Paizo Publishing announced Wednesday that it is laying off 12 employees and scaling back its Organized Play programs, the direct result of losing nearly $2 million in 2025 to the ongoing fallout from Diamond Comics’ bankruptcy.
this has got to be the laziest analysis ever on the situation. Instead of delving into the real challenges of logistics and distribution, it’s a bunch of bullshit about Paizo betting on wokeness (which it has for what, 10+years? But NOW it’s when it’s really backfiring, guys!). Paizo could’ve been selling material like hot cakes and it wouldn’t have mattered because all of the material was going to be held up in diamond’s inventory anyway.
Obviously, this is all to cover up the fact that TTRPG devs and publishers that aren’t WOTC don’t have an efficient way of reaching retailers. Jon del arroz loves big business, finance and tech, and wouldn’t dare critique any of them. Kind of guy to complain about everything being soulless and owned by one corporation while also only supporting said corporation
The structural read is that when you don't have logistics, you promote wokeness to shame people into buying your product. Any calorie of energy spent on they/them wheelchairs could have been spent, oh I dunno, making a really good mobile app or a non gay version of Critical Role.
If you don’t have logistics you can’t sell. How can anyone be shamed into buying product if you can’t ship your stock? This is nearly the same thing as the bricks and minifigs scandal. Product quality or even sales aren’t a part of the equation.
Irrelevant. Paizo, like many other TTRPG publishers, doesn’t have the scale to sustain physical self-distribution. Diamond comics was the entity they partnered with, and it’s the entity that went bust. Paizo leadership is not a part of this loop.
You know what they say: Get Woke, Go Broke.
it is a well known fact that if paizo pandered to the chuds they would be thriving like TSR and their distributor wouldn’t have croaked
this has got to be the laziest analysis ever on the situation. Instead of delving into the real challenges of logistics and distribution, it’s a bunch of bullshit about Paizo betting on wokeness (which it has for what, 10+years? But NOW it’s when it’s really backfiring, guys!). Paizo could’ve been selling material like hot cakes and it wouldn’t have mattered because all of the material was going to be held up in diamond’s inventory anyway.
Obviously, this is all to cover up the fact that TTRPG devs and publishers that aren’t WOTC don’t have an efficient way of reaching retailers. Jon del arroz loves big business, finance and tech, and wouldn’t dare critique any of them. Kind of guy to complain about everything being soulless and owned by one corporation while also only supporting said corporation
The structural read is that when you don't have logistics, you promote wokeness to shame people into buying your product. Any calorie of energy spent on they/them wheelchairs could have been spent, oh I dunno, making a really good mobile app or a non gay version of Critical Role.
If you don’t have logistics you can’t sell. How can anyone be shamed into buying product if you can’t ship your stock? This is nearly the same thing as the bricks and minifigs scandal. Product quality or even sales aren’t a part of the equation.
"If you don’t have logistics you can’t sell"
Yes, that's rather the punchline of the last few decades. There's an amusing comic about it:
https://stonetoss.com/comic/burger-kang/
Irrelevant. Paizo, like many other TTRPG publishers, doesn’t have the scale to sustain physical self-distribution. Diamond comics was the entity they partnered with, and it’s the entity that went bust. Paizo leadership is not a part of this loop.