The Business: Network Effects Proven By Science

Josh focuses on MMOs. Everything he did here applies to Tabletop games.

Also, this is a far more honest and ethical approach than most academic works- including those done in government think tanks.

While Josh tries to say "Play what makes you happy" at the end, he knew as he said it that it wasn't true- and it was on his face. (Go ahead, go look at it; he knows he's bullshitting.)

There is a Master (WOW) and an Apprentice (FF14), and they are contending to see Who Is The Master. Everyone else is a an also-ran that does not matter. Yes, even EVE Online.

People value playing with (or around) others over "fun". That's why WOW and FF14 are Master and Apprentice, and each is attempting to convince the same audience that they do what the audience wants better.

You won't see another MMORPG become a contender without figuring out what both of these games gets right, what they get wrong, fix the latter and sell it to that same audience. Furthermore, the only reason this state of affairs exists is because the company owning the Master screwed the pooche so hard with Shadowlands that is caused a notorious mass exodus of users to FF14 and Square Enix more or less successfully capitalized on that fuckup. That's why WOW did its abrupt turn with Dragonflight and going forward have tried to keep that going- to notable success. (That, and it successfully set up "The WOW Bubble", which also helped Blizzard a lot.)

As WOW is to MMOs, D&D is to Tabletop.

The problem? There is no Apprentice.

What Apprentice does Current Edition face? Pathfinder fucked itself. ACKS doesn't have that critical mass yet. No other retroclone ever came close, and no not-D&D did either. (Yes, Uncle Kevin, that includes yours.) Current Edition's only competition is itself, in the form of Past Editions that had critical mass popularity: 1st, 2nd, 3rd. If not for TSR and WOTC missteps, no one would know or care about anything else ever.

The proof that I am correct is in the attitude of Wizards of the Coast towards Tabletop: utter disdain and disrespect. WOTC doesn't see Tabletop as competition, but instead as unruly supports that need to be tard-wrangled from time to time to keep in line. WOTC sees Vidya as competition, which is why Next Edition is Vidya and not Tabletop at all.

The only other alternative is to go outside the commercial publishing business paradigm entirely. That's what the Clubhouse is about: a return to non-commercial hobbyism.