Why is Paizo so successful? A lot of gamers issue spiteful, scathing reviews of them, their business model, and how they are building a company on reprinting the 3.5 OGL SRD with minor changes. I’ve seen it said over and over, and it’s based on one thing: the fact that Pathfinder, as a system, tends to come up lacking for a lot of people. However, I have a revelation for you anti-PF people:
NO ONE CARES.
I’m not saying that Pathfinder is a good system. I’m saying that they aren’t marketing the system, really. In a lot of ways, they are selling aethestics. They are selling the D&D you’ve always wanted, with the high production values you’d dreamed of when they released that weird art in the revised edition of AD&D 2E. It is really the finest version of D&D out there, from a production value standpoint. Let’s look at some pages:
Those books look downright beautiful. I want to read them. I was first blown away by this when I downloaded their free and awesome “We Be Goblins” adventure, which is legitimately more visually appealing than about 90% of the RPG books I have read.
This isn’t a new idea. In a blog post that I can’t find now, Steve Jackson talked about the release of GURPS 4th Edition five or so years ago. They were forsaking the idea of producing a lot of cheaper paperback, black and white supplements (as had been the primary strategy of the GURPS line for some time) and going with full-color, glossy-paged, deliciously laid out hardbacks. They were (and still are) a big hit. Those books that might have been produced for the old, cheaper lines are now ebooks – cheaper to produce, cheaper to buy, easier to handle, everything. But the core GURPS books are fucking beautiful (in my opinion) and really go a long way to sell the game to skeptical gamers.
Now, SJG hasn’t really jumped on the pretty website wagon yet, but they aren’t alone in that. Just look at the Federation Commander website (let’s not even mention the Star Fleet Games site or their awful Web Store). I don’t even know what the fuck is going on there. Where do I click? What if I want to buy the game? What the fuck IS all this?
Now go to Paizo’s site. I might be a little confused here, but then, right there on the left, it says BEGINNER. That’s me! I’m a beginner! What’s a Beginner Box?
It’s a box full of brilliant fucking marketing, is what it is. Just LOOK at it. It’s a month or two of fun for my friends and I. Seriously.
Fuck. Now, I want to buy it, and I fucking hate this game. It’s brilliant. I could give that for Christmas and not feel bad about it. This smacks down even Wizards’ Red Box Starter Set, in that it contains a pile of things that I’m going to keep using well past my time with the starter box.
So, if this independent publisher is producing something of that high value, what is Amarillo Design Bureau up to? Their Klingon Border page is pretty boring and poorly written, but how does it look?
I swear to God that’s the most attractive page I could find. Let me reiterate: this is their flagship product. This is what they’re trying to sell you to get you into this game, to convince you to spend hundreds of dollars more just to have all of the ships and rules you want to play with (not to mention miniatures)! Okay, one more try. Let’s try their “open the box” video:
Let’s be fair, you already knew that was going to be bad. You probably didn’t expect him to say “get it over with” in the first minute, though. I sure didn’t. He sounds like he is bored with the game already! It also leads me to a great question that I already want an answer to: why is this game $60, when the beginner box is $35?
(I’ll UPS a cookie to the first person to explain why.)
Okay, so we can see there’s a huge disparity in production value in the market. So, why is production value so important? It isn’t about aesthetics, directly. People will buy a book that doesn’t look as good, I’m sure, if it has the rules they need. However, when you’re talking about a core product, designed to get new business, it’s all about attractiveness. Have you ever asked yourself why board games generally look sharp and snazzy, while wargames all generally look like shit? It’s because board games are designed for a very specific purchasing process It goes like this:
Steve, who has never played a game like this before, walks into a nerd store with his friends. He sees walls and walls of games. Seriously, there are a metric fuck-ton of them. However, there on the endcap, he sees one that looks pretty neat. There are dudes fighting, and one of them is casting a spell or something, and that’s a metal looking monster right there! Kickass.
Steve isn’t ready to buy yet, though. That’s not the point of a cover. The purpose of a cover is to get him to pick up the product. Touch it. That’s all we want. Any good salesman will tell you that getting a customer to touch a product will get you further than just about anything else; it implies ownership. It’s theirs already, all they have to do it purchase it. Once he has it in his hands, he is going to turn it over, and read the back.
It’s the back of the product’s job to sell it. You’ll see photos of the game’s contents laid out, or other attractive art, or a photo or drawing of people playing it (and having a great time). Steve will read the blurbs on the back about the game. They will, of course, make it sound really fun and exciting. You have to get images in Steve’s mind of him playing this game with his friends, nights and nights of good times.
If it’s a book, the production value is even more important. Steve can leaf through that book, and find even more reason to be excited. Pages and pages of descriptions of how to be a hero. Awesome art. Kickass lasers or swords or mechs or whatever, all owning the fuck out of those punks. Oh! That dude on page 97 is fucked! Haha!
When you print a book without these things, none of these things happen. Maybe, just maybe, he might pick up the product, because you’ve got a franchise or cover art he enjoys. He might read the back, and see it really just seems kinda lame. Welp. Let’s keep looking.
You might find yourself wondering, how does this relate to small presses? What if I only plan to produce e-books? Well, it’s just this: gamers have come to expect this level of finished work. Without it, they aren’t going to be excited about your game.
One of my favorite small-press games, Cold City has this cover:
Very minimalist. I am sketchy about how it might stand out on a shelf, but these guys aren’t marketing to game stores, really. The page design is brilliantly laid out (like the sort of thing White Wolf was trying for):
And each chapter is led with a piece of brilliant art:
Oh, fuck. That intro makes me want to play the game, and the layout and design contributes an important element to that. It helps create the atmosphere I need to read this book (which is seriously awesome).
Go buy it if you like.
I’m not sure that I’m the first to explain it, or even that I’m correct, but here goes:
Paizo is confident that a large portion of customers who play the beginner’s box are going to be impressed by the polish of the game, and subsequently shell out $50-$60 for the core rulebook and supplements. By making the entry point as cheap as possible, they snare a higher volume of customers who will fork out more money at a later date.
ADB, on the other hand, has no reason to believe that they are going to attract new customers. In fact, they are catering not to the general public, but to people who are already playing their other products. Knowing that their beginner box doesn’t work at all as a gateway, they have to try to make their profits right off the bat.
That’s my best guess, anyway. Cookie?
Finally: Fantastic blog. It’s my new favourite read.
I both agree and disagree with your headline.
High production values are important but, and it is a big but, that does not mean expensive full colour artwork and funky typesetting. I can point to shelves of books that have nice artwork and type setting that did badly.
Most publishers waste their art budget on a random selection of artwork that is scattered through the book without rhyme or reason. What Pathfinder has done better than most is to give the whole art & typesetting a consistent feel that fits well with the books contents. There is a cohesiveness to the art direction that many games (4e I’m looking at you) lack.
But this is not a question of production values. If it were, to be successful a game company just has to hire a decent art director. It would also be impossible for any company to break into the market without a shedload of money to hire top artists.
Demonstrably, neither of these is true.
Production values mean things like including a decent index; proof-reading; sensibly font choices so the text is readable; a book binding that is not going to fall apart in five minutes; and so on.
Small publishers cannot compete with big money graphics of the big boys but they can get the rest of right. The quality of the art might be what attracts people to the game but is the quality of everything else that keeps them playing and buying the add-ons.
I think Pathfinder is aimed at pleasing the design aesthetics of the largest segment of fantasy gamers. They do it very well; it’s a beautiful book. But say I don’t like that distressed font, bright colors, faux manuscript paper background type of design, I consider it the Ed Hardy bedazzled version of games; say instead I play low fantasy games. Well, looking at the simple pen illustrations in HarnMaster will sell me, I’ll respect it more.
If system is setting, then art design is too. It suggests a tone.
The most beautiful gaming book I own is Nobilis. The typeface choices, the layout, the illustrations, the physical dimensions and sewn bookmark…it’s working with the game, not against it.
I realize your article was more about marketing 101, getting new players, etc., but I don’t want to ignore the gamers who are already gaming and want a well designed game.
Paizo is not selling anything like the archetypal fantasy experience. They’re selling their modules. It was originally a magazine company, spun off from WOTC to publish Dungeon and Dragon magazines. When WOTC decided to pull the magazines back inhouse and do 4e, Paizo as a company still stood, with its staff well prepared for putting out gaming mags on a monthly basis. And so that’s what they decided to do.
The Pathfinder RPG exists as support for the Adventure Paths, rather than the other way around. Their business model revolves around subscribers, as any sustainable business model should, though they make it slightly more explicit. They even offer subscriptions for the hardcover rulebooks.
The difference between those two videos is STUNNING; they’re like night and day. Even ignoring the individual aesthetics of the product, just compare their presentations. The Pathfinder guy sounds really excited about the game, whereas the Klingon Border narrator sounds like he just wants to get out of there. The Pathfinder narrator is much more personable (you see a little more of his head, he identifies himself). The Klingon Border narrator seems more like he’s just listing the stuff in the box, but the Pathfinder video has a much better feeling of a cohesive whole in explaining how it all fits together. Without knowing anything about the games before looking at the videos, I got a decent idea of what Pathfinder was about and how the Beginner Box would help get me into it. I have no idea what Klingon Border is even ABOUT after watching that video. Even more minor things, like video quality, background noise, and the time between when the video starts and the narrator starts talking are noticeably different (why does the Klingon Border guy wait like 7 seconds before saying anything? They couldn’t edit out that beginning part? At least Pathfinder spent the early time with a title rather than just nothing happening at all, and they STILL got going faster). One does practically everything right, and the other does practically everything wrong.
You really picked two great videos to make a comparison with.