Not a day goes by on YouTube that I see another D&D content creator quitting or switching games. What Wizards didn't do with the OGL, YouTube's de-prioritization of D&D video recommendations did the rest.
The powers that be decided that "there is no money in D&D" after the cultural follow-ups to the billion-dollar hit of Baldur's Gate 3 (the D&D Movie, VTT, spin-offs, the streaming shows, and the new edition) proved that the "franchise did not have legs." Every big corporation pulled out of the hype machine. Wizards sold their media division, incurring billions of dollars in losses. YouTube's decision to tell D&D content creators to "do something else" put the nail in the coffin.
Wall Street decided it doesn't sell on Main Street.
If YouTube is not on board with your hobby, just give up. The impossible dream of making a living off being a D&D YouTuber has become even more impossible since the platform is working against you.
This is also a call to arms to move to other video-sharing platforms and bring your audience there, even though the profits and attention are not in those places. This is the price of putting all your eggs in one basket, and it being the only basket in town. It's a terrible mixed metaphor, but you get the point.
The age of the golden goose franchise is dead. What did not work for Marvel or Star Wars will not work for D&D. Adding a brand name to subpar products does not make them sell.
The mass market was not interested in D&D. The broader market did not adopt identity marketing. Only a small fraction of players "adopted" their character identity as their real-world identity, mainly because it was super cringeworthy and a fading social media fad. Frankly, the furry community is a stronger fandom in terms of openly "wearing their identity" on social media, and that concept has not been widely adopted by the general public.
Identifying yourself as your D&D character on social media is super cringeworthy. This did not go over well with Middle America and the younger audience. Even the art direction in the new books, where the characters appear as "ordinary people" in "fantastic situations," is trite and undermines the fantasy vibe. If this is the direction they want to go, eliminate all non-human character options.
Fantasy is fantasy, where we imagine ourselves to be the muscular Conan or classic Red Sonja character. Even Critical Role, being professional actors, gets that.
This "self-insert" branding is terrible, and it makes everyone disinterested in your franchise. This happened in comic books, movies, and every other place it has been tried. You are killing interest by normalizing heroes and making them easy to cosplay in street clothing, frumpy looks, and modern hairdos. Nobody wants to be average, since the point of fantasy and escapism is to be extraordinary.
This generation misses the point of fantasy.
Nobody that I see these companies hire "gets it."
They don't know what fantasy means.
It's not about cosplay or seeing yourself in anything. It's not about branding or seeing yourself as part of a Wall Street IP. This is not like wearing sports team apparel.
It is about being someone else, outside of yourself.
The "brand" is a brand.
The game lost its way.
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