you draw that conclusion?

Based on the same data that everyone else has - their experiences.

If you don't want to self-reflect, you don't need to.

Quote:
Is fun playing PF2 contingent upon how many people play PF2 in relation to D&D?

Not right now, no.

But the long-term picture absolutely relies on popularity, as well as economics, so it's worth thinking critically about.


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Watery Soup wrote:
If you don't want to self-reflect, you don't need to.

His point was that there's nothing to self-reflect on, as we didn't make the game. Or to put it another way, there's no "self" to reflect on, unless you are talking about the wider fan community both here and in other places like Reddit and Discord.

It would be appropriate to have opinions on the game, of course. That's what makes us fans, or at least potential customers.

Scarab Sages

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Watery Soup wrote:
I barely know anyone who started playing Pathfinder. There hasn't been an influx of new players asking basic questions on the forums. I haven't walked more new players through their first game in the last year than I did in the previous year (PbP).

There's a lot of new players on the subreddit. Reddit is the first result of a Google query about pathfinder 2e. Maybe that's why the new people go there instead of here?


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Watery Soup wrote:
Based on the same data that everyone else has - their experiences.

So you have personally experienced the fact that A *lot* of people started playing D&D. Like ... a LOT.

By all means then, tell us how many “a LOT” is.

“Watery Soup” wrote:
If you don't want to self-reflect, you don't need to.

What am I, a player, meant to reflect on? The number of copies of Paizo books and accessories I purchased last year? The number of PF2 sessions I ran for my players? The number of PF2 sessions I played in?

“Watery Soup” wrote:
Quote:
Is fun playing PF2 contingent upon how many people play PF2 in relation to D&D?

Not right now, no.

But the long-term picture absolutely relies on popularity, as well as economics, so it's worth thinking critically about.

Long-term picture relies on popularity. Okay let’s think critically about popularity. This thread alone shows the games popularity based on sales percentage remains in the same place it has been for the last eleven years (excepting that period where it was number one.) This thread also shows there seems to be a slight edge to PF2 in threads on Reddit. This thread also shows mixed data on VTT usage depending on platform.

Any other hard data you’d like to our list of things to think critically about, or do you just want to add conjecture to the mix?


Staffan Johansson wrote:
Davido1000 wrote:

Roll20 should definitely not be used as an indicator for 2e success. Mainly because the support for 2e is absolutely abysmal while fantasy grounds and especially foundry are far superior at running the system.

Most people i know who run 2e have moved over to foundry and i assume that's the case for many others.

Yeah, I've been running PF2 over on Roll20 for about a year now, and there are a lot of things that are super clunky — some PF2-specific, others general. I've been looking into switching platform, but I don't think I will. I'm already pretty heavily invested in Roll20, and buying the same books again for e.g. Fantasy Grounds would cost something like $200. And things are looking better on the horizon, so in a few months our gaming group will hopefully be able to start playing at a physical location again, and I'm not going to spend that sort of money for something that'll hopefully be over by fall.

Im also running pf2 on roll20 for little over a year and while there are some things that are very clunky (mainly the character sheet tbh) i dont see any problems overwhelmingly huge. I tried foundry for a bit with so many people raving on how great it is but making it work is a bit of a hassle for me. While the pdf converter works fine, uploading your own maps was rather hard especially if the maps are imperfect, which many paizo maps are, since you cant just drag the map but have to enter the numbers and i havent quite figured that out, the tutorial not helping much. On roll20 i can at least just buy an AP and have to do 0 work and i like that.

The charsheet really is the biggest problem, but having to write in some stuff manually is offset by how much time i save with the premade APs. and i dont really care about Foundries automatation features, id mainly move because of the charsheet and the database.

On topic: I also think that using roll20 stats doesnt say that much since i see way more people talking about foundry and others for pf2. And people not wanting to move from pf1 actually also makes sense considering its history.


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I am currently running two 2E games and am in one other one. Two of those groups I converted them over from 5e. I think Pathfinder is doing just fine.


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I’ll say that with the recent explosion of Ancestry options, my friends interested in 2e rose from 2 people to like, 6?

One of them is probably holding out until Kineticist comes back.

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