The Business: That Smug Prick Is Right, Again

Last week, Roll For Combat did this stream.

Stephen should take the hint and shut down, but he's a Cargo Cultist retard so LOLNO Ego Defense too strong.

The one segment worth noting is where--again--Derik gets it; he is correct that Wizards of the Coast could easily bring in most of the Boomer OSR crowd by taking Current Edition, stripping out all the latter edition faggotry, use the old school trade dress (which WOTC still owns), and thereby repeat the same stunt that Blizzard did with Classic WOW.

See that? Derik correctly perceives that WOTC's Network Effect is so dominant that they could spend a trivial amount of time and capital to recoup the OSR folks by releasing "Classic D&D" (moreso than just making Past Edition D&D legally available) and doing nothing more than taking the same chassis and putting into a frame that the Boomer OSR prefers.

Derik is correct that Shadowdark is Proof Of Concept.

All WOTC would need to do is make their own version, which would be wholly compatible with the digital infrastructure they own and run as well as possess the Mark of Officialdum that Normies/Tourists/Casuals rely on for acceptability signalling, and a critical mass of refusniks and holdouts would quit their own form of performative signalling to rejoin the WOTC-controlled Walled Garden; this would finish off the Boomer OSR crowd of PDF merchants by taking their audience away, and thus the commercial viability of anything outside The Only Game That Matters would be over.

Only the non-commercial hobbyist scene would remain.

That, quite frankly, is desirable.