The Business: That Indie Darling Isn't Lindy In A Hobby That Demands Lindy

Roll For Combat trying to meme an Apprentice into being. It will not work.

You can't take this claim that this indie game will become "the next D&D" seriously, not when this same podcast just a few weeks ago confess that every publisher in the industry (having seen the receipts) agrees that The Only Game That Matters has no competition at all within the hobby.

"But the money!"

Means nothing compared to the size of the Network Effect. "Indie darlings" abound in the Culture Industry; they don't move the needle. You are not a contender unless and until you can do what you can with The Only Game That Matters: come into anywhere, say "I'm running (X)", and get a full table instantly. In short, you need to have pierced into the Normiesphere and this indie darling ain't there and will never get there. The Only Game That Matters did decades ago and successfully made itself the gatehouse filtering out Normie.

And yes, the panelists admit this.

There is no way that this will become one of the Also-Rans. It will be a darling for a while, and then something else will replace it. It is not Palladium Books. It is not Call of Cthluhu. It is not HERO. It is not GURPS. It is not ACKS, Shadowrun, Traveller, BattleTech, or Cyberpunk.

In short, Shadowdark is not Lindy. The games that it apes are still around, do it all better, and the best of them are actual full and complete games that not only looks like it offers the core fantasy of the hobby but delievers upon it.

Enjoy if you like, but years from now it will gather dust on the shelf next to Sorcerer and Burning Wheel because people Just Want D&D.