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Yeah, you are right. That's what I get for multitasking without coffee.
You might still be right in general, though. Would probably a hard sell to charge the same price for the pdf as for the print product.
Because here in Germany, due to regulated book prices that also extend to digital product, I buy books over pdfs for exactly that reason. I also read a lot of books in English, most of them as ebooks because it's simply cheaper than to buy them in print.
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This maybe a tangent but...What if there were no discount for PDF? What if the PDF was the same as the price of the book and you could have a physical sub (get PDF for free) or a digital sub (pay full price)? Then would that still hurt FLAG business? I would love to pay full price for the PDFs actually.
I would get physical copies of Lost Omens-line and rulebooks, PDF's for AP's, and rely on Archive of Nethys for looking up rules more often to make up for the lack of easy PDF access.
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Forgive me if this comes off as a dumb question, but how does having a subscription for physical books not hurt the local game shops in the same way as a digital subscription would? Aren't you circumventing them regardless by buying it directly from Paizo?
The main advantage of local stores is you can get the books immediately without paying extra for shipping. They are fine with competing with a physical book subscription because they still maintain that advantage.
With PDFs there is no shipping or wait time, which largely nullifies the advantage of a local store.
Forgive me if this comes off as a dumb question, but how does having a subscription for physical books not hurt the local game shops in the same way as a digital subscription would? Aren't you circumventing them regardless by buying it directly from Paizo?
One of the biggest objections FLGSes have with the subscription model is that some people get the PDF early (and many people think that’s one of the advantages of subscribing).
That means that the keen beans subscribe rather than buying locally. When an FLGS buys an RPG book they expect to sell a big chunk in the first couple of weeks (which basically pays for the stock) and then trickle the rest off the shelves in coming months - which is where the profit comes in.
By incentivising the keen, day-one purchasers to go direct to the publisher, the claim is that this early spike is depressed which means it takes longer to pay off the purchase price and therefore increases the risk that they’ll sink a whole bunch of capital into stock that just sits there for years.
So it’s not so much that Paizo are competing with FLGS sales so much as which cohort of customers they are attracting.
In fact, of course, nobody has any real idea of the impact. But that’s the perception of what’s going on amongst many FLGSes.
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I tend to think the fears of an FLGS revolt are overblown. But in any event, it doesn't have to be an all or nothing affair. Paizo could do a one year PDF subscription trial with a discrete print line (say, Starfinder APs) and see what happens.
The whole debate reminds me of the repeated insistence that we could and would never have collected editions of APs because then people would stop subscribing to the line. But then we got RotRL, CotCT, Kingmaker, and now Abomination Vaults hardcovers.
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1) We already do, with the Society lines, which has made certain "F"LGS not want to sell or host Pathfinder/Starfinder in them because of that, at least until the Retail Incentive Program was rolled out.
2) ... you do know we got HCs of those first three long after their initial print run and also they were all almost completely sold out right? With AV it's the latter and because it was a 3-parter.
Paizo's stance has always been to my knowledge "don't expect us to do this for every single AP" and "collecting the AP in HC right after it 'ends' would be bad and unfeasible for the extra immediate workload".
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I tend to think the fears of an FLGS revolt are overblown. But in any event, it doesn't have to be an all or nothing affair. Paizo could do a one year PDF subscription trial with a discrete print line (say, Starfinder APs) and see what happens.
The whole debate reminds me of the repeated insistence that we could and would never have collected editions of APs because then people would stop subscribing to the line. But then we got RotRL, CotCT, Kingmaker, and now Abomination Vaults hardcovers.
Abomination Vaults is a break with tradition.
But previously the line from Paizo wasn’t that we’d never get compilations but that they’d be rare and only when the individual books had sold out. The frequent request was for regular, scheduled compilations and they always ruled that out. Perhaps Abomination Vaults represents a new way of doing things..
In terms of the FLGS feedback - that isn’t hypothetical. There are stores who won’t carry Paizo products due to the subscription model.
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Abomination Vaults also has the distinction of being an evergreen AP that can be easily played with the Beginner Box. That coupled with the print editions selling out make it a good choice for a hardcover because it can continue to be marketed as "what to play next" for new players.
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Things I Remember Being Told We Couldn’t Have Because *Reasons:*
Collected APs
Pocket Editions
3-volume APs
All rulebooks integrated into Golarion
APs Officially Converted to Other RPGs
Non-black t-shirts, hoodies, etc
Spell and Monster Cards
Landscape GM Screens
A Campaign Setting Boxed Set
All of these things were “no no no” until they were “okay”. There’s nothing wrong with people making polite requests—market forces change over time, and the status quo doesn’t have to remain constant forever.
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Unfortunately, I have two local gaming stores and neither are particularly reliable about stocking products. There isn't really any incentive for me to shop with them for Paizo products.
To me, the free PDF with a physical book is 100% the main reason I do the subscription. I want the physical book but, truthfully, the PDF is what I use more. Particularly for adventure paths.
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I am all for FLGS. They are vital to the industry and community. They bring in new players. They advertise on the shelf and in person.
They are needed.
That being said. I only subscribe to the AP here because of the PDF. The discount is nice, but that isn't why I subscribe. I subscribe because otherwise I likely wouldn't pick up the physical copy. Right now when I get the physical copy I put them in a box and once I get the set I shrink wrap them just in case the internet dies in an apocalypse and I need the physical copies in a post apocalyptic world.
Well, 3 years ago I said I did that as a joke. Now that we are in the middle of a panoramic I am less likely to make fun of the chances.
I would be on board for a PDF only subscription so long as it didn't get a discount and didn't get released until release day. People would likely gravitate toward this as finding the storage for all the physical materials that literally sit on my shelf to look pretty becomes a premium.
If they did offer a discount? neat. But not at the detriment of getting people into the shops.
The day is coming when people stop buying books in print. We aren't there yet, but Paizo is already positioned to take advantage of that day when it does come. When it does come then the dynamic of our FLGS is going to have to change somewhat dramatically and I hope they are prepared for that situation.
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I would be on board for a PDF only subscription so long as it didn't get a discount and didn't get released until release day.
That was a well written and insightful post, but I disagree on the above point. There would need to be some incentive for me, as a consumer, to maintain an AP subscription, as opposed to just buying the PDF's ad-hoc. Reduced cost or early access would motivate me strongly to subscribe digitally, but without either benefit - or something equivalently enticing - I don't believe I would bother.
Also, living in the UK, my experience of highstreet gaming stores is that they do very little to encourage new players. They are usually staffed and frequented by the worst kind of stereotypical gaming troll that drive away new/casual hobbyists. Maybe your experience of gaming stores differs to my own, but I avoid such places like the plague.
I haven't been into a brick and mortar gaming store for over a decade, yet I still game weekly (in person, with a group I met online), and spend the majority of my disposable income on gaming stuff (online stores). Perhaps FLGS are not as important as was previously the case...?
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I would be on board for a PDF only subscription so long as it didn't get a discount and didn't get released until release day.That was a well written and insightful post, but I disagree on the above point. There would need to be some incentive for me, as a consumer, to maintain an AP subscription, as opposed to just buying the PDF's ad-hoc. Reduced cost or early access would motivate me strongly to subscribe digitally, but without either benefit - or something equivalently enticing - I don't believe I would bother.
Also, living in the UK, my experience of highstreet gaming stores is that they do very little to encourage new players. They are usually staffed and frequented by the worst kind of stereotypical gaming troll that drive away new/casual hobbyists. Maybe your experience of gaming stores differs to my own, but I avoid such places like the plague.
Yup I get that. 100%
For me the incentive is that I don't have to remember to hit buy and it just arrives in my email letting me know it is downloadable.
The other option is in fact buying it ad-hoc.
Mind you, I can still get the discount of subscribing to X amount of products and the PDF sub(s) could be counted in that as well. I would no longer get/need the legacy 30% I get on the AP because the 15% I get over all would still exist.
But maintaining the free PDF for the physical book as well as the discount is only going to be tenable so long as it doesn't hurt their business. And from the post I saw from Mark Seifter? Business could be doing better and this is an easy and, for me, acceptable solution to increasing the cash flow so the employees reap the benefits of what they are creating.
Our local game stores have nights dedicated to DnD and Magic the Gathering. Pathfinder is an after thought at most of them because it takes a community member to push the Organized Play and if there is no one in the area it doesn't hit the tables.
When I say FLGS is needed? I meant for the industry as a whole, not just Pathfinder.
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Things I Remember Being Told We Couldn’t Have Because *Reasons:*
…
All of these things were “no no no” until they were “okay”. There’s nothing wrong with people making polite requests—market forces change over time, and the status quo doesn’t have to remain constant forever.
Absolutely. I’ve asked for all of those things except for tee shirts, in fact.
Fwiw, I didn’t tell anyone not to ask. I explained to someone who asked what the reasons previously provided were that FLGSes have given for not liking the subscription model.
Same with the other things. I think telling Paizo what you want is good. Telling someone who asks :Why isn’t this a thing yet? Take my money.” is helpful.
Those things can both be true.
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I do get that FLGS are how a lot of people experience the hobby, even today, but it does seem like the idea here is to cede a great deal of control to a disparate, varied, and unpredictable group of independent booksellers.
Without doing a store by store survey do we really know that a store threatening to not sell Paizo product if a pdf streets a week early isn't offset by 10 other stores that don't care?
It’s not an offset - it’s a pure loss. No bookshop is signing up just because of the subscription model granting some people early access.
We don’t publicly know what proportion are boycotting, of course.
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A pure loss of how much? We don't know how many stores are boycotting, we don't know how much Paizo content they sold before threatening to boycott.
My point is that if the boycott threateners represent 100% of the sellers of Paizo product it makes sense to cater to them, if they represent 1% of the sellers of Paizo product it makes no sense to cater to them. And since we don't know the proportion as you say - how can we know if it really makes sense to base decision making on them.
I'm honestly not sure what's being discussed at this point.
I'm honestly not sure what's being discussed at this point.
Personally I was discussing future benefits of offering the PDF sub without the automatic discount but including the subs as part of the advantage program so that you could still get the 15% if you subscribed to enough of them vs the cost of not making sales at the FLGS
Honestly I don't know how much it would affect FLGS to offer pure PDF subscriptions because the people who want the PDF are already buying either the pdf ad-hoc or as part of the subscription anyways.
I understand the idea behind wanting to support the FLGS. I just can't wrap my mind around why the PDF subscription would affect FLGS other than 1: it superficially allows for people who are already subbing just for the PDF's to blatantly do it and 2: shows that the industry is going to eventually move away from printed books anyways.
Need to still find physical products and incentives to get people into game stores anyways because you want your community to grow. Forcing customers to subscribe to bound products to justify the print runs is definitely one way of doing it, but at what cost to the company?
Edit to Add:
Could even justify the size of the print runs and extending inventory based on the sales of the PDF's being dang near pure profit.
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Unfortunately, I have two local gaming stores and neither are particularly reliable about stocking products. There isn't really any incentive for me to shop with them for Paizo products.
To me, the free PDF with a physical book is 100% the main reason I do the subscription. I want the physical book but, truthfully, the PDF is what I use more. Particularly for adventure paths.
The one by me didn't even know Pathfinder was a thing. All they had was 5e stuff, and even that was pretty sparse. They had ONE set of dice for sale.
Their focus? Card and miniature games. Warhammer, YuGiOh, Pokemon, MtG, etc. And I can't fault them, tbh: Those things turn a profit. Rent a table to a bunch of tabletop players, you might sell some chips as you watch them share books. Rent a table to a bunch of MtG players, you'll absolutely sell some packs of cards. The store by me stopped hosting AL because they could make more running card or war game events.
The owner was a bit sad about it, but... he wants to pay his employees. He doesn't want to have to work 7 days a week. He wanted a better location (in the mall instead of, no lie, a professional park that was mostly doctors and accountants).
Maybe we've hit a point where we can't mutually support each other like we used to.
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What if there were no discount for PDF? What if the PDF was the same as the price of the book...
I can only speak for myself, I would stop buying them. The difference between the PDF and the printed book are the costs of printing and acquisition (shipping, etc.). The price of the PDF should simply be the printed price less the printing cost. Some PFDs (Lost Omens) are already over-priced.
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I don't think you're wrong that a lot of traditional brick and mortar stores are pivoting away from supporting rpgs for the reasons you've mentioned.
But I've also seen a huge increase in places like board game cafes hosting rpgs. If you're only selling chips and maybe cans, that's mostly what rpg players are gonna buy and probably not much of them. But if you're selling stuff like paninis, ice cream sundaes, gratuitous milkshakes etc, you're gonna make a lot more, probably with a higher markup.
I've had conversations with my local, pre pandemic and he was pretty adamant that rpg tables were some of their bigger earners on the weekend, because we're their long enough doing one thing that we end up getting lunch, and maybe some dessert afterwards. And also because someone is always late, people browse the comics and nerdy memorabilia they sell and usually one of them ends up buying stuff.
Rise of the Runelords, 5 years from initial run to going to HC.
Curse of the Crimson Throne, 8 years from initial run to HC.
Kingmaker, 12 years from initial run to HC.
Abomination Vaults is the outliers, but then again it is a 3-parter.
Dead Suns hardback when.
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Dead Suns hardback when.Rise of the Runelords, 5 years from initial run to going to HC.
Curse of the Crimson Throne, 8 years from initial run to HC.
Kingmaker, 12 years from initial run to HC.
Abomination Vaults is the outliers, but then again it is a 3-parter.
I think you'll see a Second Darkness remaster before they give us extra Starfinder content, sadly. I get it, we're small potatoes compared to Pathfinder. Still disappointing though
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I don't think you're wrong that a lot of traditional brick and mortar stores are pivoting away from supporting rpgs for the reasons you've mentioned.
But I've also seen a huge increase in places like board game cafes hosting rpgs. If you're only selling chips and maybe cans, that's mostly what rpg players are gonna buy and probably not much of them. But if you're selling stuff like paninis, ice cream sundaes, gratuitous milkshakes etc, you're gonna make a lot more, probably with a higher markup.
I've had conversations with my local, pre pandemic and he was pretty adamant that rpg tables were some of their bigger earners on the weekend, because we're their long enough doing one thing that we end up getting lunch, and maybe some dessert afterwards. And also because someone is always late, people browse the comics and nerdy memorabilia they sell and usually one of them ends up buying stuff.
Funny you should mention it, but in the before-times, you know who hosted PFS in my area?
Wegmans. A grocery store. And it was awesome.
They had a large seating area upstairs, and you could satisfy almost every need a body could have without leaving. There was a coffee bar, a hot bar, a salad bar, pizza and subs, and aisles of every snack you could imagine. The bathrooms were clean and easily accessible, and even their wifi was good! It was a symbiotic relationship that really worked: People shelled out money for items that the store happily had on hand.
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I don't think you're wrong that a lot of traditional brick and mortar stores are pivoting away from supporting rpgs for the reasons you've mentioned.
But I've also seen a huge increase in places like board game cafes hosting rpgs. If you're only selling chips and maybe cans, that's mostly what rpg players are gonna buy and probably not much of them. But if you're selling stuff like paninis, ice cream sundaes, gratuitous milkshakes etc, you're gonna make a lot more, probably with a higher markup.
I've had conversations with my local, pre pandemic and he was pretty adamant that rpg tables were some of their bigger earners on the weekend, because we're their long enough doing one thing that we end up getting lunch, and maybe some dessert afterwards. And also because someone is always late, people browse the comics and nerdy memorabilia they sell and usually one of them ends up buying stuff.
Funny you should mention it, but in the before-times, you know who hosted PFS in my area?
Wegmans. A grocery store. And it was awesome.
They had a large seating area upstairs, and you could satisfy almost every need a body could have without leaving. There was a coffee bar, a hot bar, a salad bar, pizza and subs, and aisles of every snack you could imagine. The bathrooms were clean and easily accessible, and even their wifi was good! It was a symbiotic relationship that really worked: People shelled out money for items that the store happily had on hand.
Huh, that's rad as heck. I work closely with Wegmans in my day job, and it's fun to know that little tidbit. I may ask about it at a meeting.
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Drinks and snacks are where I figured most shops around here made their profits, to be honest. It's rare that I'll buy a TTRPG book from a physical store (mostly because I want a PDF, which buying a hardcopy doesn't get me), but my friends and I play a game at the local game shop every week and buy lots of concessions.
There used to be a place we loved going to that had a whole kitchen and bar but I think they tried expanding too fast and the place (financially) collapsed in on itself.
Most of the game stores I frequent don't run any rpg events or tabletop wargaming, and mostly just run magic the gathering events (magic the gathering is what keeps every game store I have visited in Western Australia profitable).
A lot of people buy D&D books and minis for D&D/Pathfinder though - they are just getting them for home games.
There is a chain of stores here (good games) that does run small adventurers league events (and massive magic the gathering events) but I don't frequent those stores as they have very limited shelf space dedicated to RPGs/wargaming (most of their stock is magic and magic accessories).
I have mixed feelings about MTG - without it there would be very few gaming stores left in Western Australia (and I imagine the same could be said in most places around the world), but it also kind of dominates the spaces it inhabits, and has a really exploitative business model.
Creative Director
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I worked at a movie theater for several years back in college, all the way up to assistant manager by the time I fled north, and I can 100% confirm that the bulk of where theaters get their money is not from selling tickets to movies but from the concession stand. The idea that game stores that host on-site gaming and sell concessions to the gamers and that's where they make a lot of their money sounds, to me, to be 100% legit!
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Movie theaters are exactly what I was thinking of in terms of a business model. Theaters often take a loss on the ticket sales (especially if it's a Disney film, they really bleed their distributors for everything they've got); the real money is in that $5 cup of soda that cost $0.10 to fill (and that's if it's a nice cup).
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I worked at a movie theater for several years back in college, all the way up to assistant manager by the time I fled north, and I can 100% confirm that the bulk of where theaters get their money is not from selling tickets to movies but from the concession stand. The idea that game stores that host on-site gaming and sell concessions to the gamers and that's where they make a lot of their money sounds, to me, to be 100% legit!
Yeah my comic/game shop back home had a soda machine that was ridiculously over priced ($1 a can) but you spent it because you got thirsty lol
I have mixed feelings about MTG - without it there would be very few gaming stores left in Western Australia (and I imagine the same could be said in most places around the world), but it also kind of dominates the spaces it inhabits, and has a really exploitative business model.
There was a sub-group at our club who used to rock up early to play a few games of Magic before the rest of the us arrived, but it got to the point where it was so disruptive (entire tables waiting to start because their GM or several players were still playing Magic 30 mins after the scheduled start time) that we had to ban it entirely.
I can only imagine that it's worse in stores where the owner is actively trying to sell you more cards.
My hometown, a fair-sized college town, has a thriving FLGS that still sells shelves of dice and miniatures. Meanwhile, the much smaller college town I'm in right now? There's an LGS, but I wouldn't call it Friendly. I went there once, but the owners were too busy playing some game to greet me, and the place was a total mess.
Basically, I have a feeling the industry varies widely, and that the stronger game stores tend to be in the cities. But I haven't been to that many cities, so I can't really say.
I should note that the former has a bit of a reputation for not being super friendly to queer people, though not explicitly unfriendly, either. Honestly, if I don't see a Pride flag hanging somewhere in an FLGS, I just sort of assume they're at least a little shitty and try to avoid talking too much to the owner. I'd still rather buy in-person than through an online store, all else being equal, but that's in large part because I really like shopping. ;)
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My hometown, a fair-sized college town, has a thriving FLGS that still sells shelves of dice and miniatures. Meanwhile, the much smaller college town I'm in right now? There's an LGS, but I wouldn't call it Friendly. I went there once, but the owners were too busy playing some game to greet me, and the place was a total mess.
Basically, I have a feeling the industry varies widely, and that the stronger game stores tend to be in the cities. But I haven't been to that many cities, so I can't really say.
I should note that the former has a bit of a reputation for not being super friendly to queer people, though not explicitly unfriendly, either. Honestly, if I don't see a Pride flag hanging somewhere in an FLGS, I just sort of assume they're at least a little s*#+ty and try to avoid talking too much to the owner. I'd still rather buy in-person than through an online store, all else being equal, but that's in large part because I really like shopping. ;)
The chain I mentioned that I don't go to (and a lot of other game stores) I also don't go to because there is a very gross vibe coming off the mostly male clientele and staff that makes me feel pretty unsafe as a trans woman (and as a woman in general). I know a lot of women (trans or otherwise) who don't go and play in those spaces either because they don't like being surreptitiously stared at.
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Which brings us to the whole "local governments should just socialize this artistic service since the service isn't really able to fund itself without artificially inflating costs of tangentially related products" thing, I guess. It's a very frustrating inevitability when discussing basically any unfortunate creative trend in America.
But, y'know, it doesn't really get us anywhere to go down that road. So for now, we just have to pretend these businesses are nonprofit, even though they aren't, and guilt customers for not donating money for overpriced products. "You're part of the problem for not gifting a for-profit company with your dollars in exchange for a product you could just supply more efficiently yourself" is so twisted and annoying in its messy logic, but for all intents and purposes, with the systems we're stuck working within for the time being, it's kind of true?
Sorry, I'm not sure what my point is. I just find the "it's the consumer's responsibility to artificially prop up a struggling industry" line of discussion... frustrating, and that's no one's fault.