Paizo, the publisher behind the popular Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games, has announced an imminent and significant upgrade to its online store. The move to a new ecommerce platform promises a more modern user experience but will come with a period of technical disruption, including site downtime and the end of some popular purchasing bundles.
In a blog post outlining the changes, the company confirmed that Paizo.com will be taken offline for approximately two days to manage the data migration. This transition will impact several key customer features, most notably existing pre-orders and the popular digital bundles for Foundry Virtual Tabletop (VTT).
The games publisher confirmed that all current pre-orders will be cancelled and will not be carried over to the new system. Customers will need to place their orders again once the new store is live. Responding to community questions, Paizo clarified that since they do not charge for pre-orders until an item ships, no refunds will be necessary. However, customers who have ordered items like special retailer covers, which may not be available through other channels like subscriptions, will need to be vigilant to secure their copies on the new platform.
In a significant change for digital gamers, Paizo will also be discontinuing its PDF + Foundry VTT bundles. Previously, customers could buy a Foundry module and its corresponding PDF together or receive a discount on the VTT key if they already owned the PDF. The company explained that the new storefront cannot support this “gating” functionality.
Going forward, Foundry VTT modules will be sold exclusively as code-only products on the Paizo store, priced similarly to how they appear on the official Foundry storefront. Paizo’s announcement did offer some hope for a future solution, stating, “…we fully plan to explore new options in the near future that can offer a similar combined value to customers who invest deeply into digital content.” In the meantime, the existing PDF discounts will remain active until the switch-over, giving players a short window to take advantage of the current pricing.
Other data, such as customer wishlists, will also be lost in the transition. Paizo is encouraging users to save copies of their wishlists in the next week if they wish to retain them. Purchase history, download libraries, subscriptions, and gift card balances are all expected to be transferred during the downtime.
The move from a bespoke system built over decades to a modern platform like BigCommerce highlights a common challenge in the digital retail space. While newer systems offer stability and updated features, they can lack the niche flexibility of older, custom-built storefronts, leading to the loss of specific features that loyal customers have come to rely on. Paizo’s old system is called Presto, and it is likely very different behind the scenes from BigCommerce, which is a significant investment and generally only picked by fairly large ecommerce sites that have outgrown WooCommerce or Shopify.
The new store promises improved navigation, with product filters for game editions, creature types, and adventure levels. Product pages will also be consolidated, allowing customers to select different formats like hardcover, special edition, and pocket editions from a single page, although PDFs will be listed separately.
Paizo’s digital stores with Roll20, Pathfinder Infinite and Starfinder Infinite are unaffected.
Paizo has not given a firm date for the launch but stated they are “incredibly close” as final testing is underway.
