I find bits of news interesting not so much for what they say but the timing of it.
When James Sutter, co-creator of Pathfinder and Creative Director of Starfinder leaves Paizo less than a month after Starfinder's launch after 13 years with the company, I find myself looking at the tea leaves.
Coupled with industry rumors that Paizo has had cash flow issues (and sank a few million into the now cancelled Pathfinder MMO) and is now taking returns on unsold product I think there could be some more changes coming up. Pure half assed speculation on my part, but I wouldnt be surprised to see more departures.
But hey, freelancing pays well, right? I mean, who wouldn't leave a well paying job at the leading company in the industry to freelance?
Anyhow, you can read read James' final Paizo blog entry here. Nothing earth shattering. As I said above, the timing of the news is more interesting than the news itself.
I wish James luck in his future endeavors.
It reminds me very much of Gygax's farewell column in Dragon, and that's all I have to say on subject.
ReplyDeleteF. Wesley Schneider, the Editor-in-Chief, left a couple of months ago too. Hope there's not too much trouble at Paizo—I get too much mileage out of their products and PFS!
ReplyDeleteLooks to me like he went as far as he could go in the RPG industry. Remember, it's small and far less lucrative than almost any other entertainment niche.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe he realized that the OSR > Pathfinder/Starfinder.
This was pretty much it! Between Starfinder and Pathfinder, I feel like I've done most of what I wanted to do in the RPG industry, so I needed to start spending those 40+ hours a week on achieving some of my other goals. I think a lot of people were surprised that I'm leaving right as the money from Starfinder is rolling in, but once I've made a decision, I have a hard time waiting to enact it, so I decided to go out on a high note. :)
Delete--James
Hey it worked for Monte Cooke after he left WotC to do third party product.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious where you heard that PFO was cancelled? I see on their site (https://goblinworks.com/pathfinder-online/) that they just pushed a new release about 2 weeks ago. I'm still hopeful that PFO becomes a great MMO - but maybe I missed some news?
ReplyDeletehttp://massivelyop.com/2015/09/02/pathfinder-online-lays-off-almost-entire-staff/
DeleteThat isn't a cancellation announcement, Tenkar, and it's two years out of date. They've continued development on the project since then, still giving regular updates. They're currently opening early enrollment. Here's good, current, info: https://goblinworks.com/
DeleteDidn't read his blog post before why start with the last.Companies always have to make adjustments when they have a decrease in demand for their product. What got TSR wasn't the 10 million in returns that they paid but the million in printer's bills that got called in afterwards. So has long has Paizo has a strong equity to debt ratio they will be fine.
ReplyDelete