The Business: The Problem Is Normie Psychology

Last week the Pundit cut a video where, among other things, he lamented that what gets him traffic is complaining about Sorcerers By The Sea.

He is not the only one. Every single RPG Guy on YouTube cuts a video, or includes in a video, exactly that complaint sooner or later. The best of them pull up Analytics to show the receipts to prove it.

It's no better in written media either. All of my best-performing posts deal with SOBS and Current/Next Edition, SpaceMace 39K, Mouse Wars, and other Pop Cult topics.

"Why can't I get people interested in getting away from (Things Everyone Complains About)?"

Because they are Normies. Casuals and Tourists are Normie variants. Normies don't go out of their way for ANYTHING.

The Normie would rather complain about something everyone uses than switch to an alternative because otherwise they are not part of the norm anymore, so as much out of Ego Defense as anything else, the Normie exhibits all of the psychological behaviors that are already confirmed with Network Effects.

Yes, this has been the case before the invention of Network-driven electronic communications.

Being that many of you are wargamers, military historians, or deal with supply chains in some capacity I can frame this in such terms: Normies don't go out of their way, even if they don't like what they have, because the Opportunity Costs of going Out Of Network are considered (rightly as often as not) unacceptably high versus the benefits of actually getting the satisfaction of having a good or service that actually does what they want.

To convince the Normie to switch from The Dominant Option, which is always the one with the best Network Effect, you have to do the following:

• Get in their face.
• Acknowledge their position.
• Convince them that the dominant party either cannot or will not fix it to their satisfaction.
• Then offer the alternative that does.

Notice that this is how Jon Del Arroz does this when he does his videos on the mainstream media industry in the West, and he does the alternative pitching once or twice in each video. When done twice, he'll do it once up front and again--as a reminder--at the end.

That's how the Pathfinder people are so able to bring Current Edition people over, and it--without even trying--is how the Bros got people looking into Braunstein- especially now that BROZER is a thing.

That is what you have to do to get Normies to look at your stuff: get in front of their faces, acknowledge, complain, then offer alternatives.

Just talk to the sales professionals, the marketers, the people who pay their bills doing this stuff on behalf of those very not-dominant parties in a market niche. They may different on details, but they will confirm that this is sound fundamentals and fundamentals wins the championship.

The dominant players in these niches know that this is a viable threat. Don't think so? Then why does the market leader in MMOs, Tabletop Adventure Games, etc. all react by going full Walled Garden and racheting Fear of Missing Out to the maximum? To make maximum use of the leverage that being the dominant Network in a niche grants to you.

Cater to Normie psychology most and you win. Simple as.