The Business: Ryan Dancey Told You This Was Coming Nearly 30 Years Ago

Network Effects, motherfucker. You WILL grok this.

What did Dancey say?

TLDR: "Most people only ever played D&D. It's D&D or Nothing."

Then he explained why by introducing, for most of us back then for the first time, what a Network Effect is and how it works.

That's how the Open Gaming License, the d20 System, and the best time for Cargo Cultists to be around and making money came to pass before he got replaced at Wizards of the Coast and Yet Another Retarded MBA Faggot ruined the good thing.

Ryan, as he explained at the time, was being magnanimous. He wanted everyone to enjoy the prosperity that The Only Game That Ever Mattered brought, so he made it piss-easy to play nice; save for a few outliers, most Cargo Cultists did.

What Ryan downplayed, but did not omit, is that most of Tabletop, well past the 80/20 threshold, is UTTERLY IRRELEVANT.

Cargo Cultists did not believe him them. As most of them are Oldfags, they still don't; they think that somehow not being bankrupt and out of business means they are relevant.

Lex Luthor Wrong GIFfrom Lex Luthor GIFs

Relevant means "Can be found in Walmart or Target, and is readily played by everyone in a manner that doesn't invite mockery by mainstream media."

No one on Stranger Things played Theater Kid Fag Non-Game or Temu Oldfag Houserule Non-D&D. They played The Only Game That Mattered.

That understated fact, backed up by data at the time, was never contradicted after the fact. The one thing that has not been talked about, but plays a huge factor into the strength of a Network Effect, is control over friction.

The holder of an Effect controls competition within the network by controlling the friction generated by non-compliance.

Friction, in this context, is measured by inconvience. Tabletop is notoriously inconvient; if you're a commercial operation, solving that issue is your top priority, and nothing is more inconvient than getting people to play at all followed by deciding on what to play.

WOTC's new pivot solves BOTH. Going mobile-first solves the Schedule Your Fun part; you can play whenever, however. Going All You Can Eat Brand Crossover Buffet solves the what you play part by standardizing the form of play while increasing the options within it.

Going against this increases the friction, exponentially so now that WOTC will be mobile-first, which is detrimental to convincing people to go with your Temu Tabletop offering over Official D&D in commercial terms. Only non-commercial alternatives, which don't compete on the same level, are viable now- and no, that doesn't mean serial busking on Kickstarter. That means going with a different organizational model entirely, such as the Clubhouse, which solves the same problems differently.

Don't take my word for it.

This is, of course, terribly frustrating to those of us who release products intended to be played. But the reality of the network effects and switching costs of RPGs is inescapable. If people didn't buy for art and lore, there'd be almost no indie industry at all.

— Archon | Autarch Games (@archon) August 4, 2026

These people would be better off making this shit as glorified Coffee Table Art Books like Dinotopia, with playable notes as a separate PDF for download.

This is why I say that Tabletop is no longer commercially viable. There is only non-commercial alternatives and delusional Cargo Cultists.