The Business: The Great Retrenchment Is Here

This is something that a lot of people in all forms of entertainment media are going to slam their heads against in frustration.

Yes, right now almost all of the old gatekeepers are gone. That opened up a lot of opportunity for those willing and able to exploit that opening. However, chaos and opportunity are the same thing; the liminal time between the fall of the old and the rise of the new is a time that Normies have never liked and do not appreciate even if it is ultimately very beneficial for them.

You want to know why Your Indie Darling--in Tabletop, in Vidya, in Film/TV, in Books/Comics, etc.--aren't getting any traction?

Like it or not, it's not even a failure to breech the Normiesphere; you are at a time where the chaos in the culture has totally turned off the Nomries and those adjacent to them (Tourists and Casuals). If you do not have a well-oiled marketing machine shoving your stuff into Normie faces, or you do not have that dedicated cult of One Thousand True Fans (who give you money because they love your stuff), you're fucked.

Why?

Normies run off Brands.

Brands create Order in the minds of Normies. It's why there are, no joke, "(Brand) households" ("We only drink/use/buy (X) here") and that extends to Tabletop.

As shit as Mouse Wars is, Normies stick to it at this time because it is a Brand that they can rely upon. Big Anime gets audiences while Quirky New IP Anime flounders for the same reason. AAA had to shit the bed hard for years on end to make it at all probable that those Brands could get damaged in reality, and only in single digit percentages; one Good Enough release and All Is IMMEDIATELY Forgiven in the Normies' minds.

This applies to Tabletop. Tabletop is in totaly chaos right now. That's why, despite Wizards shitting the bed, Current Edition remains The Only Game That Matter and only Past Editions and Also-Rans have any place in the conversation. Don't think so? Why do you think all of the whining shithole publishers pay their bills by supporting Current Edition, while only a couple others can even claim otherwise (e.g. Palladium, Catalyst).

In business segments that run off Network Effects, they also run off Brands; not the same thing, but one feeds into the other, which is why neither of them are Lindy Effects either.

The Normie always retreats to the safety of the Brand in times of chaos; they know it gets used, they know it'll be on the shelves, they know it gets played, and they know that everyone else is talking/playing/using that Brand. Going beyond the Brand IS A LUXURY that Normies cannot afford. Neither can Tourists or Casuals. That's 80% of the folks that spend money in Entertainment Media across the board, so when you see retards like the Roll For Combat crew simping for Le Indie Darlings you can tell them to go fuck themselves as you know they're bullshitting and gaslighting- first, and foremost, themselves.

Conventional Play has no future. They're dead orgs walking but haven't stopped shambling yet. As the combination of tarrifs, falling discretionary income, larger economic reconfiguration, and rising costs for inputs take their toll we'll see more and more whining about it all (because Pop Cultists DO NOT LEARN) while Wizards tanks these hits like a boss.

Stick to games that get played. Stick to D&D.

(PS: If you need this in Academic jargon to put before Academic or Corporate shotcallers, that translation is here.)