Adventure Time Card Wars Playmat
Nurit Dardon
Earlier this year Paizo ended the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game product line. The only public indication of this decision was a single sentence at the beginning of this blog post by Organized Play Manager Tonya Woldridge:
That head-scratch-inducing line implies the product line's termination had been mentioned elsewhere. (It hadn't.) The fact that the Organized Play Manager posted this in the PACS forum led many to believe that only PACG Organized Play is scheduled for termination, not PACG itself. (In fact, both are). PaizoCon just came and went with nary a mention of the card game's demise, AFAIK. Now - I know Paizo is an RPG company. But Paizo's near-total lack of communication about this decision disregards three facts:
(1) Loyal card games fans have spent $800 to $1000, or more, on Paizo. MRSP for the complete sets is $820; organized play decks and PDFs push that higher.
(2) Many card game players are long-time Pathfinder RPG players. When an RPG player accidently posts in the card game forum, nearly always a card game player is well-versed enough to answer the RPG question. And, despite having very few friends, even I know more than one five-star Pathfinder GM who plays the card game.
(3) Many non-RPG-playing card game players have now started playing the Pathfinder RPG. Myself included. The first RPG purchases I made in my adult life were for Pathfinder, because I first played the card game.
Paizo's non-communication about the card game's demise conveys a very non-Paizo-like disrespect for customers which is reminiscent of Another RPG Company Which Will Not Be Named.* Dear Paizo: can't you do better?
(*Wizards of the Coast. There. I said it.)
For what it is worth, I was introduced to Paizo and subsequently TTRPG's via the Pathfinder Card Game. Over the past several years I have spent over $2k in TTRPG products from Paizo as a direct result of PACS and the PACG. This is because I wanted to play Pathfinder RPG with my friends whom I met from playing the card game. That $2k is not an exaggeration-- I have it all tracked in my budgeting app and it's all on my paizo order history.
Clearly the decision has been made and really, it must be mostly economic or else the product line would continue come what may. But yea, it feels like a real let down to not just get a "we would like to thank the fans for their support over the years! Due to the world economic situation, and with heavy hearts, we have been forced to discontinue our beloved PACG line"
I've spent well over $800 total, finished 3 of the base games multiple times each, am working on the "Adventure card society" paths for 2 of them, played this game while traveling around the world, bought the Japanese version of this game in Japan and had to track down parts of the game at various times to keep playing where ever I was living. PACG hasn't been just some game I played, it has easily been the game I've most invested in financially and emotionally and I didn't have plans to stop.
To have the product line be unceremoniously dropped kind of flies in the face of the goodwill that Paizo and Mike have worked hard to build up over the years and really can sour any future purchases from either. It's not like they owe us anything, because they really don't, but I'd only buy fully packaged games from either in the future, just in case.
sigh. I looked up Mikes name to spell it correctly and found some political posts he made on Twitter less than 24 hours ago. I guess he's moved on from game design to politics. Maybe he'll make a run for an office and make the world a better place?
I was extremely disappointed to see that there would be no future official products for PACG. It's a game that I enjoy very much. More importantly for me, it's one that my wife also enjoys and the two of us spent considerable time working through the various APs. Our extended PACG gaming group includes my wife's sister and her husband (he first introduced us to the game). The replay value of the game is very good, though, so we'll continue to get mileage out of all of the products that we have.
PACG has so much potential for expansion and continued development, drawing as it does on an RPG with such a richly developed world and numerous expansions. PACG could realistically have been developed for decades to come. I could even have seen a Starfinder Adventure Card Game.
I'm in the group that has bought *everything* for the game: every AP, corrected cards from Drive Thru Cards, every character deck, every Society scenario/adventure/adventure path, even sleeves for every card and The Broken Token organizers for each of the classic APs. And then there are all of the homegrown things that I, like many others, have developed: a lazy Susan board, standees, tracking sheets, etc. In addition, although I don't play the RPG, I've bought a ton of the books for that game in order to better understand the setting and to facilitate my own efforts at homegrown stuff like characters and adventures. I even duplicated all of the FAQ pages and the Core Conversion Guide as an offline web page so that we can check rules even if we don't have access to the Internet. Aside from the lazy Susan, boxes, and binders with the Society S/A/AP, I have everything in a tackle box that would support a small convention (including different colored dice for each player). So I consider myself to be one of the crazy/committed players of the game.
All that said, while an explanation from the horse's mouth would be great for giving us some understanding and closure, I'm not expecting one. While I don't have any inside contacts and no evidence whatsoever, I suspect that larger issues were at play, especially considering the very strong views of the individuals involved and the real world events that took place between the release of the Core Set and the announcement of PACG becoming a legacy game (keep in mind where Paizo and Lone Shark are located). I'd rather not dwell on that stuff - politics can be very polarizing and I don't want them interfering with my hobby. Indeed, enjoying the game with people whose views might differ from my own is one of the great positive aspects of the boardgaming hobby, demonstrating that we don't all have to think alike and that we can still get along and have a great time despite those differences. If that's what it was (and I don't have any basis for my suspicions), I'd rather just move on.
My focus is on possible futures for PACG. I doubt I'm alone in holding out hope that Paizo/Lone Shark might one day reverse this decision and continue developing official products for the game. That would really be my ideal outcome. If Paizo/Lone Shark won't develop anything further, however, might the community take up the torch in a semi-official capacity? I've seen this done with a few other games when developers have dropped them, with varying degrees of success. If Paizo is interested in continuing PACG and Lone Shark made the decision to stop, might Lone Shark hand the game off to some other group to continue official development in partnership with Paizo?
Personally, while I am extremely disappointed about the development, I don't have any hard feelings towards anyone. I assume that everyone involved had great plans for the future of PACG, but then the real world stepped in and plans changed. Ultimately, I think that the great community was the thing that made the decision hard for Paizo/Lone Shark - I'm certain that they felt/feel bad about the impact on the community, but that the decision was right for them (whoever "they" are). Things happen and we need to cope with them and move on. I'm more interested in the moving on: what can we do to see this great game survive and, hopefully, thrive?
With due respect to my esteemed card-gaming colleague Brother Tyler, a close reading of the responses to Tonya Woldridge's blog post (linked in my OP) tells us that the termination of the Adventure Card Game was Paizo's unilateral decision (Lone Shark was still, um, game).
Radio silence about this jolting about-face is "a slap in the face to loyal customers", as said above. I cannot help but wonder if this is simply the conduct we should expect from the new management at Paizo. I created this thread hoping that a Paizo representative would convince us that that is not true.
I've read the posts multiple times. The only official statement is the one you quoted in the first post from Tonya Woldridge stating that they (Paizo) were "winding down" the PACG program. There is no explanation there. None of the replies with explanations are from Paizo or Lone Shark personnel. The limited Paizo/Lone Shark replies play nicely with the community, but don't explain anything. Even the replies from Venture X personnel are ambiguous (and I'm not sure if Venture X members even have standing to provide an official explanation). There may be some communications via email or PM that I'm not privy to; and there may be communications at other sites like BGG, Discord, and Reddit that I also haven't seen - I'm only basing my speculation on what I've seen (and not seen) in the public forums here at Paizo and at Lone Shark sites. Knowing how vocal Lone Shark can be (re: their position on Kickstarter), I would have expected something from them here or on their website or via Mike Selinker's Twitter feed, which I've checked several times. Instead there is just radio silence.
So while there are people that know the ins and outs of the decision and what led to it, I'm not among them and nothing I can see in anything here or elsewhere gives me a solid indication. Even my speculation is just a gut feeling without any real evidence to back it up (beyond doing some non-Boolean geometry to put things together). It could very well be that the reason is as many have speculated - a purely financial decision on the part of Paizo. However, that doesn't resonate with me as the sole reason (if that is even part of the reason).
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