The Culture: SOBS Abandoning Tabletop Kills Conventional Play On Tabletop

I am going to keep hammering this until those Grogs in the Soup Aisile get it.

Yes, it's the Professor playing the algorythmn again with his own take on the matter.

The Cargo Cult of Conventional Play is in denial. "None of this affects me."

LIKE HELL IT DOESN'T!

Sorcerers By The Sea is about to redefine what "RPG" means by redefining what "D&D" means. Why? Because, in real terms, they own that definition because for Normies "D&D" is SYNONYMOUS with "RPG". Therefore a RPG is whatever Current Edition D&D is, and the only meaningful differentiation comes from videogame adaptations (such that you now have to say "Tabletop RPG" because RPGs are presumed to be videogames by default).

This, you Soup Aisile retards, is NETWORK EFFECTS IN ACTION! You should have paid attention the first time over 20 years ago when Ryan Dancey used them to successfully shackle all of you to SOBS's table vis the Open Gaming License.

Yes, all you smug-faced faggots going "But I never used that!", that includes you too. Every single one of you relies on SOBS to get propsetive customers and players across that threshold and into the headspace where Normies accept that Tabletop Adventure Games (because that's what they really are) are a thing and that Current Edition isn't the only one.

All of you rely on SOBS to do all of your market research, customer profiling, prospect outreach, public relations, marketing, and advertising for you. Yes, even you selling Not Fantasy products. Yes, even you PDF merchants out there. None of you do this yourselves; you couldn't if you tried, and you don't know where to start- for many of you, I might as well be be an adult in a Peanuts cartoon.

Oh, and you Grognards that have playing for 40+ years and somehow completely failed to pass on all of your Totally Awesome Skill And Acumen At Gaming are just as fucked.

You are all fucked for the exact same reasons: Network Effects and Revealed Preferences.

First, a reminder of what those terms mean:

SOBS has the massive User Network. SOBS has enhanced this Network's power through catering to the Revealed Preference of its most important users.

This is what a lot of people in the business side of the hobby completely refuse to accept is real: SOBS MAKES THE GAME THAT THE USERS ACTUALLY WANTS!

What the users in the Network want, as revealed by what they do, is that they want the game and the penumbra around the game to do away with all of the Known Issues with Conventional Play.

• Schedule Your Fun: Good luck getting Normies playing your Not-Current Edition Conventional Play game when they can just play on their phones whenever, wherever, for however long they want.
• Mother May I: Good luck selling them on your product with no actual rules when they mastered a real game and can optimize their man's performance instead of trying to read your mind about what is or is not allowed at any given time Because Reasons.
• One True Party: They can play with anyone, from anywhere, and all of them play the exact same game. Show up, hit it, get paid, done and never worry about someone not making it the following week for whatever reason. Good luck selling folks used to that on your Conventional Play game with all that Get-Along Gang One True Party bullshit.
• No Takies-Backsies: They put in the work, they get paid, as predictable as time itself. No retro-active fuckery of any kind for any reason. All that's missing is PVP; add that and you have a game that wins in the marketplace.

You Cargo Cultists are going to find out the hard way that most people do not want what you offer to them. Most people want the future SOBS will sell them, just as they prefer videogame versions of Conventional Play over your offerings and have for decades. Remember: what they say does not matter- only what they do, and they do not do the things that indicate that they want what you offer. Not as a business proposition, not as a social entertainment. They never have.

You are going to find this out as your groups wither away due to attrition coupled by the increasing difficulty in replacing those losses. You are going to find your sales dropping off a cliff without SOBS there to funnel prospects before your storefront. You are going to find traffic in online forums increasingly turn bitter as these realizations hit you, and there I will be with the Jeremy Clarkson Smug Face: I TOLD YOU SO!

You will follow SOBS to Vidya, you will repent and admit the #BROSR is right as you return to the Clubhouse (and the only viable alternative to what SOBS is selling), or you are going to quit the hobby entirely. Choose now and get it over with, or have SOBS choose for you when they complete their big medium shift and yank the pillar propping up your Cargo Cult out with them when they move.

The stores, the companies, the scene- it's all going to collapse in record time once the source of the dynamism is gone.

I look forward to seeing how many of you will act like Boomers forced out of your bubble to find that the consequences of your own actions have finally forced you to pay attention and deal with them.