Bestiary Package

[Gorta]

I just read the 'End of Summer Updates' email and saw that you are going to be offering a Bestiary Package. Are those of us who bought the Bestiaries before there was such a thing offered going to be able to get Bestiary 3 at a discount?

I have a similar question for the new Campaign Package #6. Is it going to be included in a bundle at a future date?

[Paris.Crenshaw]

I went ahead and picked up the Campaign Package #6, but I had the same question for the Bestiaries when I saw the announcement.

Not giving a discount to those of us who already have the first Bestiary packages isn't really a deal-breaker, but it would certainly be nice, if you guys could do that.

[ValaraukarU]

Ditto. +1

[bodrin]

Have to agree, a retro discount would be nice but, hey, the packages are relatively inexpensive compared to the physical book.

And after entering the first part of Council of Thieves Bestiary I can appreciate the amount of time required to do a full book would require a decent return on sales!

[Colen]

Regarding Campaign Setting #6: we aren't currently planning to make this part of any bundle.

[Colen]

Regarding the new Bestiary 3 bundle: This discount is for customers who purchase all three Bestiary add-ons at one time, not a price reduction on the previous Bestiary packages. Think about something like DVD releases - Spiderman came out on DVD, then Spiderman 2 was on DVD, and then when Spiderman 3 came out, you could get that DVD on its own, or a Spiderman Collection of all three movies at a discount.

New customers could buy the collection of all the movies at once; anyone who bought the previous DVDs individually could buy the new movie alone. The Bestiary Bundle is identical in how it works. We're simply trying to make everything as accessible as possible to everyone who plays Pathfinder, in the same way that many other companies do across numerous consumer markets.

By announcing the changes well in advance of when they will occur, we're letting those who have yet to purchase the packages make the decision for themselves. They can either wait and get the discount, or purchase the Bestiary and Bestiary 2 now and enjoy those over the next few months. Some companies offer a price guarantee that they will refund the difference if the price drops within 30 days of your purchase. We're not setup for refunds like that, so we're essentially doing the reverse by announcing the discount now - but we're going even further and announcing it three months in advance.

Hope this helps explain what we're doing here - please let us know if you have any further questions.

[Joana]

Have to say, that was one of my least favorite things about the eTools era was non-retroactive bundles. It's like the opposite of a Paizo subscription: you're incentivizing people to not buy hot, new product from you but to wait for some putative money-saving bundle down the road. The great thing about your Campaign Setting and Player Companion bundles is that early adopters as well as late can get a discount.

This makes me less likely to buy a data set when it's first available because I don't know if you're on the verge of announcing a package for it.

[morval]

Originally Posted by Joana

Have to say, that was one of my least favorite things about the eTools era was non-retroactive bundles. It's like the opposite of a Paizo subscription: you're incentivizing people to not buy hot, new product from you but to wait for some putative money-saving bundle down the road. The great thing about your Campaign Setting and Player Companion bundles is that early adopters as well as late can get a discount.

This makes me less likely to buy a data set when it's first available because I don't know if you're on the verge of announcing a package for it.

I agree. It feels like the cell phone companies with their deals. You are a 10 year long customer of theirs and you can't get the hot new handset deal becasue you aren't a new customer.

[Paris.Crenshaw]

My thinking on this is that the non-bundling is more due to the way the initial roll-out worked.

When LWD got the license to do official Pathfinder data sets, there was a TON of material that had not been entered. My assumption is that in order to make that work profitable, they created the bundles to ensure sales for the products that would be coming out. Pretty smart.

Now that they're more or less caught up with the current product line, it makes sense that we'd see more individual or smaller-grouped releases.

The Bestiary Bundle makes sense for those who have held off paying for those products. My guess here is that most users of Hero Lab are players who don't need the monsters, so they're not normally going to fork over the funds for the more expensive data sets unless they have to. Offering a bundle on these items gives people who may have had HL for a while an incentive to purchase a product they would normally avoid.

On the other hand, folks like me who use Hero Lab to GM and who use the interface with d20Pro, will be buying up each new data set whenever my RPG budget allows. That moves me out of the demographic for some super deals, but if there are enough folks like me, maybe LWD will start a "Superscriber" program like Paizo has? (hint, hint)

[Basilforth]

Personally, I am fine with the way this is rolled out. The dollar amounts are relatively small. A buck or three savings. This software is worth is weight in gold in terms of time savings.

Also, think about it this way: as a current user/owner our goal should be for the software to be as widely distributed as possible. Make it easy for new people to join in the fun. The more people that participate, the more likely to see fun stuff in the future.

Keep up the good work, LW!