The Business: Oh Hey, More News That Conventional Play Is Fucked

There is one other reason to embrace the need to fork away from the dumb and return to your hobby being an active pursuit and not this:

And, for those following this story, it is no surprise at all.

Let me dial it up for the hard-of-hearing out there.

THIS IS NOT THE SIGN OF A HEALTHY CONSUMER MARKET!

You think that Stupid British Toy Company is immune?

Like their counterparts out in Washington State and Floria, Dumb Toy Corp. will lie through their teeth as their business withers, collapses, and dies- including to their shareholders, and will increasingly engage in shady (if not illegal) practices to maintain control and further the Death Cult agenda.

So. Fucking. What.

The hobby is not the corporation. The hobby is not the Brand. The hobby is the audience that partakes and enjoys the hobby, and the hobby does not need the corporation or the Brand.

Rules can be copied and shared online for free. STL files means that anyone with a 3D Printer can make their own minatures, just as traditional printers means that anyone can print their own counters or 2D stand-ups (e.g. Car Wars, BattleTech) as well as their own maps. Terrain? Dude, hit up any hobby shop that deals in dioramas or model trains or any craft store and you're golden. (I cannot count how many '90s BT games were on barren rocky worlds because we just used rocks from outside and SOLO cups as terrain on a bare table.)

"But I like the lore."

Nevermind Axanar (and that is a convoluted mess of a story to itself), you have audience-originated works that are still used as go-tos for people: Astartes, SODAZ's 40K videos, Hired Steel (for BT), and the entirety of the "Tex Talks BattleTech" series- now followed closely by Sven van der Plank's videos (also for BT). Arch and Luetin09 are still better storytellers for SpaceMace and Fightstick than what Dumb Toy Corp. employ most of the time- and there's plenty of others that are about as good as they are, including for games other than those two (such as BTech). Buddy, the audience does this better.

And with sufficient social pressure, they can and do cave. Refer to the example of the UrbieLAM from yesterday- a shitpost memed into existence and bullied into acceptance.

The Hobbyist Rules The Hobby

Everything else is justified so long as it serves the hobbyist. Once it no longer does, it is unfit for purpose and must be destroyed. We are seeing that come to pass now.

You know what your options are by now: Quit for Vidya, Quit Entirely, Return to the Clubhouse. The hobbyists will be at the Clubhouse, sharing files and making terrain when they are not playing at the table.

And those Twitter Freaks, Tourists, and Death Cultists trying to turn the hobby into Art Therapy Hour? Gone. They never wanted what we had; they only wanted to take it from us, and they are about find out that you can't steal what exists between one's ears, so once they figure out that taking over the corporation doesn't take over the hobby then they're going to freak out- those that don't An Hero will flounce off to bother someone else.

But what I pose to you is this: Consider that the real mistake was going mass market and corporate in the first place. Over half of the problems we summarize with "Conventional Play" would not have happened if that did not happen. Hobby pursuits need to remain within the hobby scene.