Into The Oddish: Ditto Edition - Now Heistfunding!
Of all the splendid commodities that have graced our humble hobby, few are more exemplary than the recently announced OSR Pokemon game Into The Oddish.
It occurred to me, however, that the game's distinguishing features & the designer's philosophical commitments imply the possibility of another, even better product opportunity awaiting one bold enough to seize it. Unable to deny the people what they want & need, I am therefore heistfunding Into The Oddish: Ditto Edition.
What, you might be asking, is Into The Oddish: Ditto Edition? In simple terms, it is the world's first RPG anteroclone, a prognosticated near-exact copy of a game that hasn't come out yet. Whatever Into The Oddish ends up being, Into The Oddish: Ditto Edition will (potentially eventually) duplicate to an arbitrary level of precision.
How, you might also ask, could such a thing possibly improve upon the original? Simply put, for each of three salient qualities of Into The Oddish, Into The Oddish: Ditto Edition manages to surpass its already illustrious namesake.
First, it was recently observed by Dungeon Dogma that Into The Oddish is highly derivative of three pre-existing IPs, even replicating cynical marketing tactics from the original Pokemon games. Whereas DD atavistically upholds novelty and originality as desirable traits, those of us with sense understand that people want more of what they already like, ratified with a $35-50 price tag. It is not hard to see how Ditto Edition adds value by accentuating this dimension of the original, much as the masterwork of the inimitable Pierre Menard is rightly understood to be superior to the Spanish novel that shares its name.
Second, it is clear that Prismatic Wasteland has astutely recognized anticipation as the libidinal prime mover of the ttrpg trade. Much like a Daoist master conserving his jing essence, the enlightened modern consumer wishes to live in an indefinite Batesonian plateau of deferred satisfaction, or in what Walter Benjamin called "messianic time". Our True Desire is to pre-order an endless succession of products and to be tantalized with little reminders of their impending arrival -- forever. Into The Oddish innovates brilliantly on this front by teasing us with the Damoclean possibility that litigious Nintendo executives could put the kibosh on the whole thing at any moment. Ditto Edition one-ups this with not one but two possible sources of litigation, from both Nintendo and Prismatic Wasteland himself. This double threat imperils Ditto Edition so thoroughly that it will almost certainly remain a pristine object of unquenchable desire.
Finally, Prismatic Wasteland has eloquently made a case for the noble vanguard of hobby commodification against the misguided idealists who would see work judged and circulated on merit alone, or who prefer to make inferior products for personal enjoyment. Love it or hate it, a price tag is surely necessary to signal a work's legitimacy as a True Product, and being a widely-circulated True Product is undeniably the best fate for any creative endeavor. Here too, Into The Oddish simply can't hold a candle to its anteroclone: whereas the former will retail for $35-50, the much higher-status Ditto Edition will sell for $500 a pop.
Sold? Lucky for you, you can...
...back Into The Oddish: Ditto Edition here!
Postscript: recently there has been a spate of blog posts picking on Prismatic Wasteland (with varying degrees of directness) as a representative of a certain attitude toward marketing and hobby commodification. I feel bad for joining the pile-on; in our handful of personal interactions Prismatic has been nothing but kind and supportive. However, I do have seriously held convictions regarding marketing and commodification that are in opposition to his (stated and manifest). However sarcastic and mean-spirited this may seem, it is an honest (albeit circuitous) articulation of the values I hold, and I hope it is understood that the real object of my derision is likewise an attitude & value system rather than a specific bearer or manifestation thereof. Also, once I thought of the name I couldn't resist writing the rest.
Addendum to the postscript: I should make a further distinction -- I know nothing about the content of *Into The Oddish* but have no reason to doubt that when considered as a body of text and images it is genuinely fun, charming, and well-crafted. Nor do I doubt for a second that it was made with care and passion. The tone of derision in this post is aimed at ITO as the object of a marketing campaign, and what I see as the absurdities therein.