Second leading TTRPG publisher Paizo announces price increases.
The link to the article can be found here.
Disclaimer: Statements expressed in this article are strictly my opinion. If you disagree or have a different opinion, that’s okay. I’m not an expert on everything. I’m not always right. I’m just writing from my experience as I know it. Your mileage may vary.
Wizards of the Coast seems to be doing everything possible to go digital, do away with print, and shoot themselves in the foot when their not being downright greedy. That story has been done to death. Nothing new there, really. We already knew WotC was going to jack prices. Now that they’re moving to their own distribution, it’s probably going to get worse.
Just when you thought the TTRPG industry might survive 2023, along comes good old Paizo with some awful news. They’re going to raise prices by page count mostly on print products. I can’t say I support this as a consumer.
Did we all conveniently forget the Pathfinder 2E Remastered books are coming?
Let me see if I got this straight. Starfinder Remastered is coming soon. Starfinder 2E is coming a couple of years following that. The Starfinder Core book is anything but short.
Paizo announced a few months back that four brand new Remastered Core books are coming at the end of this year/early next year. They are replacing the four largest books in the Pathfinder 2E line with, what? Longer, more expensive books? They promised to keep the Core books at $69.99 “through the first printing.” Thanks, but no thanks.
It’s a bit underhanded, if you ask me.
I apologize to any of my Paizo friends that might see this, but the company is running very close to losing by business and gaining my ire at the rate they are going. First Paizo tells us they sold through an entire warehouse volume of Pathfinder 2E Core Rulebooks in about a week during WotC’s OGL Great OGL Debacle of 2023. Then, in order to get out from under the OGL completely they announced 4 new PF2E Remastered Core books.
Wait, don’t tell me. Let me guess. The next thing we’re going to hear is, “We sold out of the first printings of the Remastered Core books in mere minutes and have decided to raise the price on all Remastered books to $79.99.”
The next shoe to fall is the rest of the industry following suit. I mean, if Paizo does it with Pathfinder and Starfinder, what’s to keep Kobold from doing it with Tales of the Valiant? Then maybe Goodman will up Dungeon Crawl Classics another $10. What’s to keep everyone from following suit? Glicker and Seifter are already hinting around that the Battlezoo books might be going up along with Paizo’s hike.
Hasn’t Paizo learned anything about trust from WotC’s shenanigans?
Money is already pretty tight in several countries. We’re not talking about TTRPGs being essential goods. I mean, maybe as furniture or firewood in some cases, but not as food, shelter, or clothing. TTRPGs are a luxury item. Conventions are a vacation destination. The only people who depend on TTRPGs are those who create and sell the products.
TTRPGs don’t require a computer or a phone to operate. Most of us in the hobby have enough dice to use them as a sort of weird post apocalyptic currency. Minis are easily replaced with theatre of the mind or loose pocket change and dice. In theory, I never have to buy another TTRPG book ever again if I choose such. (*Do NOT tell my wife that.)
My point is, eroding the people’s trust with price hikes and shifting titles might be a quick route to disaster. IFF everything is retro compatible as WotC and Paizo claim their products are going to be, why the Hell would I ever really need to buy new rulebooks? I’m not going anywhere near WotC’s walled garden of a VTT. I’m really starting to not give a rip about Paizo. Where does that leave us?
I might be delusional, but I still hold out hope for the OSR.
The OSR seems pretty stable for the most part. I’m sure there are plenty of veteran gamers out there who understand they have to be careful what they charge for print books when I can get most of the golden OSR games for free. Swords & Wizardry Lite, Basic RolePlaying, and even the D&D B/X books are out there online for FREE right now without much digging.
Shadowdark has physically not arrived on my doorstep yet following being a late backer. The Arcane Library seems pretty savvy to what the fans want and will probably try to keep their prices under control. I’m hoping the prices on Shadowdark, ICRPG, and EZD6 all stay stable or go up minimally. I think smaller Indie publications like this really have a chance to shine in 2024 as opposed to the bigger companies and their big box mentalities.
2024 has the potential to be a great year for TTRPGs.
Whether or not that’s with Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder 2E is another story. There are so many (I mean hundreds of) games on DrivethruRPG and Itch.io for FREE or PWYW that one can simply pick up and print out, we might never have to go back to the bigger names in the industry again. That’s before we get into the decades of support for other games and other editions that are floating around in the Internet on blogs and free downloads.
If WotC and possibly Paizo aren’t careful, they could literally price themselves right out of business. While I will never feel sorry for the suits, I darn sure feel sorry for all the people who print, package, distribute, and sell all of the physical books that could be out of a job as a result of all the corporate screwing around that’s going on. (*My view on the creative types at these two specific companies is another subject for later.)
This time of year was about the same time in 2022 that WotC began to herald their own destruction. While I don’t think D&D is going anywhere as an IP, the fans might up and migrate to other games. Paizo execs might want to start taking notes. They could be next. Imagine if TTRPG consumers were as fickle as social media users about cancellation? LOL!
Back to content tomorrow. I had to get this one off my chest. Thanks for listening.
Jeff's Game Box 