"Why does Sorcerers By The Sea matter so much?"
So here's the LONG explanation for Why You Are Doomed To Fail Because You Are Too Stupid To Do What Blizzard Did To EverQuest.
Do you get it yet? The value of SOBS' control of the Brand, and thus of Current Edition, is that you don't have to try very hard or go far out of your way to play the fucking game. This is the core of SOBS' position, power, and prestige and yes this is indeed positively reinforcing feedback loop.
You folks that were around for Ryan Dancey circa 2000 were there when he explained exactly this for why (a) the Open Gaming License was a win-win situation and (b) how all of you that believed him profited handsomely because of it such that several successful Proofs Of Concept got out there, the most notable being Spycraft and the d20 Conan adaptation out of Mongoose. (Setting aside SOBS' own uses, such as Mouse Wars.) Yet, in a development that surprised no one, you all then disappointed everyone by not making good on the "copyleft" nature and constantly reused each other's stuff when making more stuff.
No, all of you suddenly developed Not Invented Here Syndrome and started reinventing the wheel left and right- save for Mongoose. You all decided that you had to make your own versions of This or That or The Other thing despite someone else having already published exactly that thing and, due to the rules of the OGL, put it out as Open Content.
And far too many of you welshed so hard on doing so that even the Gypsies were going "Come the fuck on, man! Stop being such a miserly faggot."
Then there's the other thing that turned out to be a hidden presumption: most of you would try to do your own D&Ds to compete with (then) Current Edition.
How did that turn out for you? Did you do what it takes to overthrow the big dog, like Blizzard did to make Globe of Gankcraft to MMOs what D&D is to Tabletop?
Fuck no, you didn't. You didn't even try- none of you. You couldn't even begin to comprehend the question, nevermind get your brainmeats to process what the task is or how to go about it. That is why, despite doing Yet Another Big Fucking Self-Own with Fourth Edition, SOBS kept its dominant position and only got stronger with (now) Current and (soon) Next Edition. All of you are unfit for purpose and surplus to requirements.
No, Pathfinder does not matter.
No, Palladium Fantasy does not matter.
No, Tales of the Valiant does no matter.
No, all of your alt-D&Ds and forked-off-D&Ds do not matter.
Every last one of them can disappear tomorrow and no one will notice or care. NO. ONE. Shitty direct-to-video Steven Seagal movies matter more than your slop publications. Only the handful who are sufficiently self-aware to see what a bottom-feeder they are, and adjust their circumstances accordingly--Pundit, looking at you--can do this without being a total embarassment.
Only Dungeons & Dragons matters. The proof is that D&D has TWO mainstream feature films, while I can count the number of you that have so much as a videogame adaptation on one hand. The proof is that D&D is in fucking Walmart and Target and similar stores across the civilized world and you people can barely get out of your original regions. The proof is that, to this day, "D&D" is SYNONYMOUS with the hobby in the same way that "Xerox" is synonymous with photocopying and Kleenex is synonmous with tissue paper. No one responds to "I want to play (Your fucking irrelevant slop game)", and a handful will respond to "You wanna play Call of Cthulhu/Traveller/BattleTech?" but folks far and wide perk up immediately to "You wanna play D&D?"
This is why I call you people Cargo Cultists; you mindlessly (despite being told, conclusively, that you're wrong with copious receipts) ape the form of the Real Hobby without any comprehension as to what you are doing, why you are doing it, how it works, or why it works that way. No, you are performing a ritual that you don't comprehend in the hopes of attaining the same result as if you were monkeys copying what they see on TV.
You fail because you offer nothing that SOBS and Current Edition don't do just as well, if not better- and that's just within the Tabletop medium. Add in videogames, and you can't even compete with a part-timer releasing free adventure games on Steam for shits and giggles. This means that there is no value for the propsective user to join your game's user network, so they bounce off your pitch and go back to playing The Only Game That Matters.
As Dancey said 25 years ago, everyone knows that Only D&D Competes With D&D. The OGL and the past 25 years proved that conclusively. This is why, aside from some sentimental favorites (as I am not a robot), I know better than to try to do what you're doing and expect commercial success.
What SOBS has done, especially after putting all of the past editions up for sale on DriveThruRPG, is to copy what Blizzard did for Globe of Gankcraft: create a bubble within which all but a handful of hobbyists need never leave. Since most of you are paste-eating morons (or you would not be Slop Merchants), I'll let Preach explain.
Get tired of Current Edition? Go play a past edition to cleanse your palette. Tire of Base Setting? Swap over to Kara-Tur, Eberron, or Ravenloft until you're ready to return. SOBS has the ability to keep the vast majority of hobbyists within their bubble indefinitely, and the Big Move will only make this more explicit and obvious. None of you Slop Merchants even realize that this is a thing. This is how and why you're going to get crushed from above when the Big Move resolves and you're left with a bag full of dogshit and no revenue (or attention) coming in anymore.
And it is all due to your utter failure to comprehend what Network Effects are or how they work. No, you can't catch up; that window closed years ago. No, you can't step into the gap; you don't have what you need, materially and otherwise, to do so. No, you won't survive the cataclysm that's now hitting your oh-so-precious business or social scene. (Well, Pundit might; he's best positioned to weather it.)
This is why I say your options are Walled Garden (i.e. following SOBS' lead), Clubhouse (abandoning commercial operations entirely in favor of Gonnerman-style hobbyist work), or Quit. Given how most of you act and behave, you'll be forced to quit. You were told years ago to fix your shit, you didn't listen, and now that the deluge has arrived you will not be allowed on the Ark. Get drowned by the Sorcerers of the Sea. I will not miss you.
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