Tabletop journalism deserves better than this, and so do you
The industry fails one of its death saving rolls.
May was a terrible month for games journalism, the latest in a succession of nadirs that included layoffs, editors in chief quitting in protest, Google’s precipitous meddling with how it ranks websites and the ongoing consolidation of outlets. If you’re a journalist or critic, none of this is new. If you’re a reader, you might be concerned in the way one is concerned about the weather—a phenomenon that will happen and be tacitly endured. Or you might be completely oblivious, reading news about D&D’s new books or Dimension 20’s Madison Square Garden show and thinking that the industry hums along.
That last group of people aren’t completely wrong, as the tabletop industry enjoys a growth spurt that started during the COVID-19 pandemic and—minus economic contractions in global shipping and raw material production—continues unabated. But the outlets covering that industry are wilting under corporate mismanagement and the collapse of ad-driven financial models, struggling to drink enough sunlight to survive one month to the next. We weren’t exactly thriving before, and our future is tied to the same fate as much of the rest of digital media; a grim forecast.
