Nah. Not so gloomy as all that.

1) Many RW users bought it to build their own campaigns and are looking for drop-in content. RIGHT OFF THE BAT I'll get content that I can use, some of it for free.

2) LWD has an incredible community that is loyal and has greatly increased the value of other RW tools like Hero Lab with community-created content. I fully expect that one the CM is opened to the wider community that there will be a large amount a free content from this same community.

3) Once the CM is open and gets some press and folks see that Paizo is publishing content in it, they will take their material from Drive Thru RPG and publish in RW. Why wouldn't you take your material and make it available in another market. There is a bit of hurdle in that you can't just take your PDF and throw it in the CM, but I expect you'll soon see lots of inexpensive options in the CM from the 'might as well see if I can sell my adventure for $3' crowd.

4) Complaints about pricing policy do not necessarily translate into buying behavior. Lot's of people have complained about the cost of 5e books--but they are selling very well. Lots of people took umbrage at the cost of 5e material in Fantasy Grounds, but many people still bought it and SmiteWorks seems to be making money from the license. The one reaction to pricing that really is a threat to publishers is piracy, but that isn't such a threat with RW. I'm sure some people will find ways to steal content, but it is much more difficult than getting your hands on a pirated PDF.

I think the CM will do just fine.

The real challenge for LWD is convincing enough gamers of the benefits of a campaign-management system and an at-table application to run your games. RW fits in what appears to be small niche between traditional-pen-and-paper and VTTs.

You are 100% correct. The moment this goes live I'll be buying The Emerald Spire and the .pdf even though I own the hardback and the flip map pack. I've been stalling my home game hoping that it would be part of the initial release. But none of that is going to stop me from grumbling about having to buy the .pdf ;)

FYI, the PDF component is NOT applicable to the Pathfinder rulebook line. That material is almost entirely OGL, so it's a different animal within the license and doesn't have the attached PDF dependency. Any material that includes a substantial portion of non-OGL content - such as APs, modules, Campaign Setting, and Player Companion - does have the dependency.

We won't be creating any original content ourselves, but we will absolutely be pulling together awesome system neutral content from a lot of very talented 3PPs that create some amazing stuff. System neutral material was an integral part of the original vision. Way back in the Kickstarter, we got the license to do Masks and Eureka from the brilliant team at Engine Publishing, and those two items will be available at CM launch. We've also go some other stuff in the works that is really good, system neutral, story-focused material.

Don't get your hopes up on this approach. We do a single sale every year, and it's only for a subset of items we regularly offer. That's not likely to change.

The reason for this is pretty simple. Lots of companies feel they have to put their stuff on sale. It's the core business model behind DTRPG, Steam, GOG, and plenty of other places. But we consider that practice as ultimately de-valuing the product and establishing the expectation within consumers that they should wait for a sale. We've always stuck with the philosophy of pricing our products to provide a high value for the money invested, then just maintaining that price thereafter.

We're doing the same for the RW content with the pricing that we control. I think users will be very happy with the quality and utility of the RW material they purchase relative to the investment. Obviously, that financial investment is meaningful, so the real question is whether the core concept behind RW is viable. That still needs to be proven, but discounting isn't likely to factor into the equation, either way. :)

Steam absolutely complicates things for FG. But I would wager that you'd lose your bet. :)

All I can really say is that Paizo made it very clear to us that it was paramount in their eyes to have a level playing field for all their digital partners and that the same rules would apply exactly the same to all companies, with no exceptions. That philosophy is consistent with many other things Paizo has done in the past, including with regards to how our Hero Lab license has been structured over the years - even when there were no other companies with active licenses with Paizo. They are very conscientious when it comes to keeping things balanced for everyone. You may also want to look at the post upthread from @Galymyr regarding the d20Pro announcement.

I can't speak to the specifics of the FG license, but I am absolutely inclined to trust Paizo on this detail.

It's going to be interrsting to see what occurs. FG devs seem pretty concrete in this check wont be happening with them. It sounds like they are exploring Paizo selling their content for them via the Paizo store to enable people who own the pdfs to purchase from there at a discounted price. It honestly sounds like they are trying to achieve the same result but via different limitations. The only way I seem them doing that with steam though is to include a pdf in the steam purchase.

That is great to hear. Makes things a lot easier for me. Well let's see what will be available in the beginning and when the next PDF sale from Paizo happens. :D

Assuming I had the money, anything I would want to buy from the content market (in regards to Pathfinder), I either already have the PDF for, or would want to buy the PDF anyway.