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Sooo...Paizo just increased it's prices for it's PDF's. Personally I'm a tiny bit upset as I'm in a cost of living crisis like most of the USA and I can't really afford those prices. How does everyone else feel about this?
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Honestly? Bad. I can't see this helping sales at all; for every one person willing to eat the cost, two or three have jumped ship.
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I have the PDF version of most every Pathfinder rulebook, lore book, and (non-Society) adventure that's been released, 1e and 2e. Honestly this may be the straw that makes me rethink continuing to get them all going forward. There was a lot of stuff already making me want to reconsider that (...the many problems caused with the new store and the uneven responses to them; the whole mess that is 3pp ORC content and Infinite content not being compatible going against the whole point of an open license; the uneven approach to errata; the removal of the Foundry+PDF bundles/discounts...), and having the price go up in conjunction with all those issues is pretty rough.
It's ultimately probably for the best for me personally... breaks me out of that 'completionist' mindset and frees up the funds to try out some of the other RPGs that I've been interested in getting further into... but like, with this change on top of all that other stuff, I think I might be at the point where of upcoming books the only ones I'm likely to get are Impossible Magic and Feybound, rather than those plus all the lore books and adventures and the upcoming Starfinder releases. Maaaybe Lost Omens Cheliax at some point, depending on how much of it is about Nidal since that's the one area of that region I have much active interest in.
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I doubt it was really a move to help sales, at least not in the traditional sense.
As I said in the OG thread, though, I just have a hard time believing we couldn't have waited for the inevitable price increase until the previous status quo with the VTT bundles was rectified. Sure, increasing prices sucks, but it'd hurt a little less for some people if they could at least get a sizable chunk out of that price by doing what many already do and play on Foundry.
I also find it a little souring that PF1 pdfs are increasing, too? Like, that's a system line that's not really being supported anymore. Why are we increasing the price of those, too?
I really would've preferred a more comprehensive breakdown on WHY this needed to happen now, not just "We're sorry, we've held it for this long and now we're all SOL." I get that it's the CEO's message, so it's gonna be a little muted, but people are MUCH more willing to accept unfortunate change if they're given an honest look into the cause.
(It's me; I'm people.)
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Yeah the retroactive changing of already-released PDFs feels like a particularly rough thing - like, the work on them is already done and theoretically paid for, why are new players and fans being punished by making it more expensive to get the older PDFs compared to if they'd been playing at the time the PDF was released?
Paizo has done that before and I wasn't a fan of it then, definitely not a fan of it now either. I don't think I've seen another company do that with their digital book or RPG releases. (And, last time they did update the pricing of old PDFs, they did so rather clumsily IMO - it had such absurd effects as taking GameMastery Module TC1: Into the Haunted Forest from originally being around $2 IIRC to being $20, all for a 16-page module... and while I'm sure that wasn't specifically singled out for that much of a price increase, the fact that it's still that much years later and after a store migration tells me they're not too worries about ensuring they aren't overcharging for old releases).
It may be one thing if Paizo did more consistent errata (across all product lines, not just rulebooks) and applied updates to the PDFs when they did so rather than just with new printings, since then they increased cost would be reasonable for an evolving product that still takes labor to work on, rather for something that seems to be generally treated as a once-and-done.
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I got a complete collection of SF1e Hardcover books, but I can't afford physical books anymore, so I have been just buying PDFs for SF2e. I wonder if enough other people have done the same to cause the increase in PDF prices. I'm sure the tariff tantrums, Diamond bankruptcy, and now the Iran war didn't help.
I started with PF2e when it first came out, but switched to SF1e when I found the PDFs were only $9.95 at the time, then, over time, got all the SF1e hardcover books. Now the PDFs are almost as expensive as the old SF1e books were.
To keep up on Starfinder, I'm going to have to completely give up on PF2e. I wonder if SF2e hasn't sold as well as it could have because some PF2e players who might have tried can't afford both as well.
At this point, the best way to market a game to me is putting rules on the back of food packages. I don't blame this on Paizo; the whole ecomoney has gone down the drain.
Sooo...Paizo just increased it's prices for it's PDF's. Personally I'm a tiny bit upset as I'm in a cost of living crisis like most of the USA and I can't really afford those prices. How does everyone else feel about this?
The flip side of it is that the folks at Paizo are also dealing with cost of living. I don't think anybody's a fan of their hobby getting more expensive, but folks at Paizo have to manage those same grocery prices.
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Oh, believe me, the last thing I want is to NOT pay the people at Paizo so they can continue to full-time dedicate their skills to their passions like this. I enjoy the things they create, and I enjoy being able to create using the tools they provide, and I believe they SHOULD be paid what they believe is fair.
It's just frustrating to have this news while we're still ostensibly with a site that isn't up to full parity with the previous site's function and offers. All the while it feels like the actual communication around these decisions is pretty sparse.
I don't really want a rollback of the price - except maybe for the 1e PDFs that obviously haven't changed at all, I still kinda think that's a bit much - I just want a little bit more of an explanation. Usually Paizo's communication about decisions they make is somewhat transparent. It ain't perfect, but there's at least a voice that speaks reasons. This time it was basically just "Sorry, we tried to keep the price as long as possible, but now we can't anymore." It's felt very quick and dry rather than being honest and human about it.
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The price increase from $20 to $30 on "Rulebooks" would presumably apply to PF1e rulebooks, seeing as the last price increase (which also happened after 2e was released) went back and increased PF1e rulebooks from $10 to $20.
If the PF1e rulebooks aren't affected, the blog should have been worded differently; though perhaps that's an oversight just like them not mentioning Lost Omens/setting books in either the "Updated" or "What's Not Changing" category, leaving it unclear whether they'll be affected or not. I would assume 'not' in that case, but it's not explicit one way or the other.