The Business: Steal This Format

On the subject of channels talking videogame history, specialized in the depiction of firearms, no one does it better than Ahoy.

As the title of this post says, the thing I want you to pay attention to is the format.

Ahoy's format is a strong visual aesthetic, especially with title cards (intro and outro), a just-long-enough run time per video and a deep male voice to lend a seeming of authority and expertise to the presentation. This is easily appropriated and replicated as Republic Armory (a Star Wars channel) shows. This is a faceless format; no one knows what Ahoy looks like and yet look at that man's success.

Take a look at Ahoy's channel. His videos vary in duration, some going an hour or more, but when I say "just long enough" I mean it. That's him focusing on the facts, while the video shown and the audio used do a lot of the work that otherwise gets used by dialog to transition from point to point in his essays. This is why Ahoy, despite making videos on a niche subject within a niche subject, is one of the best video essayist on any platform. He comprehends what this medium is and how it works to best effect.

Why am I telling you this>

Because, if you are an author or publisher, you have been handed one of the best formats around for marketing your works.

You don't need to show your face. Your prospective audience wants the thing, not your face. They also don't need to hear your voice. Find a suitable voice, or voices, and let those do the talking. All you need to do is to provide the material, probably the script, and you can gin up visuals easily now. Look at what Jon Del Arroz has done recently and you'll see where I'm going.

You don't need to see anyone's face. You need a voiceover, a script, and matching visuals. All of this is well within agentic capacity to handle now, and the cost is low enough that any serious independent operating should add this as a business expense at the first opportunity. Don't think so? Then consider that people doing faceless videos about existing Brand IP already do plenty in terms of traffic and thus ad revenue- revenue you can use to defray expenses, if not become a significant income stream in itself.

That last one being a Traveller channel is the proof of concept, and they don't even do voiceover or offer substantive information.

Like it or not, marketing is necessary business activity for any indie author or game designer. Ahoy's format makes it painless to do video marketing for your books or games, as it puts the attention where you want it--on what you're selling--and away from you. The tools are now available for you to do this yourself cheaply, and then upload videos to the sites that matters--YouTube, Tiktok, Instragram (the latter two being vertical short-form clips, which you can derive from the long-form YT videos)--and redirect them to your site.

Oh, and there's been a good video dropped about that too. Aimed at authors, applicable to gamedevs, here's Novel Marketing's latest critiques of authors pages.

Oh, and while you're there, watch this one and learn why Palladium is justified in never deviating far from its core aesthetic.

The Business: Sword World Is Still Raising Money

If you have money to burn, the official Sword World campaign is still out there with hat in hand.

I say "money to burn" because good luck getting print products from this without having the luxury of either not having bills to pay or having excess cash well beyond what you would keep on hand for expenses and emergencies alike.

Choose as you wish; this is funded, so it's now into Stretch Goals. If this is not to your liking, then hunt for the unofficial translation in PDF. It's still out there, for now.

The Business: The Play Is The Pivot From Product To Platform

The shills did their thing.

Timed to coincide with the launch of Forever this past Wednesday, as any half-competent corporate alliance would do.

Will this work? You better believe it, so long as you're concerned with corporate priorities such as revenue and user retention metrics. Will this get crossover action? Some, as it did when this was done 20ish years ago. What I want to mention is that I am already seeing issues that should have been avoided because it happened last time.

The question needs to be answered: "What do I do with this?"

The answer is going to be "Throw it in the pot." We'll see the same with Star Wars. Current Edition is not a distinct environment. It is a platform. Azeroth is just another option for Places To Go and another source for Things To Be and Stuff To Get. No different from the Realms, Greyhawk, Krynn, Athas, and anything else aligned with that edition.

The entire point of pivoting from Product to Platform is to achieve the same aim that Dancey stated openly with the d20 System, but with the technical infrastructure enforcing the aims in a manner that social pressure alone cannot achieve. D&D as a Platform does not need to answer why you would adventure on Azeroth anymore that it does on Coruscant because it is not there to ask that question. It is there to make it acceptable in the minds of Normies to do any such thing at all.

Recall that "D&D" is, in the minds of Normies, a generic term for the hobby. It is in the same place as "Xerox" and "Kleenex", and like those latter two brands Wizards of the Coast simultaneously wants to wield the power of that degree of identification while maintaining the legal priveledge of a distinct trademark. Pursuing a Platform pivot, what I have also called "The Fortnite Strategy", does exactly that.

The technical side, being that this is incorporated into Beyond, means that it is enforcable on WOTC's part. Moreso as the Super Intelligence elements go from pipedream to practical, allowing for bot Referees and Players to fill out tables, and the mobile app development severs the need to work off a PC or laptop; play anywhere, at any time, for as long as you like without needing to Schedule Your Fun or play Mother May I with some Dexter.

By going over to a platform business model, erected on a technical infrastructure permitting (even encouraging) solo play, C-Suite intends to replicate Epic's successes. There is good reason to be confident of success if they can get the bot Referee working, and nothing the new leadership in C-Suite indicates that this is not on the table- not when the bot-loving Hasbro CEO is backing the new WOTC CEO.

These shills are not merely pushing a new Current Edition product. They are pushing a business model pivot, wittingly or not. Expect more of this over the next few years, and expect all official communications to begin pushing the shameless remixing of things from every single Current Edition publication (at least WOTC or those it officially allies with, like this WOW product). The business logic for segregation of content within a platform has long been shown to be a loser, from a commercial perspective and especially a corporate one, so that will be the case here. Mark my words; they will start saying so slyly sooner than later, and you can start watching for it after the Star Wars product arrives.

The Business: Super Intelligence Continues To Improve So Use It Or Get Ditched

This is still janky, but it keeps getting better. When Chris started his videos were short; now look at that length- as long as network TV (without commercials) or longer while maintaining coherence over time. Still imperfect, but this is edging out of Proof of Concept and towards Viable Replacement.

Right now, what is viable to replace are dialog-heavy narratives with a handful of characters. That's classical Greek drama and a hell of a lot of Shakespeare (and his fellows on the Continent), in addition to drama elsewhere.

What it is not yet good at is action movie stuff, not really.

There's more like it out there.

You are this close to doing your own BattleTech videos (or whatever you're into) now using this tech- and others are already trying with other IPs, including their own. Learn the tools, learn the workflows, and you too can do amazing things.

The Culture: I Did Not Stutter

You think I joke about nuking the commercial side. Nope.

I have no confidence in even the longest-running Tabletop “designers” (in quotes due to self-confessed incompetence) and publishers anymore. They are one big Cargo Cult; they can’t even parse their own market research (if they do that competently, and they confess that they don’t), can’t figure out Revealed Preferences, and many even after being TOLD TO THEIR FACES can not comprehend Network Effects. The commercial side of the hobby is unfit for purpose, and increasingly is surplus to requirements. I no longer wish to just let it die. I want to ensure it is destroyed. Such rampant retardry disgusts me, and that’s before all of the Theater Kid faggotry and estrogenic Longhousing.

- Bradford C. Walker

Read on Substack

Blame Mearls.

He severed the last thread I had holding me back from wanting to see this actively done instead of passively accepting it as inevitable.

This Cargo Cult needs to be PURGED.

The Culture: The Normie Problem (Part Three)

Do you really want this hobby to be a mass-market consumerist passtime, which is what Normies actually want?

They already have plenty of options for barely-structured social hangout passtimes with a common topic of conversation.

(You can replace this with ANY TEAM OR INDIVIDUAL SPORT OR GAME WHATSOEVER so long as you can watch it on TV.)

I do not want people taking up space that are just there to hang out. Those are spectators, and spectators are boat anchors that drag everything down; they are in the stands for a reason, and that reason is because they neither possess the desire nor the capacity to engage in this hobby as it is.

I want only those that can do that and will.

"But that's gatekeeping!"

Yes, it is. Gatekeeping is good.

"But no one can keep their business going on that."

from Imgflip Meme Generator

Fuck the commercial side. Yes, including Wizards of the Coast.

The hobby is better off being underground, being elite and elitist, and being behind the iron gates of the Clubhouse. This hobby is not for everyone, and it's not for anyone either. It is for a very specific demographic profile, and once this is made as obvious as a brick to the face or a jet full-sending into the ground out of nowhere, then we'll see all the hangers-on, scensters, and other boat anchors cut themselves loose as there won't be any more clout, status, or money to be farmed from it.

Good. This is not a mass-market passtime; it is an elitist, time-consuming hobby and passion and works best in the social structure built to accomodiate it: the Clubhouse. Normies can stick to the media that suits them properly, and leave this one for those who are able to appreciate it for what it is.

The Culture: The Normie Problem (Part Two)

Reminding you that all this is because Mearls spilled the tea.

As I left off, Wizards of the Coast (and TSR before them) suffer from a leadership problem. So does the commercial side on the whole, as it trickles down from the market leader.

Without the market leader telling the prospective customer how to use its product properly, that leaves the door open for malicious actors to fill that void.

This is the source of ALL the errors about what Tabletop Adventure Gaming is and how it works. This why we have people mistaking Critical Role for How To Play D&D Properly, and it is telling that even C-Suite remains blind to this need when their counterparts in other industries have neither qualms nor problems doing exactly this thing early, often, and repeatedly- as I have described.

The best time to have done this was 1975. The second-best is now.

Because the C-Suite cohort have failed to do their jobs, the Death Cultists in the lower ranks stepped up and began using that void to "instruct" in their stead. This is the opportunity that the Death Cult saw in the hobby. They did not manufacture the problem out of nothing; that is never how it works. Like any Chaos or Genestealer Cult, they used pre-existing issues to push through the Revolution.

That a clear observation on piss-poor Normies are at the hobby-

“Direct conflict” as opposed to “cross-purposes” conflict actually (usually) produces less drama because of its directness. If we’re playing chess, we both know going into it that someone will lose (or claw out a draw) and someone will win. We accepted that as part of the game. But games with slightly more subtle conflict don’t have that psychological acceptance built in to the decision to play the game. A kid might know that there’s only going to be one winner in Monopoly, but what he won’t have realized is that means that he’s going to be (potentially) screwed over by 3 other players at the same time. This is both a much more sportsmanship-taxing ask, and also not an explicit ask. That’s the core of the problem.

- Tenari

Read on Substack

-became an opportunity to turn it into Yet Another Propaganda Front for the Death Cult, mapping known habits and Cargo Cult practices to its Gay Race Bolshevism.

I will bold this for emphasis:

"Normal People are poor sports.

But Normal People want to have a relaxing evening with a mildly enjoyable diversion. So whenever they play a game with “fun” conflict it creates real drama and they either stop playing that game, or house-rule it to avoid conflict (which breaks the game)".

That's the crack in the damn that allows the Death Cult to attempt to use Known Issues to get their way. As always, the issue is never the issue- the issue is always the Revolution.

If you do not teach the Normies how to play the game properly, then they will default to their own piss-poor lazy-assed bullshit every single time. The Clubhouse reliably serves to kill this because there is leadership and enforcement mechanisms on station and in place to make this happen. No publisher is able to do this, try as TSR, WOTC, and Games Workshop might (and have, multiple times) because they do not commit as other industries do to erecting and maintaining a whole culture of proper practice where defection has teeth.

It is not enough to write it in the book; Normies don't read those as it is.

The minimum, therefore, is VIDEO. First a long-form one for the older prospects, then that one spliced up into smaller chunks for the younger ones and put into a playlist.

Following that up is LIVE VIDEO where people SHOW HOW IT'S DONE LIVE. You doubt this is needed? Again, I point to Critical Role and the Mercer Effect. Yes, one or more of you are going to need to get some media training so you can learn how to present to camera without boring people- that's what it takes to win, so DO IT.

No, this is not expensive. Tedious, yes; learning new skills and new tools is a bother. Expensive? No. A lot of this is learnable on YouTube, and the tools are either free or very cheap.

But, this pre-supposes that you want to attract and retain Normies. Tomorrow I will argue that you ought to reconsider this opinion.