Here’s the situation folks: 2024 marked a turning point for LitRPG that we should watch while frowning mildly with concern. The traditional publishing giants have finally shined their Sauron’s Eye on our little corner of the internet, and yes that’s great for authors and readership, but it comes with complications.
You heard right. Giant capitalist corporations might actually do some harm to a small independent community. There’s a first time for everything.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m genuinely happy for Matt Dinniman and the other authors cashing those cheques. They’ve earned it, and new readers discovering the genre is always a net positive. But we’ve seen enough trends come and go to recognise the faint, distant, yet ominous tinkling of alarm bells.
He Came, He Crawled, He Conquered
Let’s start with the facts. In April 2024, Ace Books (Penguin Random House) acquired Dungeon Crawler Carl after Matt’s self-published success hit 800,000 copies sold. Hollywood heard those numbers and came a-galloping over the hill: Universal Studios and Seth MacFarlane announced a TV adaptation deal for Dungeon Crawler Carl just a few months later in August.
But it didn’t stop with Carl. The dam has well and truly broken. Blackstone Publishing released 114 LitRPG titles in 2024 alone. A hundred and fourteen.
This isn’t organic growth; it’s strategic market capture. These publishers operate on fundamentally different principles than the systems that made LitRPG great. They rely on gatekeepers, advance sales projections, and market research that asks one question, “Will this appeal to the broadest possible audience?”
Our genre grew up in the wild west of Royal Road, where authors posted daily chapters, got immediate reader feedback, and iterated stories based on what actually worked. The best LitRPG wasn’t designed by committee; it was battle-tested by thousands of daily readers who voted with clicks and comments. Like a river rock shaped by flowing waters, novels evolved as they were exposed to their readership.
Traditional publishing can’t replicate that ecosystem. Forget flowing waters, they’ll use a jackhammer.
We’ve seen this movie before. When Western publishers tried to cash in on cultivation novels, they took complex Eastern philosophical frameworks, stripped out the cultural context, and produced sanitized “progression fantasy” that satisfied neither Eastern nor Western audiences.
The pattern repeats because traditional publishing doesn’t understand subcultures; it understands markets. They see our sales numbers, miss our cultural foundations, and produce hollow imitations that look like LitRPG but feel like corporate fantasy.
This isn’t malicious; it’s just how mass-market consumerism works. It takes proven concepts and reshapes them aggressively. The result won’t be better LitRPG; it’ll be pre-digested fantasy novels with gaming terminology slapped on top.
Hollywood Squares
All of this hasn’t gone unnoticed by the studio accountants on the east coast. And that’s where things get genuinely concerning. Where Seth MacFarlane has led, others will inevitably follow. TV adaptations of LitRPG face an impossible challenge: how do you translate systematic progression and gaming mechanics to a medium that can’t show character sheets or status screens?
History gives us the answer, and…it doesn’t look good. Consider what happened to Eragon, where the film stripped out the magic system that made the books compelling. The Artemis Fowl adaptation removed the criminal mastermind elements that defined the character. The Dark Tower movie turned Stephen King’s complex multiverse into a generic action flick that satisfied neither fans nor general audiences (yes yes, I’m aware Mike Flanagan is taking a more promising-looking swing at it).
The Witcher Netflix series, despite its popularity, simplified Geralt’s complex moral framework into standard fantasy hero tropes, disappointing book readers while confusing viewers unfamiliar with the source material. When The Golden Compass hit theaters, they gutted Philip Pullman’s religious criticism to avoid controversy, leaving a hollow shell that turned mainstream audiences off the entire franchise.
Post-books Game of Thrones, The Wheel of Time, Lord Of The Rings. They just. Keep. Coming.
In fact there are dozens of examples of this phenomenon. They’re the almost-inevitable result of trying to make specialised content appeal to everyone. The adaptation process strips away exactly what made the original work special, creating something that pleases nobody.
(Royal) Road Closures Ahead
The shift is already visible in how authors approach their work. “Stubbing” content from Royal Road for traditional publication sends a clear message about where the money flows. The platform that built these authors’ careers risks becoming a disposable stepping stone to “real” publishing.
With this will comes editorial pressure to broaden appeal. Complex progression systems become simplified power levels. Gaming culture references disappear because they might confuse mainstream readers. The systematic thinking that drives authentic LitRPG problem-solving gets replaced with generic fantasy action.
And this will trickle down to the new authors who’s first port of call is Royal Road. Kids who don’t know the difference, and who’s frame of reference doesn’t include “The Perfect Run” or “Mother of Learning”.
Will this destroy LitRPG? Of course not. Royal Road will keep chugging along. Indie authors will continue innovating. The core community that built this genre isn’t going anywhere.
But mainstream exposure matters because it shapes public perception. When TV adaptations fail to capture what makes LitRPG special, they don’t just disappoint fans; they actively turn potential readers away from the genre. Bad adaptations create the impression that LitRPG is simplistic power fantasy instead of the sophisticated systematic fiction it can be.
Okay So Now What?
To some degree I’m screaming into the wind here. Authors will chase traditional deals because that’s where the money is. Publishers will continue buying what sells. Hollywood will keep adapting popular properties, usually badly. None of this is new, or specific to LitRPG.
But it does feel personal, and so I for one need to find a way to be okay with it. All we can do is keep supporting authentic LitRPG on Royal Road, champion stories that embrace gaming culture without apologising for it, and call out sanitised imitations when we see them.
Most importantly, let’s remember what made LitRPG special: community-driven stories that understand gamer culture and aren’t ashamed to embrace it. Traditional publishing will give us mainstream recognition and bigger budgets, but the collateral damage could be significant.
But not necessarily catastrophic. And as I said, more readers discovering our favorite authors is genuinely a good thing. The question is whether we can maintain the cultural core that made LitRPG worth discovering in the first place.
YOU CAN PLAY IN OUR SANDBOX. JUST DON’T RUIN IT.
What’s your take? Are you excited about mainstream recognition, or concerned about losing authenticity? I’m curious to hear both perspectives.
FantasyLitGuy 