2015 Pathfinder Bundle
 

I'm trying to make sense of the 2015 Bundle pricing, right now it includes:
Unchained (9.99)
Occult (9.99)
Player Companion 19 (4.99)
Campaign Setting 14 (4.99)

So rounding ~= $30

If we add one more hardcover in the fall with monsters and one more each of the other book types, thats only another $20 worth of product.

For a total of $50 that costs $65...

So does HL know what is happening @ Gencon and expecting something big, or does the bundle pricing not make sense?

Well there should be 2 more hard covers. Inner Sea Races is Hard Cover plus an RPG line Monster/NPC book I would expect in late fall.

gcpeart, based on our knowledge of the release schedule for Paizo and how we'll be selling that content, we decided to price the bundle at $65. :) Fun fact: $65 worth of official Pathfinder packages released for Hero Lab in 2014.

This is more of a general comment on the bundle, not to anyone in particular: As we mention in the Pathfinder update announcement and the newsletter, this bundle is one of convenience (buy everything at once and it will be available for download right when it releases), rather than a "discount" or "sale" bundle.

It wasn't really clear when I bought this package yesterday, but I gather it does not include the Rise of the Runelords AP stuff, so that's an additional 25 bucks, right?

So I just gave you money in advance with no other benefit than "you will not have to purchase things separately"?

I don't know Liz, I feel when you're saying only $64.99, there's an implication of a price benefit. I really wasn't expecting to get screwed, but it seems I and everyone who purchase it did.

Well I am pretty sure that if you demand/ask nicely for your money back LW will actually do that. I have seen them do that in the past for other stuff even the Kickstarter of RW.

The emails and newsletter never said sale and based on the price it was pretty clear it was not a discount. Nor did it ever say 64.99 compared to the normal 75.00 price.

Yes, that's correct. As we mentioned in the news post, Adventure Paths like Rise of the Runelords aren't included in the bundle - we're planning to release several APs this year, so including those would have probably doubled the price of the bundle. :(

Hi Kaz,

We actually created this bundle because we had multiple people tell us "I want to just buy everything at once and not worry about it". $64.99 is our best guess as to how much all those packages will cost individually, so that's what we went with.

Sorry you felt like we weren't clear enough with the messaging - is there anything else you think we could do to make it more obvious that this isn't intended as a discount? (We didn't put the little "Save" icon beside it for that reason.)

As ShadowChemosh says, we offer refunds within 60 days, so if you're unhappy just get in touch with us at support@wolflair.com and we'll arrange a refund. Sorry for the confusion!

just a voice from the silent minority:
I was amongst the give me everything and "bother" me once for paying.

I'm happy with the 65$ . I guess that if they produce only 50$ of packages they'll make up for something ;)

Yep.. I'm with Vrischika111. My estimate of "likely" stuff is close enough to $65 that I'm not going to sweat the difference. And I never thought of it as a discounted bundle, just as a convenient bundle.

/me thought of it as a tax write-off ...

I feel a little bit misunderstood, let me explain where my disgust come from. The minimum wage where I live is about 4.5 dollars give or take, not to the hour, but for a full shift of 8 hours. Don't feel sorry for me I have a Bachelor's Degree in Finance, so I don't earn that little but still is a lot of money for someone here in Mexico.

But it doesn't really hurt to give that amount of money, because I love Pathfinder and Hero Lab. I love them because I love the companies behind those products, they give amazing material for me to play with. That being said the thing I love most is that I don't feel they are trying to squeeze money out of me; even though the products are a bit expensive the quality is up to the standards. I trust this much in both companies that I purchase most products as soon as you have them for sale, with out blinking an eye, as this was the case

In finance we have this notion about Present Value and Future Value of the Money, in which you prefer to receive 100 dollars now than to receive them a year from now. That's because inflation and other factors depreciate the value a hundred dollar bill have through. So as you can see it is more expensive for us, customers.

I wont be asking my money back since as you already mention it is convenient for me to purchase it right now than to make multiple purchases through out the year. But it is far more convenient for you to have money before you start the development process for most of the materials, and even better to have at full face value.

As you can see I feel a bit betrayed in this blind trust I have in you as a company. My only hope right now is for you to have this opinion into account in the future, just for the sake that I'm one of your most loyal customers and I want to see the company grow as much as you.

@KazMx, I think you may be assuming the bundle is a sales strategy for us. If offering the bundle was an important business strategy to incentivize more users to purchase early so that we can get the money out of them in advance, then it would definitely make sense for us to offer a discount to users. However, that's NOT our motivation here.

If you look at our history, we have almost never offered a "sale", nor have we made a habit of offering products for purchase prior to their availability. That's a business model we have only started to dabble in with Hero Lab, and only in very minor ways (e.g. a short holiday sale last November and allowing pre-orders of the Rise of the Runelords AP package a couple weeks in advance).

Our motivation for the annual bundle is simply to appease the many users who have expressly requested the ability to only have to pay us once instead of having to buy new packages every month. Our expectation is that the majority of users will continue to buy new packages as they come out. In this case, we're not trying to incentivize users to give us money in advance. We're offering the bundle purely as a convenience item - nothing more. So, instead of the common discount-for-upfront-money exchange that you may be assuming is our motivation, we're merely offering a convenience option to appease users who requested it. Unlike what numerous other companies strive to accomplish through a bundle deal, this isn't a marketing or sales initiative intended to get us more upfront cash. We could potentially pursue something like that, but that's a different approach from how we have traditionally operated.

Hopefully, this distinction makes a little more sense now. :)

P.S. Your "blind trust" is greatly appreciated, and we're all intent on honoring that trust to the best of our abilities. I like to think that trust has been earned over the years, and I believe the primary reason users asked us to offer the bundle was because they trust us the way you do. Well, that and the fact that lots of us are lazy and will happily avoid the hassle of having to buy stuff an extra 10 times a year. :)

I assume this is also based on the fact that the sales portals can't handle doing subscriptions? That is the one I hear most often about is how LW does not support subscriptions like Paizo. So is this like a partially way of providing this?

Just mentioning as I know several people that would jump on a subscription method for HL packages for Pathfinder.

I think our lack of support for true subscriptions is definitely a factor here. Users want something simple so they don't have to deal with buying stuff every month. Since we don't have support for subscriptions, the bundle option is an alternative that works for some. I'm sure we'd have a lot more users take advantage of the subscription option if we made it available. Unfortunately, that will require a major overhaul of our sales portal to make possible, and such an overhaul competes for the same resources that are currently focused on product development. Subscription support is one of the many things we'd do in a heartbeat if we had unlimited resources, but our resources are severely limited, so it's still on the list of things we want to do. :(

BTW in full support of a subscription based model

I'd be happy paying up front, but when I saw the bundle I had already purchased some of the included items. I'm not happy to pay twice, so that leaves me unable to take advantage of the offer. Ok, fine, unwilling rather than unable, but reasonably so I think.

We released the bundle option at the same time as the first packages that are included within it (or possibly just before). Nothing included in the bundle was released prior to the bundle being made available. So this sounds like a simple case of having inadvertently overlooked the bundle when it was first released. You're not out any money, so it's simply a missed convenience this time around. :)

While I respect your point there Rob. It isn't entirely true though I ran into the same situation as Stormwarden. There was at least one bundle namely "Pathfinder RPG Campaign Setting Bundle #3" (causing the Campaign Setting #14 and in the future #15 to have already been paid for (There might have been a second bundle for the companion guide but from that one I ain't certain)) that contained a book before the 2015 bundle was released.

I don't mind it either way I will just buy them separate again as you said it is just missing out on convenience but it happens. There is no harm done eitherway

Technically, Rob is correct based on the information I gave him - the Pathfinder 2015 bundle included the individual packages that released in 2015. However, Stormwarden and Togainu are also correct - the Player Companion Bundle #4 and Campaign Setting Bundle #3 included a few (not all) of the packages that will be released in 2015.

We decided to move forward with the Pathfinder 2015 bundle because it was specifically about convenience, whereas users that purchased Player Companion Bundle #4 and Campaign Setting Bundle #3 received a 20% discount. I hope that clarifies things - this is what happens when I step away from the forums to work on some other stuff and Rob ventures over from the Realm Works side to try to help me out. :p

No worries Liz, I understand that this was caused by some miss communication. As I said in my post not entirely true. I knew the statement in his post was correct but kind of wanted to explain where the issue was coming from for others.

Thanks for coming here to still clear everything up though. And you deserve some time away from the forums as well you always work hard here. I am sure that the entire community treasures the work everyone on the team does. :)

P.s Sorry if it came slightly across in a wrong way towards you Rob