Thursday, August 06, 2009

Pathfinder Sold Out Part 2



Just some followup on the news that Paizo's Pathfinder game sold out in pre-orders. I have been looking around to try to find some hard numbers on their sales, but so far Paizo isn't saying anything. So how much of a success are we expecting? I'd be shocked to learn that their first run was anything under 10,000 copies based on the publishers words. Erik Mona called the first run a, "Hugely ambitious print run." Regardless of how many copies they sold it's obvious that the game has exceeded Paizo's expectation which is a good sign for them and for the hobby. It should also serve to boost their PDF sales, which I don't think will stop people from ordering a hard copy when it becomes available.

Despite Pathfinder's recent success I'm going to take this opportunity to bring some of you back down to earth. I've gotten some emails from readers asking me if I think Pathfinder will outsell 4E. Paizo's numbers, whatever they turn out to be, will not be near WotC numbers. Pathfinder is just getting started, you can't expect it to instantly have a fanbase on par with the most popular RPG of all time.

That having been said, Pathfinder obviously has a lot of potential. People are paying afternoon and Paizo has an opportunity to develop a large fan base. As for the rest? Only time will tell...

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