Paizo Announces Annual Price Changes and New Eco-Friendly Initiatives
Paizo announced a batch of price increases, owing to inflation, industry changes, and sustainability goals that’ll make games greener.
The Notorious B.I.G. once posited that if you had mo money you’d have mo problems. But as it turns out, acquiring problems is easy. But getting mo money, that’s the harder thing to do. Everything is more expensive these days. From food to games to miniatures and more. Earlier this year WotC announced they were raising prices on their books.
And this week, Paizo followed suit, announcing a batch of price changes (increases, one and all) alongside the reasons they’re doing it. Which isn’t a bad thing. After all, it’s getting to be too expensive to live anywhere. As Capitalism demands endless growth and extracts wealth from everything, sucking the lifeblood and joy and quality out of everything from Pyrex to Bandcamp (and that’s just recent), eventually all we’ll have left is withered husks that none of us can afford to buy because while inflation increased, wages didn’t. Gotta keep that money pouring up so it can trickle back down, even though that whole economic system has been thoroughly debunked by reality (which does have a well-known liberal bias).
But it’s not all gloomy news, Paizo is hoping to buoy up its sustainability as well with a move to more green products. Here’s a look at their announcement, which went out earlier this week.
Paizo Raises Prices
No one likes to raise prices, but doing so is a necessity. Paizo is not immune to economic factors like inflation, nor industry-wide fluctuations in cost-of-goods, labor, or shipping and logistics, and we must periodically adjust our prices to reflect rising costs.
Paizo provided a breakdown of the price changes alongside the announcement.
- Flip-Mats: $19.99 (+$3)
- Flip-Mat Multi-Pack: $29.99 (+$5)
- 96-page Adventure Paths: $29.99 (+$3)
- Pocket Editions will range in price from $26.99 to $34.99 based on page count.
Hardcover prices will vary in price based on page count. That might seem obvious, but it’s a change from us keeping MSRP the same across wide page counts. Here are a couple of baseline examples.
- 128-page: $44.99
- 192-page: $59.99
- 256-page: $69.99
- 304-page plus map: $79.99
Special Edition covers add an additional $20 to the retail price.
You’ll see the above price changes reflected in products that begin releasing in April of 2024, as well as reprints of older products.
But, for now, the hardcover Core books will be staying at the same price. At the very least through the first printing of the remastered Pathfinder Core Rulebooks. Paizo hopes “to hold the line on price increases as long as possible.”
Paizo Goes Green
Along with the price changes, came news that Paizo was going to be greener in the not-too-distant future. The company already uses ecologically friendly soy-based ink. But now, they’re switching to FSC-certified paper:
This means that the paper Paizo uses will come from ecologically sourced forests that prohibit deforestation (replacing the trees they harvest with new growth), require biodiversity and old forests to be protected, protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples, and ensure that Paizo has a sustainable source of paper for many years to come. To learn about the Forest Stewardship Council or delve into the certification process visit their website.
We’re making changes in shipping supplies as well. We’ve switched to using starch peanuts and air pockets in store shipments. We’re also phasing out the use of foam packing corners (for cardboard ones) and have switched all of consumer box packaging from U-Line to Alliance Packaging, who use an average of 50% recycled paper in their boxes.
Looks like big changes are in the works for Paizo.
