Thursday, July 07, 2011

Paizo Ascendant

The Paizosphere is all abuzz about this forum posting. The big boss lady at Paizo is certainly a source of some authority, so it's taken as at least somewhat credible. A few blogs have taken up the discussion, noticing, among other things, that Pathfinder occupies the top 2 spots on the fantasy gaming bestsellers list at Amazon.com. Well, the domination is even more pronounced here in Canada. The Amazon.ca fantasy gaming list has Pathfinder holding down the top 5 spots and 6 of the top 8, with no WotC product appearing until the 9th spot. Now, as others have noted, these numbers may be deceiving. WotC has been moving toward a different business model recently, with a greater emphasis on online, subscription-based gaming. It seems clear, however, that as far as traditional tabletop role-playing is concerned, the type of gaming in which a group of friends gather around a table to drink Mountain Dew (or, in my case, Coke Zero) and throw dice, increasingly, the game of choice is Pathfinder (especially in Canada).

-Rognar-

4 comments:

christian said...

We're starting Pathfinder, too. I'm just not sure what D&D is supposed to be these days. Essentials? Red Box? Core books? It's kind of all over the place. Keep on keepin' on.

Rognar said...

Christian, good to see you back. Don't let the weasels get you down, brother.

Aaron E. Steele said...

I'm wondering if WOTC and/or Hasbro isn't already aware of this "alarming" trend.

Rognar said...

No doubt, they have all the same info that Paizo has. My guess is that Hasbro probably doesn't care. I'm sure they're more than willing to concede that tiny niche market and concentrate on boardgames and card games