State of the Rascal: August 2026
An earnest appeal and radical honesty.
Rascal News needs help. There’s no other way to describe the economic reality facing the team as we head into the back half of 2026. In our last update, Thomas mentioned tightening our metaphorical belts and preparing for a flat growth year. Well, after our worst February to-date, financially speaking, matters have continued to deteriorate. Instead of tolerating a plateau, the team is now feeling the ground slip beneath our feet.
The contributing factors are much bigger than a handful of internet journalists can manage. Memberships are hemorrhaging at a constant (if gradual) rate, and the majority of cancellations say they simply don’t have money for subscriptions. Everyone feels squeezed by economic conditions outside their control, and the forecast for the rest of the year doesn’t look rosy. Recession, immiseration, US military imperialism, and climate chaos has all eroded people’s ability to support themselves, much less independent journalism. Responding to this, we moved to a metered paywall to make our work more accessible and experimented with a subscription bundle featuring other worker-owned websites. Neither staunched the slow membership bleed.
Rascal News has about 10 or 12 months of runway at our current pace. Shakeups to the team — Rowan stepping back, Caelyn leaving, Chase focusing on the administrative side of the website — and reckoning with the practical cost of in-depth investigative work has left us stretched thin and not performing our best. What could have been a period of growth, learning, and evolution is now an existential crisis. Inability to pay full time salaries means losing the vital work that attracts new subscribers, which further reduces our pay. It’s a vicious cycle we need to reverse, and fast.
Let’s look at the situation through some numbers. 2,293 people currently pay for Rascal News, and roughly 7,000 more are free members. Compared to the 2,118 paid and 4,825 free readers at the same time last year, we’ve technically grown. But 2025’s data was part of a gradual, healthy growth towards eventual sustainability for Rascal News, a point we’ve still yet to reach. Our average full-time pay each month comes out to roughly $2,600 — above legal minimum wage but distressingly short of a secure living wage that everyone deserves. Other independent sites like Rascal are facing the same daunting challenges and ticking clocks. We could reverse our fortunes given enough time, but the world isn’t willing to offer it. Without intervention, this form of independent journalism could wither before it has established roots.
Which would be a shame because I remain so damn proud of what Rascal has accomplished in spite of our struggles. The team is widening its ambit on what play and play culture means for an increasingly commercialized hobby imaginary, whether that’s immersive Cthulhu larps involving helicopters, London’s first ever jubensha convention, the complicated history of the Buffy RPG, or glimpses inside Iraq’s budding tabletop scene. We’ve interviewed veteran designers such as Monte Cook and influential publishers like Evil Hat, spoken to ambitious and alternative studios such as Null Signal Games about their unique paths, and traced the end of projects more than a decade in the making — Stonetop, most recently. We’ve covered Wizards of the Coast’s first successful union, layoffs at Paizo, and a bizarre genAI website generating profiles of tabletop professionals. Our second podcast, the Rascal Reading Club, also wrapped a phenomenal first season. And that’s all within the last six months!
The bottom line is we need help in order to survive. If even a quarter of our free readers became direct stakeholders in the Rascal mission, we’d be set. Back of the napkin math tells us we need 5,000 total subscribers at our Friendly NPC tier in order to accomplish everything needed to thrive: pay ourselves fairly, attend conventions, hire one more full-time writer, and reopen commissions to aspiring voices.
If you’re not already a member, please consider subscribing. Here’s a discount code for 33% off our annual membership! Those already supporting Rascal have the team’s eternal gratitude. I’ll instead point you towards our Tip Jar — a one-time donation of any amount would be amazing.
We’ll hopefully see y’all at the end of the year with a more optimistic outlook. Stay tuned this month for a few cool announcements regarding projects we’ve been working on in the background. And, as always, write free or die.
-Chase, and the rest of the Rascal crew.
