Apparently your fandom is about to fall and die. Except it's not.

Why we see doom-laiden videos on YouTube predicting the end of a fandom and why they are often either/both wrong and or unhealthy

This is a post about a very specific phenomena I’ve noticed. It is not about fans critiquing the thing they are into; that happens and always will and is fine. It is not about any specific IP, though I’ll talk about ones I interact with, as that is where I’ve spotted it. (I’ve seen it elsewhere though.) What it is about those doom-laiden videos on YouTube you may be recommended predicting the END OF DAYS. (But not.)

(Image - An expression of fandom via a Pacman Ghost and some classic Worms on a street sign in Teighmouth. Photo by me.)

I first noticed this a couple of years ago. Now I watch quite a lot of YouTube videos about fandoms I’m interested in - Warhammer, D&D, RPGs in general, cosmic horror but also I enjoy archeology, history, music and film related ones too. I’ve got an eclectic taste. So at that time I was enjoying D&D related videos - mostly on the history and development of the game (now, I’ve been playing 5e with my kids and their friends, it has now moved more into guides and hints for DMing). Back then there was some drama based around changes to the Open Gaming Licence (OGL) use. Unsurprisingly YouTube suggested a few videos about this to me, and I watched a few and followed the story. But then the algorithm seemed to stop suggesting the more general D&D content I’d watched and was mostly pushing videos focused on that particular controversy. (Again, this is probably no surprise to most that ins social media, anger creates more engagement than other emotional connections.) Time passed and the story of the OGL moved on. However the some video creators must have seen spikes in content and so the recommendation of videos about D&D and ‘controversy’ did not. New recommended videos appeared, each new one declaring the end of D&D was imminent, for reasons.

Then the all-powerful algorithm moved to recommending me videos about the end of other fandoms too; Warhammer being one as I watched a lot of such content. Warhammer was also imminently over/ended/finished - or so I was told.

The video titles use words like; ‘Scandal’, ‘Over’, ‘End’, ‘Broken’, ‘Destroyed’ & ‘Finished’ yet when you watch the video, at best it may point to issues or critiques of one product or release. The game and company are not over, ended nor finished. They are just doing their thing.

(Image - One of my fandom workspaces where I do miniatures painting. Photo by me.)

I’m not really going to link to examples here because it defeats the purpose of the post here to drive traffic to them. Plus I’m not after driving anger to anyone. But to give an example from a D&D YouTuber who also noticed this trend;

That video ‘Dungeons & Dragons Cancellation Scandal Goes NUCLEAR’ …was about how the new miniature line for Baldur’s Gate 3 characters had bad paint jobs…That’s the nuclear emergency lol… It’s hyperbole all the way down…”

(Indeed in researching this, I found an example of one 40K YouTuber making fun of the cited mostly D&D ‘catastrophe’ YouTuber, even with a jokey title ‘….scandal gets worse’ type title when the subject is - balance updates. Which sure, always creates debate, but that's hardly a scandal, it's pretty normal debate whenever anything is changed).

Back in the real world, recently Games Workshop announced their results; now sure a company could be making more money while the fandom is shrinking. But it would show somewhere in the data. A company can make changes and push away some of its fandom - it happens all the time, but the counter is often the attracting of new fans. There’s always a churn of fandom anyway as some age out/move on and newer fans join in. It's the cycle of life. But what GW’s results showed was huge growth across the board:

Fantasy miniatures maker Games Workshop (GAW) worked its magic once more by revealing full year sales and profit ahead of May’s trading update, notching up a record year for the business. … For the year to May 2025, core revenue increased by 14% to £565 million while volatile licensing revenue jumped by 69% to £52.5 million, of which 81% was from PC and console game licenses.

(On the topic of the licensing side of the Warhammer business, one has to look at the excellent Space Marine 2 - this, from The Game Business, is worth a look, imho!)

“It’s exactly what happened with Space Marine 2. To be very frank, we didn't believe before we launched that we could hit seven million unique players. It was incredible for us. The word of mouth, combined with the perfect execution done by our partner Saber Interactive, meant we managed to expand the audience from the passionate Warhammer people, to people who can enjoy all the features of Space Marine 2.”

(Image - Space Marine 2 screenshot, via the game’s Steam store page)

Basically you don’t get that level of company and game results without more people playing more Warhammer than ever before. Even if some people move on because they don’t like decision X or product Y, the actuality is so at odds with the expected ‘collapse’ I’d be expecting if I only consumed those videos. It is not just off as a prediction, it is basically the opposite. Whatever the current ‘scandal’ these videos allege has damaged that fandom and left it dead, there is a huge disconnect between those ‘This fandom is over’ videos and the actual health of the fandom itself. (If nothing else, such fandoms are too broad to be encompassed by a single POV). Indeed, as with D&D, I’m far from the only one to notice this, as the excellent Wyrd Science magazine sarcastically noted on BlueSky:

wait a minute did the YouTubers lie to me for the tenth year in a row? fool me nine times! (Link)

What is a little sad is that I suspect the need to generate views combined with the algorithm is warping the incentives of some content creators. Those people who might have started out making videos about the fandom they love and want to share that passion find out that anger gives more views. Because they may generate income from making content, they stop making videos about why they love it and instead make videos about why others want to hate it. It's an odd incentive for a fan to be in; continually consuming videos about the imminent death of the thing you love (or loved). But drama generates interactions. Interactions generate views. Views grow channels. This is sadly not a new phenomena; there are well documented cases of people who moved into very different modes of content creation because one topic got clicks and views and others didn't (e.g. here).

Again, I’m not saying that people can’t critique a fandom - as soon as you get more than one fan in a room they’ll soon disagree about things. This is normal, healthy even. But these incentives are stronger than disagreement, they encourage the spectating of the total destruction of a fandom, even if it is not actually happening.

There’s now an interesting dialogue about the impact the algorithmic systems that control so much of what we see, are doing. A topic the excellent Storythings newsletter highlights:

More on algorithms, which there is no escaping from: here’s one of our favourite writers Kyle Chayka, author of Filterworld, as a guest on the Two Percent podcast with Michael Easter. Even though you’ll know a lot of what he says if you’ve read the book, there are some fun sequences like a rapid fire round and some more recent observations on how it is important to be mindful of the content we consume.

(Image - Another space where I enjoy my fandom - my PC - here one of my cats, Gandalf, he’s grey, sits on the warm air-out vent. Photo by me.)

So why does this matter for game development? Because as creators we are in a constant dialogue with the fans who enjoy our work. That’s normal, healthy even. We have to understand this landscape. Influencers, Let’s Plays and Streamers are some of the most key marketing channels that we have to share with players what we are working on. As such, it helps a lot to have a healthy relationship with our fandoms and its exponents.

But as well as a developer, I’m a fan too. I don’t want a solid feed of anger-based-content. I am not naive as to the way the world works, but I also want to enjoy the nerdy things I love. Personally I’d love to see the various algorithms that recommend/control things do a better job of surfacing content that is not focused on anger or doom. I suspect it would not only make fandoms better, but the world too.

Plus imho we are in a golden age of gaming creation - if you don’t like company X or product Y, express it by supporting one you do like; there’s no shortage of games and creators out there!

Personally I make sure I drop a ‘like’ on the content that makes me smile too.

Thank you for reading!

P.S. This newsletter is a personal one and is done as a personal project and as such is not affiliated with any company that, in my day job, I work with or partner with. Nor do the views I express necessarily reflect any company that, in my day job, I work with or partner with. More on me here.