The Business: Lindyism Isn't Just Tabletop's Thing

While Lindy is a thing in gaming, as I said yesterday it can be overcome. Metokur summarizes the mood.

The anger on social media and /v/ about switch 2 game prices lol, Nintendo really stepped into the shit with this one. pic.twitter.com/znKg194HZF

— MoshiMoshiMoan (@MoshiMoshiMoan) April 2, 2025

The Switch 2 announcement, like we saw with Wizards of the Coast recently (and previously with other Big Networks), is a misstep. The target audience is not happy.

That doesn't mean that it won't shake out in Nintendo's favor over time; that remains to be seen, and--again--all it takes is one Good Enough release and all will be forgiven. The PS5 is a dumpster fire, but that Demon Souls remake moved massive units. Memory is a fleeting thing in gaming, as it is generally, and Nintendo being around for so long means it's benefiting from Lindy and Network Effects big time- you better believe that Management knows that one Good Enough release will get them out of this.

But what if they don't? That's the situation Sony is in; PS5 is considered such a joke that XBox took over. Games Workshop, at one point, stumbled hard enough to prompt a wave of transition to BattleTech that has (mostly) stuck until recently and given how hobbyist-driven BT is even Catalyst's screwups are unlikely to tank the game- not when far larger owners couldn't.

This also means that trying to compete with the Big Dogs is even more of an uphill battle. Like it or not, sales on DriveThru and presence on YouTube (or other socials) doesn't matter nearly as much as their defenders want to believe- and neither does the con scene. What matters is what's played at the local stores, school clubs, and in homes- and, far more than anything else, the capacity to go from "Referee looking for players!" to "Table full!" as fast as possible wherever you go. D&D has that; Your Indie Darling does not.

"But-"

Even online, yes, but that's not all. You also have to justify the hassle of playing Tabletop vs. Vidya counterparts; for the Real Hobby, this is easy but Conventional Play falls down here for previously-mentioned reasons (first, and foremost, being no scheduling hassles). Players are more often closer to being Normies than not in Tabletop, so you're going to have to approach this as if you were pitching to Normies, which means making the game more convenient and appealing than Vidya.

The Real Hobby nails that; Conventional Play has to do stupid gimmicks or Geek Social Fallacies to get over that hump.