I think pinnacle is doing the right thing with SW by trying to get these licenses. But its a tricky act because the more public the license is, the more money it has to make and if it asks for too much it will backfire like Genysis and star wars.
Thats why I think they made Savage Pathfinder before a fantasy companion.
I have a feeling the pathfinder license was a lot like the Rifts license, on sale. I noticed they kickstart the projects too, so they really are doing a smart job pre selling anyway. Since they can digitally distribute in the mean time waiting for print copies to arrive to customers, I think they are doing a rather good job of using what the 21st century offers to creep up on the leviathan(s) of the Rpg industry.
I would also add, they had the system long developed and tweaked several times before they got too concerned with setting and license that was not in house. As a system I think geneys kind of sucks, and though it might be a good fit for star wars, it seems awkward as hell with fantasy and some other settings (they essentially seemed to have done exactly the opposite of what SW did regarding setting license and system) and last I checked was pretty much a huge sales dud.
A system, no matter how good, needs a very strong setting baked in to have massive sales success. Not to be good, or great for my purposes, but I probably fall into the 1-5 percent of game consumers with regards to the threshold it takes for me to buy a game/system...I think the other masses need an evocative setting to suck them in. Rifts is that, with both older players for nostalgia as well as newer players with *wow*. Pretty much the same for Pathfinder, as IMO it hits an even bigger audience, the D&D audience with something familiar to get them to give it a try. I think for rifts, it kills their system to be honest. But maybe KS made a deal to fund his retirement on royalties and will finally stop being a control freak and collect checks while out fishing. Pathfinder looks to me to be in a big shift (as in losing market share and money) and maybe they did the same, where the founders there were looking for a long term royalty income so they made deals to keep the prices reasonable and the money flowing. They also seem to be benefitting from using their license for video games, so who knows.
This is the big gripe I always had with GURPS....create, or license a setting that sucks people in. I swear, they choose some of the oddest properties to license the past 10-15 years. I think they had a shot with dungeon fantasy as an underpinning to create a solid setting, but did not. That was an idea that IMO was the best they have had in a long time, but they seem to lack gumption as to pushing it any further (which is understandable, their money from Munchkin and other games is much bigger, and SJ is getting older and probably wants to position the company where he can sell it and sail off, or at least create a revenue stream where he has a good retirement).