The Business: When They Admit They're Not Really In Business

Roll For Combat talked business, and I have opinions about this.

First: NO ONE other than Wizards of the Coast actually runs a business.

YOU ARE ALL BEGGARS AND BUSKERS!

You do not have a real business if your first step is to go cap-in-hand and beg for money from people who, by now, are conditioned to think of it as a preorder instead of a speculative investment with an expected return. This is what crowdfunding is, and everyone knows it- but does not want to admit it. You go to the fucking bank first.

WOTC goes to a bank, negotiates a line of credit, keeps investors and creditors in the loop on a quarterly basis, makes proper business plans and executes them. Shit on the corpos when they screw you, but this is not one of those times; this is proper practice in action, and you know it's bad when even long-time holdouts like Palladium have to beg to stay afloat (though given Palladium's history, proper practice is probable at best; you don't co-mingle personal and business assets, Kevin).

This is why I keep saying that Conventional Play has no future; the premises that it presumes to be factual ceased to exist over a decade ago, more and more people are falling away or ceasing to be commercial operations (going to self-funding hobby mode instead) as their ability to keep the plates spinning collapses around them, in that Outside In model I previously described.

There are good signs. The era of Muh House Rules, Muh Calvin Ball, Validate Muh Frustrated Novelist Faggotry is over and now that toxic meme is running on fumes. The reason? Those damned Virtual Tabletops and their inability to let narcisistic retards like Derik to just change the rules Because Ego Defense; those people are forced to play the game exactly as it is written, and furthermore the Revealed Preference (now well into Preference Cascade category) shows that not only is this now the norm it is reaching a runaway cascade because it is very Normie-friendly: sub to D&D Beyond, let that handle All The Things, play without worry about Ego Tripping Faggot ruining shit, then log off and hit up Denny's. Furthermore, VTT-focused hobby engagement also makes it trivial to enforce Official Only social norms- as our panelists note.

Conventional Play, like OldPub, is still rooted in moving Dead Tree products even after the digital-primary transition of the commercial business environment for Tabletop. They are being dragged kicking and screaming to their own destruction, as the Official Only social norms also means that Third Party materials are increasingly depreicated because they are more bothersome to deal with than not; Normies like to move their mans around, and being Official Only makes that painless to do.

The Conventional Play cultists are getting it from above and from below, but sooner or later they will be forced to admit that The Bros Are Correct and they do Fantastic Adventure Games wrong- and have for all of their Muh 40 Years; social pressure from below, and technical compulsion from above, are going to kill their incoherent conception of How Things Work.

Good.