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Hello everyone, a small halfling adventurer from Brazil speaking here
I’d like to raise a topic that may be relevant to players and GMs outside the US, especially in countries with officially licensed Paizo publishers.
Here in Brazil, Pathfinder 2E is officially published by New Order Editora, with high-quality PDFs and physical books.
The issue is not quality or translation — those are excellent — but access to Pathfinder content in digital play environments. To use official content on Foundry VTT, players often need to repurchase Paizo PDFs or official Foundry modules. Due to currency exchange, these products can become extremely expensive in some regions.
In Brazil, a single module can cost close to half a monthly minimum wage.
This creates a frustrating situation where players:
[1]Already own the content legally
[2]Have access to official, licensed material
[3]Still need to repurchase the same content to use it digitally
I’d love to hear thoughts from the community (and Paizo, if possible — who knows ) about options such as:
[1]Regional pricing for PDFs and Foundry modules
[2]Discounts or verification systems for users who already own licensed PDFs from local publishers
This could make official content more accessible, encourage legal use of Pathfinder on VTTs, and help reduce piracy driven mainly by pricing barriers.
This is not a demand — just an honest attempt to discuss how global players can better access digital tools while continuing to support Paizo and its partners.
Thanks for reading, and I’m looking forward to your thoughts.
Unfortunately I don't think there is much Paizo can do about this situation. The issue lies with Foundry and what they accept.
What you may be able to do, is get Paizo to talk to Foundry about accepting the localized versions the same as they would the English language versions.
The problem I see with a system to provide a discount to those who already own another language version is that it will take time and cost to set up some sort of verification system (and I'm not sure what that would even look like). And then how much of a discount is appropriate?
Looking at current rates, 1 USD is worth about 5.4 Real.
I guess my thought or concern would be, would this discount end up such that someone (a US based Brazilian earning US wages for example) be able to buy the module from the Brazilian publisher first, then get the discounted English version, and pay less than if they bought only the US English based version? I don't know the answer. I'm not even sure there is an answer.
But any kind of system like that seems overly complex and not good to me.
It's better to go directly to the source and work with Foundry to try to get them to accept the other publishers versions.
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I guess my thought or concern would be, would this discount end up such that someone (a US based Brazilian earning US wages for example) be able to buy the module from the Brazilian publisher first, then get the discounted English version, and pay less than if they bought only the US English based version? I don't know the answer. I'm not even sure there is an answer.
This is exactly what happens because the difference is very significant and people get annoyed at paying five times more for exactly the same product. This very quickly becomes a thing if it's allowed, including resellers in those cheaper companies buying the cheaper version and then selling the key to folks in the more expensive regions.
So you have to put in protection against that and effectively region lock buyers (since the way Foundry works, region locking users would be nearly impossible). That's doable, but it requires a certain scale to both do it properly and to make it worth the cost of doing, and I doubt Foundry has it for paid modules.
Then you start creating other side effects, like how there's games on Steam I can't gift my best friend because he's in the US and I'm in Canada, and Steam is like "oh that game is cheaper in CAD so you're not allowed to give it to an American", which is a completely absurd outcome of "I want to buy a birthday present for my friend, please take my money".
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[2]Discounts or verification systems for users who already own licensed PDFs from local publishers
I wish they'd do this with physical books too, since I have lots of those from my local game store and they don't count.
That said, Paizo just ended discounts based on owning the PDF for everyone. So there is no pricing benefit to owning the PDF at all anymore. We're all in the same boat on that front now.
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Unfortunately I don't think there is much Paizo can do about this situation. The issue lies with Foundry and what they accept.
What you may be able to do, is get Paizo to talk to Foundry about accepting the localized versions the same as they would the English language versions.
The problem I see with a system to provide a discount to those who already own another language version is that it will take time and cost to set up some sort of verification system (and I'm not sure what that would even look like). And then how much of a discount is appropriate?
Looking at current rates, 1 USD is worth about 5.4 Real.
I guess my thought or concern would be, would this discount end up such that someone (a US based Brazilian earning US wages for example) be able to buy the module from the Brazilian publisher first, then get the discounted English version, and pay less than if they bought only the US English based version? I don't know the answer. I'm not even sure there is an answer.
But any kind of system like that seems overly complex and not good to me.
It's better to go directly to the source and work with Foundry to try to get them to accept the other publishers versions.
I understand, there are other VTT options like Fantasy Grounds that convert well.
For example:
Monster Core: $19.90
Foundry: R$107.67
Fantasy Grounds on Steam: R$134.99
This is strange, because in other modules Fantasy Grounds ends up being much cheaper, like Kingmaker's R$269.99 vs. Foundry's R$619.89.
Or in adventures like Agents of Edgewatch, each "book" costs R$45 (It's extremely cheaper and more accessible).
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[2]Discounts or verification systems for users who already own licensed PDFs from local publishers
I wish they'd do this with physical books too, since I have lots of those from my local game store and they don't count.
That said, Paizo just ended discounts based on owning the PDF for everyone. So there is no pricing benefit to owning the PDF at all anymore. We're all in the same boat on that front now.
I didn't know Paizo did that...
I hope they're not getting greedy and greedy. Another option would be their own Pathfinder VTT; maybe that would make it easier to adjust prices and even solve these problems with the PDF. They could leave it in English, it's just to have it.
I also like Fantasy Grounds, and it ends up being much cheaper, but many people find it outdated, but the prices are quite fair (Kingmaker's R$269.99 vs. Foundry's R$619.89). I myself found it quite difficult to use, hahaha.
The problem with VPNs is real; the problem is that many people end up using PDFs illegally, which must cause enormous losses for the company. Brazil has many players who are willing to pay a fair price.
An example of this is the biggest national RPG here, Tormenta 20, which in its last crowdfunding campaign raised over 1 million reais, including their PDF, an online VTT platform.
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I didn't know Paizo did that...
I hope they're not getting greedy and greedy. Another option would be their own Pathfinder VTT; maybe that would make it easier to adjust prices and even solve these problems with the PDF. They could leave it in English, it's just to have it.
I also like Fantasy Grounds, and it ends up being much cheaper, but many people find it outdated, but the prices are quite fair (Kingmaker's R$269.99 vs. Foundry's R$619.89). I myself found it quite difficult to use, hahaha.
The problem with VPNs is real; the problem is that many people end up using PDFs illegally, which must cause enormous losses for the company. Brazil has many players who are willing to pay a fair price.
An example of this is the biggest national RPG here, Tormenta 20, which in its last crowdfunding campaign raised over 1 million reais, including their PDF, an online VTT platform.
This is not because of greed actually! It's because of an issue between our new website and the connection with third parties. To tradeoff with this, since we know it's a big change, the code-only modules, which used to require PDF ownership, are now available to everyone.
I didn't know Paizo did that...
I hope they're not getting greedy and greedy. Another option would be their own Pathfinder VTT.
Well Paizo isn't a software development company, so they'd have to partner with another company. And there's already a lot of VTTs out there, so distinguishing yourself and making a market seems pretty challenging. I don't see it as very likely.
As far as ending the discount, I don't think it's a greed thing. I don't know how the contract functioned for providing a discount for the purchase of the modules, but if I understand things correctly the module isn't Paizo's product. It's the VTTs. And they had worked out some deal to reduce the price for people who already owned it. It may have simply been the VTT publisher trying to win market share, or even Paizo giving some sort of compensation (unlikely).
This is not because of greed actually! It's because of an issue between our new website and the connection with third parties. To tradeoff with this, since we know it's a big change, the code-only modules, which used to require PDF ownership, are now available to everyone.I didn't know Paizo did that...
I hope they're not getting greedy and greedy. Another option would be their own Pathfinder VTT; maybe that would make it easier to adjust prices and even solve these problems with the PDF. They could leave it in English, it's just to have it.
I also like Fantasy Grounds, and it ends up being much cheaper, but many people find it outdated, but the prices are quite fair (Kingmaker's R$269.99 vs. Foundry's R$619.89). I myself found it quite difficult to use, hahaha.
The problem with VPNs is real; the problem is that many people end up using PDFs illegally, which must cause enormous losses for the company. Brazil has many players who are willing to pay a fair price.
An example of this is the biggest national RPG here, Tormenta 20, which in its last crowdfunding campaign raised over 1 million reais, including their PDF, an online VTT platform.
I understand, I was a bit lost because I didn't know about this news.
Thank you for replying.
