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I just heard about it and needed to ask: is this true?
If so, this is an incredible disappointment and suggests a remarkably short-sighted policy decision.
I’m given to understand it’s because of the lack of direct revenue, but I’m honestly shocked to learn Paizo ever earned anything from them. Their value is in far, far more than direct monetary income—it’s free advertising and the art is part of that.
Now it’s possible there are things that I don’t know about or understand
—strike that, I should say there are things, many things, I don’t know about or understand in the legalities, processes, or similar. It’s possible an internal review decided it was a financial drain on Paizo to allow someone else to host their stuff for… some reason.
But I know for a fact that the only reason quite a few people I’ve played with over the past decade could even grasp the rules and ideas is because of the art. Without it the hobby would be poorer, simply because without something to grasp, the imagination of many can slip.
What’s more, while I’m not an avid fan of 2e, I know a number who are and the power of being able to point at Paizo as a beacon of doing something customer-forward and helpful cannot be understated in terms of how much relative good will is generated. Even from me—I absolutely extend Paizo more grace when there are decisions I disagree with simply because of their partnerships with places like Archives of Nethys.
I am given to understand that Community Use Program is still on the table, and, yes, that is a good thing. But I do not agree that it’s reasonable to remove a powerful beacon of comparative benevolence—yeah, virtue-signaling, but for free and having someone else do it for you merely by existing—and am of the personal opinion that this will harm Paizo in the long-run.
Do I expect a crusade to galvanize and backlash to cause Paizo to be overrun with angry fanboys? No. Not at all.
Instead, I believe (as this is what has just happened to me, should this prove true) that Paizo’s fanbase will lose a little more trust, a little more grace, and a little more goodwill. This is unlikely to sink the house, but I still feel it’s a short-sighted decision, not because Paizo is nefarious or cruel or whatever (they have shown themselves pretty good over-all), but because having anchors like this generate long-term support, and removing them loses that.
If it is true that the partnership is severed or will be severed soon, I ask that it be put back.
I have no connection to AON other than as a general fan of Paizo works. I’m a relative grognard—less than some, but more than many, I’d imagine—as my heyday was PF1e and SF1e, both of which I prefer to PF2e so far. I grumble about the lore changes and retcons and rules updates and all that. But through every disagreement, I had places like the AON to look at and go, “yeah, actually, they might disagree with me, but they support this.” Both the full AON and the legacy site of the original prd.
Losing AON as a partner and losing the legacy prd are going to be huge blows to my feelings going forward.
Again, I need to stress I’m not trying to taunt Paizo or rail against the system or the people or whatever. I am expressing my disappointment in something I just learned of, and am hoping in doing so that Paizo may change their minds.
This feels like they are falling victim to the Doorman Fallacy. And I want a company I’ve supported for the last sixteen-ish years (and used without knowing much about them for the last twenty-five-ish years) to continue to thrive and better hold my trust.
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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.
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For those curious, since I posted this thread, it has been thoroughly confirmed.
Official AoN Bluesky Social Post.
(Or whatever you call those, I don’t know Bluesky well enough to know.)
Again, I must reiterate and emphasize to treat Paizo and everyone else with respect and dignity. Disagreement or disappointment is not a reasonable cause for bad behavior.
Expressing that disagreement and/or disappointment in a civil manner is fine. But be polite and good. Please.
Also, there may be more here than we know. Certainly someone thought this was a good idea. I can’t fathom why—but someone certainly had a reason they thought was good enough. Again, I’m utterly uninterested in anyone taking the blame, here, if there is blame to take. Punishment and repudiation is boring and unhelpful.
I am curious what Paizo’s response will be. I do hope they will reverse course on this. I am curious to see if there is justification, but mostly I simply hope it is undone.
Edit: words, go into your correct places, please. Sigh.
Yep.
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I am waiting for the other side to speak, but I do not have high hopes for what I will hear.
Yeah, me thinking about it and discussing it most of today, 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.
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I understand paizo is in a very rough spot right now because of Diamonds holding hostage like a third of last year revenue, but I don't think this decision will help much without damaging their image.
I get that AoN releasing rules basically on release of new books can make people not buy them, but I think working on an aggreement with them to wait, say, a month, before releasing the updates so more people are encouraged to buy the pdfs would achieve the same result without the potential community backlash.
Will wait to see paizo's comments on that but that seems very sudden and a bit shortsighted to be honest.
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I'm officially slightly sad but not angry at anyone about this.
I've been around long enough to remember the old, old Archives of Nethys from 15+ years ago. Blake would put up the rules as he got the books and had time. And that's basically what it's going back to, though hopefully with more volunteers helping.
I kinda get where Paizo is coming from, but I think there's got to be a license agreement with someone else (with potential revenue) behind this as well. I can't see the artwork on AoN being the root cause of a huge percentage of their lawyers' time. Compared to everyone just cutting and pasting from their pdfs.
At the time Paizo made the agreement with AoN it made sense even if there was no revenue to be had. There were essentially only two online sources for rules: AoN and Paizo's own online PRD. Which didn't have the softcovers and took up their employees' time (as opposed to AoN doing it for free). Win-win. Now there are a multitude of sources.
I am waiting for the other side to speak, but I do not have high hopes for what I will hear.
Blog post.
Hah! Ninja’d! Typical.