End of Partnership with Archives of Nethys

[Master Han Del of the Web]

For those of you who have not seen yet, HERE is the announcement I just saw from Archives of Nethys.

I have yet to fully digest how I feel about this news and I am trying to remain restrained about the matter and examine it from multiple angles. However, please do not be mistaken, I am quite angry.

The very least that should have been done would have been a blog post, preferably one that honestly explains the reasoning behind this decision. The reason the AoN crew said Paizo gave patently makes no sense and I have no reason to believe they are lying. They were never going to make Paizo royalties. They were a bunch of volunteers doing this for free. They barely monetized the website with ads and that was mostly to keep the site running. Paizo knew this going in to their partnership with the Archives. The fact that these 'royalties' were the end of that partnership is categorically nonsensical and if Paizo was expecting them to produce a steady stream of royalties then that should have been communicated on day one or any of the following days when Paizo realized they were not getting paid what they expected.

Now, I can imagine the reasoning behind this decision. The Diamond fiasco hit Paizo hard and maybe someone wanted to motivate a few more sales by removing AoN's early release period. However, the best way to handle that would have been transparency and open communication. I should not have had to find out about it via a confused and hurt message from a pillar of Paizo's community.

I have long been broken of the notion that a company can be the 'good one' largely by Paizo itself. The events and horror stories leading up to the formation of United Paizo Workers are what fully soured me on the organized play programs and prompted me to reexamine my relationship with the brand. I won't say this is as bad as that time but it could have been handled worlds better. The Archives of Nethys crew deserved way, way better. You could have negotiated a better model with them, maybe a grace period before new material hit their site. Something. Paizo's positive relationship with fans putting together services like theirs for free has been one of the strongest selling points for the company.

I have been trying to purchase more physical copies of books ever since the economic downturn and Diamond. I have collector's editions of all of the released Starfinder 2e core and setting books bought through my FLGS. I was considering buying the PDF of Impossible Magic on the day of release because of how excited I am for the necromancer.

I'll probably be back to buying books shortly but unless there is a better statement on what just happened, I think I'll wait for Impossible Magic to hit Archives of Nethys.

[pauljathome]

That seems incredibly short sighted of Paizo. AON is a great tool to have available. I literally would not have been able to run without it nor could I have convinced one group to switch to Pathfinder 2e (a switch that resulted in at least 2 sets of purchases)

I’ll register my protest at this decision by not purchasing any more Paizo products unless and until this decision is reversed

[GM Raymer]

This is ridiculous. I already spend hours every couple months having to pull the imagery myself from the pdf's because there's no digital distribution of all of the hundreds, thousands of environment imagery. What's next? Pathfinder Wiki? Do they not produce royalties?

This doesn't direct people to buying books and joining the few dozen of us ripping every bloody image and categorizing it, I always believed we needed MORE imagery on aon, foundry, licensed partners and to be less controlling of it because it allows people to more easily visualize the world of golarion and the setting of lost omens.

It's a little hard to capture people if we withhold the imagery and then we also don't publish or help people with that imagery. What's next is my worry, this feels like a slippery slope. I can handle decisions because there's a 12 million+ dollar loss with diamond, but I cannot get behind the idea of withholding art and slowing update material from the greatest community source that is really why the game is where it is right now.

I don't care about some perceived deal of giving Paizo a cut of profit or etc. I don't think anybody cared about that or that being the goal. And now we're going to get slower AON rules updates and no imagery. To who's benefit? Nobody wins from this. This is a bad move to look to quell profit loss. When we start going "we're quelling losses anyway possible, no matter what bridge burned." I'm more than a little worried. (And I hope I'm wrong, but IDK if I am.)

I do feel for Maya. But Paizo is the one deciding there's one person only, and I can only be so sympathetic to that so many times and I think more than ever a conversation is really needed of where we are heading, because this is one of the last things most of us figured would begin getting cut down.

[GM Raymer]

Chaosgods wrote:

Paizo Customer Service:

Mon–Fri, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Pacific

[phone]

[e-mail] or [e-mail]

This is to Boycott Paizo.

I don't think they deserve that necessarily. Would love to hear some communication from them though.

I think this isn't a catastrophe, it's just a little worrying. Inconvenient. This seemed like one of the most successful partnerships that drove people to buy products. I'd love to hear a bit more on why or the thoughts behind it.

I don't see the imagery costing Paizo anything to be on AON, I always believed early updates from AON were a net positive for the community as subscribers got the PDF early. The only partner I thought it affected was Demiplane trying to promote their platform.

I misspoke on the Pathfinder Wiki, as most of those are also under CUP isn't the idea here to make these places the places to go to visualize/learn was more my point. Shouldn't we be going in the opposite direction offering these groups more exclusive licenses rather than cutting them? Maybe I'm naive.

[Maya Coleman]

Just a little reminder here for everyone to take a look at the blog we posted today! Also, all the emails to community inbox just go to me, so... keep that in mind too!