The Business: Ashes of Creation's Implosion Shows Network Effects In Action

Over the weekend, Ashes of Creation--the long-developing ArcheAge style MMORPG--collapsed. Lots of videos dropped about it, but only Josh's matters.

This will start unraveling over the rest of this week and information gets checked and either confirmed or denied.

From what's been revealed: Private Equity bought the studio, goat-fucked the former owner and his team, fired everyone in the US, and will relocate to India (because that's what "overseas" means) to do whatever with it (what "finish" means). In practice, this is dead; divest--economically, socially, emotionally--now.

The Steam release was a surprise for the team; they were not told until the last minute. That's the red flag for insiders.

AoC is Kill.

Network Effects spare no one. This is all due to two things: (a) having to compete with World of Warcraft, and (b) developing a game contrary to the Revealed Preferences of the MMORPG Player Network.

AoC did not compete with WOW of 2004. AoC has to compete with WOW as it is here and now. That's a very big wall to climb, and AoC could not climb it. No Kickstarter game, nor any more conventional alternative (e.g. New World, Throne & Liberty), can compete with World of Warcraft now. It has attained the same position in MMORPGs that Dungeons & Dragons has in Tabletop, Magic: The Gathering has in CCGs, and Warhammer in wargaming. These properties reached a point of absolute, utter and PERMANENT dominance in their niches where competition from without their Network Effect is no longer possible AT ALL.

Instead, each of these are now Eternal Kings of their niches such that they are the Kleenex or Xerox of that space. They do not compete with others within their niche; they compete with comparables in other niches (i.e. all of them compete with Fortnite, Roblox, etc.). They have a Containment Option, an Also-Ran to act as Controlled Opposition that keeps players who need a break within the network by shunting them into a Designated Containment Zone.

(Periodic wiping included, though that tends to run on Sith Succession Principles.)

The MMO scene really has room for THREE: WOW (which has its own sub-retention structures within its model), FF14 (faltering hard at the moment; they screwed up bad with Dawntrail thanks to Death Cult sabotage), and Guild Wars 2. Tabletop really only has one--D&D--and only the various clones (including Palladium) is as close as it gets to a Containment Option; all other niches are so small compared to Fantastic Adventure that even the D&D analogs are only known if they have videogame adaptations of note. The lawsuit over Magic will not kill Magic as the King of CCGs- too many users exist now and there is no alternative.

There is no way to compete and win from without. There is also no way to compete and win from a lesser position. You must wield a superior Network Effect to crush a Network Effect.

There is only D&D. There is only WOW. There is only Magic. There is only Warhammer. There is only Windows (sorry Linux and Mac guys; if you really were superior, you'd be the top Network Effect by now). That's where the money is, that's where the users--especially the Normies and their money--are, and that's where the Social Proof lies. You ain't neo-patroning your way out of that like you might with music, books, or comics (and even then you're outside the Normiesphere so you have no cultural impact, so you don't move the needle). EVERYTHING ELSE EITHER CEASES OPERATIONS OR GOES NON-COMMERCIAL.

This is what justifies the Clubhouse as being superiot to the Basement or the Retail Shop for hobbyist organizing; the former is atomized and easily broken by life events and the childish stupidities this hobby is so notorious for that there's a comic about it (Knights of the Dinner Table), and Diamond just killed the latter. Cons are a no-go for all but a few, by percentage. Clubhouses, on the other hands, are a local social institution by and for hobbyists that are non-commercial in nature- and Clubhouses are where the hobby will survive and thrive, not the corporate Walled Gardens, again due to superior Network Effects.