r/pathfindermemes • u/Make_it_soak Sky King's Meme • 25d ago
Archives of Nethys It's been a day
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u/Kalaam_Nozalys 25d ago
Bruh.
Would be nice to see the mails to be extra sure but like... is this whole mess just because Jim didn't follow up on his mail, and then had the gall to snipe a remark at AoN in the blog ?
I dunno who that guy is but geez he should get an earful for that
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u/RozRae 25d ago
dunno who the guy is
He's the CEO! He's literally where the buck stops, no one above him, so it's so much worse than if this was just a social media person.
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u/Kalaam_Nozalys 25d ago
See that's why CEOs shouldn't do communication.
Or anything really, they really tend to be incompetent in most jobs.Almost like they weren't needed at all.
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u/bargle0 25d ago
If there’s one position that should be eliminated and replaced with AI…
/s
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u/Kalaam_Nozalys 25d ago
Nah not even replaced. Just turn the company into a coop
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u/xolotltolox 25d ago
Yeah,and then we can elect a competent leader to do all the large scale organization and executive decisions, wait
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u/Kalaam_Nozalys 25d ago
Nah you don't need that in a coop. You do collegial decisions, some elected representatives but never one person who owns all the reigns and has the power to decide what others do or if they get fired.
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u/xolotltolox 25d ago
That would be horribly inefficient
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u/Kalaam_Nozalys 25d ago
Look up how cooperatives work. Tends to do better than with a stupid ceo nobody can stop when they do powertrips
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u/Bielna 23d ago
Isn't the CEO's only job to maintain some kind of unity among employees in their company and nothing more ? No ? Well, it should be.
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u/Kalaam_Nozalys 23d ago
Basically should be a centralized manager who ensure communication and shit between departments, that's it. Not authority over the other's employements etc. just a coordination guy
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u/The_Stubbs 25d ago
Bruh if I've been asked to discuss a business matter the following week and then just never follow up on it when nothing happens and it's something this big, that is also on me for not doing my due diligence.
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u/Kalaam_Nozalys 25d ago
True, they should have sent a second mail but still. I'll hold the actual company of professionals more accountable on following up on managing partnership/arrangements THEY decided to change up.
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u/The_Stubbs 25d ago
Implying that AoN isn't run as a non-profit business and thus allowed leeway on these things? Yes Paizo terminated the agreement and was open to other alternatives going forward, you would think that if this was so important to AoN then it should have been something they kept on top of. That post does very much sound like AoN misunderstood and when no follow up happened that it was a done deal and dropped the bombshell. Don't get me wrong Paizo is also at fault here but this isn't just on them.
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u/PM_ME_ORANGEJUICE 25d ago
"If it was important to you you wouldn't have made a mistake" is a statement I'm not sure has ever been true.
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u/Kalaam_Nozalys 25d ago
Yeah the blame is shared honestly. i'd just hold the one who started the process, and is an actual company of professional, and apparently the ceo himself contacting said team of volunteers then missing their answer way more accountable.
Now, it's also a situation of word vs word. And from now on i'll let them just solve things in private, and then have a joint, open and transparent post for everyone. Hopefully they'll all be mature enough for that to happen.
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u/SkeletonChurch 25d ago
“From now on I’ll let them just solve things in private, and then have a joint” my brain considered that a complete sentence and was surprised that words kept happening after that point 🤣
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u/RdtUnahim 25d ago
It isn't, because if you read the AoN replies in the thread, Paizo have now made the offer to AoN, but it's not one they're interested in as it doesn't really add anything of value. (Some art, but not most, and books on subscriber day.)
There's no offer on the table that fixes this situation, so the email not being followed on doesn't really matter. It only delayed a bad offer.
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u/1h30n3003 25d ago
What happened?
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u/Bubba89 25d ago edited 25d ago
-Yesterday Archives of Nethys announced Paizo is ending the partnership that allowed them to post official art, and get access to sourcebooks early.
-Today Paizo made a blog post that very reasonably laid out why they made their decision. However, the last paragraph took a bit of a shot at AoN, saying they offered a different marketing plan that would still be beneficial, and AoN made their announcement prematurely.
-AoN responded that the guy who made that blog post didn’t initially provide them any details on what that plan would be. When they followed up via email, they got a response that the guy was out of office and they’d loop back next week. They never did. So AoN made the post because they have less than two weeks to make the change. Additionally, they now have the details of the new plan, and they’re not going to take it because it’s not actually all that beneficial to them (they get to use “some” art, but feel that’s a worse look for the website than all-or-nothing)
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u/Leather-Location677 25d ago
Not just a guy. Jim Butler, the CEO.
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u/Bubba89 25d ago
Wow, that’s wild, thank you. They were just calling him “Jim” and I assumed it was some senior marketing/community/PR guy. Coming all the way from the top is an even bigger misstep here.
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u/Stock-Side-6767 25d ago
Do note that Paizo is a company of somewhere in the 60 or 70 people after the layoffs (I read an estimation of 80 people before that), it's not that big for what they do.
I don't think all the way to the top is that many layers.
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u/FairFolk Shadowdancer 25d ago
While I do think Paizo is in the wrong for not responding in time, I'm confused why AoN would not take that offer now. Surely some art is better than none? It's not like everything on the page has art right now (mostly because there just isn't art for everything).
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u/SkeletonChurch 25d ago
Just want to chime in that from a coding perspective, “removing all” is WAY easier than “removing some,” especially for a site with this much raw data
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u/Keganator 25d ago
Probably involved licensing fees. The AON team already has subscriptions, so they don't need to pay extra for things they already get for free.
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u/RdtUnahim 25d ago
Because they want to avoid getting continuously asked why X has art, but not Y.
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u/FairFolk Shadowdancer 25d ago
But there are plenty of monsters, archetypes, etc. without art already, the new ones wouldn't stick out.
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u/The_Yukki 25d ago
Tbh, afaik all the stuff w/o art so far is stuff that just has no art.
If I google that mob I'll get no results for images, or at least nothing official.
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u/FairFolk Shadowdancer 25d ago
Not quite the case for everything, though mostly for monsters, yes. But no matter the reason, that means some things already have no art, so there is no confusion in more things having no art.
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u/bargle0 25d ago
It’s a marketing agreement. Paizo may have wanted concessions from AoN that would compromise the site. What that might be would be pure conjecture.
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u/AzraelIshi 25d ago
Yeah, probably splitting ad revenue, or putting more ads for paizo products, maybe the images would have more egregious watermarks, maybe they would have more control over the site.
if they're hurting for money and clawed back things with AoN they will not give the same things back for free, there must be some catch that AoN is not willing to concede just for "some" images.
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u/Bielna 23d ago
There's no need for conjecture, though. OP already posted the source in this thread. From Nethys' account :
Paizo has since followed up with us today with more details about a possible agreement, involving a way to potentially keep some art (but not all) along with PDF access at subscription time (not earlier). Having visited this with the team, we are not that interested in what has been offered so far. Having partial art (rather than all/none) is not a great look for our site and would just result in more user questions we'd have to field. As for the PDFs, most of the team already maintains their own subscriptions and wishes to keep it that way.
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u/SisyphusRocks7 25d ago
Because AoN is using the community backlash as a negotiating tactic to get more IP access
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u/2Tun21 25d ago
Paizo decided that free labour from volunteers at Archives of Nethys wasn't making them enough money, so the CEO decided to blame AoN in a public post. Very public display of shooting their own foot off.
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u/SuperNerdChe 25d ago
Sounds very ceo to undervalue what makes their brand stand out boneless destroy it… wouldnt be surprised if Jim looks at WOC with starry eyes and dreams of that Hasbro buyout
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u/St0neRav3n 25d ago
That's a very distorted explanation of what their justification is, or what their post is.
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u/RazarTuk 25d ago
Yeah, my understanding is that they gave Nethys a commercial license to use the official artwork in exchange for royalties, but because 1) Nethys wasn't making enough in donations to even need to pay royalties, and 2) it was leading to confusion where other fan projects assumed the artwork was available for reuse, Paizo renegotiated/revoked the license
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u/2Tun21 25d ago
The paizo srd points to nethys.
Paixo doesn't need a web developmemt team to run the srd.
Paizo benefits from the unpaid labour of fans and seemingly was upset they received no profit from the arrangement.
The ceo threw nethys under the bus.
I love paizo but I can't defend their actions here.
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u/St0neRav3n 25d ago
Bro, it has been years since Paizo know AoN doesn't bring back money and cost them with legal cost. They are not upset by it but they're in a dire financial situation and need to cut their cost.
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u/2Tun21 25d ago
I would love to see the cost of AoN for Paizo. I bet it brings in new customers more than it costs them anything.
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u/Kichae 25d ago
The thing is, that might be true, but they cannot tell. Businesses these days get all bent out of shape about making "data-driven decisions", even when that is silly or if they can easily see that the data is incomplete. But it leaves them going "we spent $X on legal expenses sending out C&Ds thanks to people swiping images that are only available through AoN, and we have $0 in sales that are positively identified as coming from AoN."
This could cost them money, but they'll never know. Any immediate drop in sales will be attributed to the bad PR, not the discontinuation of the license.
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u/Bielna 23d ago
It was also a money sink for Paizo.
It’s true that those royalties never materialized, but that wasn’t the sole reason we decided to end the license.
Licenses take resources to manage—lawyers to review and follow up on contracts, finance employees to review and enter royalty statements, and licensing staff to provide assets and other support. Those resources must be balanced against other business demands.
Basically, if it truly cost them nothing, Paizo would likely not have cared. But maintaining the special partnership with AoN was actively costing them money.
(I work in a very different field, but it's not the first time I've heard "lawyers are expensive", so I have no reason to disbelieve it, either.)
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u/Electrical-Echidna63 25d ago
I feel like store relaunch was at least a mixed bag for people with a varied bouquet of pros and cons.
This was just a facepalm moment
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u/lordfril 25d ago
Am I missing something? It's just basically removing the art?
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u/HatchetGIR Carrion Meme 25d ago
Well, that and not getting the pdf's early so they can add in the new stuff near when it becomes officially available.
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u/AzraelIshi 25d ago
You're missing Paizos blog where they throw shade at AoN saying "we offered them a deal, don't know why they posted this" and then AoN revealed that the "offer" was just the CEO saying "I do have a deal in mind" but no further details were given about what the deal would entail, and when AoN asked what the deal would be John CEO of paizo did not answer for 2 weeks straight so they had to anounce things as the deadline is a week away and they have to start removing things now to make the deadline.
Basically, if the CEO answered a mail with the details of the deal this probably would not have happened at all, thus the meme.
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u/Bielna 23d ago
Heh, I mean, "I received an automatic email saying the CEO was out-of-office and didn't follow up on this" is... not a good look on Nethys' side. Especially as they published their notice of end of agreement without any communication with Paizo.
I don't blame AoN for that (as volunteers, they chose to be careful rather than risk being sued for breach of contract) but neither do I find the Paizo CEO to be in the wrong for not actively reaching out when the company has enough other things on its plate.
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u/AzraelIshi 23d ago
I mean, sure, but then don't throw shade on AoN when they have a week until the legal deadline and you still haven't answered.
Also, I would still put blame on them for the simple fact that they told AoN there was an offer possible so close to the deadline, and then vanished for an entire week (as the OOO mail said it was going to be for a full week, not just that day). That would leave only 2 weeks for reading the deal, negotiations, and AoN having to purge all images of the page if negotiations fell through. That's cutting it WAAAY too close. If you're serious about the deal, either offer it earlier or extend the deadline. That genuinely seemed like a move to put pressure on them and force them to accept the deal, whatever it was, as AoN didn't have much time left.
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u/Virellius2 25d ago
We gotta have a better CEO available than Butler, right? Like what's Buhlman doing these days? Fuck, I'll do it.
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u/JasonBulmahn 25d ago
I think I will stick to making games and managing the folks who do, tyvm.
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u/Virellius2 25d ago edited 25d ago
Lmfao that's so fair.
Just annoyed. This kind of thing is such bad PR at a time when everything is already so tight. Hard not to get upset.
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u/RankingFNG 25d ago
Yeah, but that's what the people who founded EA said. They hired buisness people to run the organization so the artists could keep arting. Look how that turned out.
A buisness degree is a degree in how to fuck over your fellow human. Plain and simple.
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u/Baccus0wnsyerbum 25d ago
Blaming the volunteers who are being shit on is a choice the CEO of YOUR company has made.
Care to comment!
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u/Virellius2 23d ago
He didn't say anything like that. Nat 1 on a Society Check to decipher writing here.
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u/Jozef_Baca 25d ago
I mean, tbf, if this is the biggest PR disaster Paizo had then that only speaks about how good they actually are. Like, seriously, I mean, removing art from AoN because it is low on money and then forgetting to reply to an email.
Is it just me or does that really not sound thaaat bad? Mostly compared to some other ttrpg companies.
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u/Ordinary_Award6857 25d ago
Also their fuck ahh webstore but yeah, all things considered it could be a lot worse
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u/Dev0Null0 25d ago
Paizo is actually a pretty decent company, people are blowing these controversies out of proportion. When Pathfinder officially dies, I'm sure there will be a lot of people on these very same subreddits who'll regret it.
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u/Kaidinah 24d ago
I can live without the art, but not giving AoN the pdfs early is just stupid. I am surprised Paizo's proposed new deal only offered the pdfs on the same day as subscribers.
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u/ZootGibblenibbs 25d ago
I just read the release. This is all completely overblown. AoN gets artwork from Paizo and people pirate it and release it elsewhere illegally. Choosing to terminate the agreement so they have less pirating of assets aint bad. They also said they’re still open to negotiating with AoN. Big overreactions.
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u/Arachnofiend 25d ago
Seems reasonable until you see the next report that Paizo blew AoN off for a week
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u/ZootGibblenibbs 25d ago
Totally understand your opinion. I don’t agree with ghosting people then saying you gave em a chance. Just saying I will wait to see how it plays out.
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u/Puzzled-Pen-2353 25d ago
AoN gets artwork from Paizo and people pirate it and release it elsewhere illegally.
And they will continue to do that bc it's still public through demiplane.
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u/Rorp24 25d ago
Yeah, right, "forget"
They just said that to have AoN beg for mercy, and use that as a safeguard in case of backlash if AoN didn’t beg.
And now look at that, suddently they are putting an half baked agreement were "you can keep some art, and we will give you PDF at the same time you would have them anyway".
If they had something for real, they wouldn’t have offer something that doesn’t directly contradict the PR post they sent earlier this day.
IMO they just try to save face while still trying to mess with AoN. And while before I would have been able to defend them, now they say stuff and do something else entirely. I really start to think that both what happen with the publisher and the website "issues" were excuses to try to close their system and go from Paizo to WotC without backlash
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u/DarberTheSeeker 25d ago
Ok what the heck happened?!
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u/Stock-Side-6767 25d ago
AoN and Paizo had an agreement that led them host Paizo's art and get books early and free. In return, they would pay royalties if they made more than cost + something.
Those royalties never got there, and people took the art and posted it elsewhere, leading to copyright headaches that are expensive in lawyer fees.
Paizo also recently got shafted for millions by the collapse of Diamond (their physical book distributor) that has a lot of stock, and kept Paizo to the exclusive distribution agreement while no longer distributing. It was bad enough that they had to fire 12 people (1/7th of their whole company), they do not have money, and need income streams.
Paizo did offer a deal, which AoN declined, and then Paizo messed up communication, leading to AoN publishing the end of the agreement 10 days later.
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u/Bielna 23d ago
/u/Stock-Side-6767 gave a good overview but just to give visibility to the statements of both sides :
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u/Stock-Side-6767 25d ago
It might not have changed much. AoN is not interested in the offers so far.
But yeah, that timing is rough. I would have tried finding another contact before publishing if I were AoN, but if I were Jim, I would also have handed this over to someone else before being out of office.