The Business: The Network Effect In Vidya Cannot Be Denied

Network Effects are wrecking Vidya as a whole. Belular explains this at the end of this story.

Where he gets into this is when he reports that the same 10 titles have dominated Vidya for the last 10 years.

This is not just a result of Death Cultists infesting the scene. This is not just a result of Mammon Mobsters in Management making all the sacrifices to keep Number Going Up. This is a bottom-up organic phenomeon; the character of Vidya's users has turned into that curious quasi-social form Josh Strife Hayes reported on for MMO players- folks who do play solo, but only when surrounded by others, enabling adhoc grouping when required. This has even gone into single-player niches, bizarre as it sounds.

This is the Network Effect in action, and it's why not only are we seeing MMOs collapse down to World of Warcraft and a small-but-rotating number of Also-Rans taking shots at the title (and failing), but we are now seeing it become evident in other niches of Vidya as well; there is a clear dominant IP, and then a small number of Also-Rans taking shots at the title-holder. RTS is still dominated by Starcraft 2 despite it not being actively supported for years; Diablo still dominates ARPGs despite years between games and terrible support (as shown whenever a new thing comes out; instant success and total dominance), every Final Fantasy insta-wins the CRPG field when it gets out there, and so on.

Don't believe me? "Metroidvania" and "Soulslike" are all you need to see to know that I am correct, and they are not the only crystal-clear signs that this has happened.

This is making harder and harder for competitors to be viable--nevermind winning--because the space for competition has shrunk over time to just a handful of Brands. As with Tabletop, there is no competition from without the established Network anymore- ONLY FROM WITHIN.

The tell is in the success of private servers for WOW and (barely, maybe) legally-distinct copies of the winning IPs now overtaking the "legitimate" competition for the dominant game in a given niche. This is the Vidya equivalent of making D&D clones in Tabletop and how that tapped into the winning Network Effect to provide viable competition for the Brand that matters (and thus the game that matters) such that the dominant company has to stay on its toes somehow. (Wizards of the Coast chooses to Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish via its legal regime; others will copy this in time because it is very successful.)

It is necessary, but not sufficient, to make a competent and satisfying videogame. It is necessary, but not sufficient, to competently market that game. It is now clear that it is now also necessary to do so within your niche's dominant Network Effect to succeed, with the immediate-to-midterm objective being to become one of the contenders for the title. This is why, despite many knockoffs trying, it cannot compete with Monster Hunter; you need to be as close to MH as the OSR clones are to Real D&D to make this work and those competitors were all just outside that narrow band.

If you think this is not the case for non-gaming entertainment, you do not talk to media professionals. It is chronic; there's a reason for why the only not-Star Trek to succeed outside of print was The Orville and that's because the latter worked within the Trek Network Effect to succeed, and that's not the only example by a long shot. (Oh, and this is already happening to the LLMs people errantly call "AI".)