I'm still sad the Battletech virtual cockpits didn't catch on

Quote from: CRKrueger;611763We're stuck with tabletop, crpgs and MMORPGs for a while, thank god, until simsense comes along and we can do it "for real". Of course at that point 99% of the population will die of starvation while plugged into porn.

It's funny because it's true.

Quote from: Killfuck Soulshitter;611760I don't have any concrete data, but everything I've seen points to the massive bulge in the RPG-playing demographic towards the group I mentioned (which I do belong to).

So exactly how much of your spare time do you spend hanging around, say, 18-25 year olds?

This is not a facetious question; I ask because your experience might simply reflect the fact that people of a certain age with a peer group of a certain age might not necessarily expect their observations to be entirely objective.

Well it's clear that a huge amount of people joined in the early 80's and it's clear that the number of kids joining died off pretty quickly after that fad wore off. I'm not sure that after the initial surge of kids petered off there's been that much of a decline of new people joining, just a long slow drain of attrition with people in that initial surge.

Also, while I don't have time to do it myself (babies) I see a lot of promise in Google+ hangout RPGing as it makes logistical issues a lot easier and we're finally getting good enough internet in the hands of enough people to make that workable, it's something that's just starting and I think it has a lot more promise than alternatives like PBP or PBEM.

Quote from: Warthur;611774So exactly how much of your spare time do you spend hanging around, say, 18-25 year olds?

Not much (apart from dating them). That's why I suggested checking out how much chatter about Pathfinder or 4e is being conducted by under 25s on Youtube. I don't believe that all these younger people are too busy playing D&D to be reflected on forums, Youtube, or at conventions. They're just a smaller cohort, to my best guess.

Quote from: Killfuck Soulshitter;611777Not much (apart from dating them). That's why I suggested checking out how much chatter about Pathfinder or 4e is being conducted by under 25s on Youtube. I don't believe that all these younger people are too busy playing D&D to be reflected on forums, Youtube, or at conventions. They're just a smaller cohort, to my best guess.

And they're a presence in the places I frequent so I don't think they're such a radically smaller cohort that the hobby faces extinction. The industry? Sure, but the industry's taken us on a decades-long swindle-ride anyway so good riddance to it.

Yes, there is a "slow demise" going on, for all the reasons Elliot Wilen (and others) have mentioned. There will be no return to the mass popularity of gaming in the 90s, let alone the fad of the early 80s, and much of that is due to slow structural changes in mass entertainment. You can say this decision or that contributed, but really, you can't stop this kind of social change.

Of course, the hobby will live on as a grassroots activity, even without a supply of "official" rulebooks you can buy in large chain bookstores. It has an attraction that goes beyond the glossy supplements and geek chic products people surround themselves with. It is about playing with our imaginations, and there will always be imaginative people who will like this sort of thing, even if they have to print and bind their own goddamn rulebooks to do so. They will not be able to count on a ready supply of fellow gamers outside large cities: they will have to go out and recruit new people. I believe that will not be a bad thing.

My one and only input is that I will be running D&D 1e for a small group of 20 year-olds between the 29th of Dec. and the 10th of Jan because, according to them, they play D&D 3.5 at college and would love to "try the older version". One of the 20-yos is my step-son's best friend and I bought him the Pathfinder box starter set for Christmas.

My opinion is that the hobby is not "dying". I do agree that the young folk's attention is more diversified now than when we (for those of us around at the beginning) were younger, but these activities are not mutually exclusive and from my admittedly limited but current perspective, the young folks at college are still TTRPGing. Along with many other things. I know another game my upcoming group enjoys is the munchkin card games, which I'll probably also be breaking out for them. Just got the family Munchkin Bites for Christmas

Quote from: Dog Quixote;611733It's hardly the worst thing that could happen however.

I have to agree with this. Seems to be the worst thing that could happen is that the Earth is destroyed by a rogue asteroid.... that would lay a serious buzz-kill on the whole TTRPGing community I'm thinking.

Quote from: Benoist;611758Publishing models are changing. Dead-tree print runs might be shrinking and shrinking over time, but electronic documents and print-on-demand are on the rise, for instance (look for Matt Sprange's state of the Mongoose this year for an example of that). So you can't really make pronouncements to the effect of "well the print run of this or that game was that much smaller from this or that game from fifteen years ago, so we're fucked". That's just not how these things work.

And that's forgetting, additionally, that "the industry", whatever that actually is, is one thing, and the hobby, the people actually playing the crap out of the games, sharing with each other via social media and DIY and free downloads and all that, is quite another. With one RPG and an internet connection you can play for years and years, and get together on Skype or Hangouts with other gamers right now if you are so willing (and you think that's awesome now? The technological platforms will just get better and better with time). Games can be rediscovered decades from now. It's just not as straightforward as so many seem desperate to believe.

Very true Benny. I'll be playing Grifffin Mt. using Legend/MRQII via G+ hangout Sunday with a couple fellers from the UK and a few Yanks :a

Quote from: Melan;611785Yes, there is a "slow demise" going on, for all the reasons Elliot Wilen (and others) have mentioned. There will be no return to the mass popularity of gaming in the 90s, let alone the fad of the early 80s, and much of that is due to slow structural changes in mass entertainment. You can say this decision or that contributed, but really, you can't stop this kind of social change.

Of course, the hobby will live on as a grassroots activity, even without a supply of "official" rulebooks you can buy in large chain bookstores. It has an attraction that goes beyond the glossy supplements and geek chic products people surround themselves with. It is about playing with our imaginations, and there will always be imaginative people who will like this sort of thing, even if they have to print and bind their own goddamn rulebooks to do so. They will not be able to count on a ready supply of fellow gamers outside large cities: they will have to go out and recruit new people. I believe that will not be a bad thing.

I can't disagree with this either. Kinda mirrors the miniature wargaming "industry" seems to me. Especially for the historical wargamers rather than the Warhammer crews.

Also for the industry side of things the percentage of revenue that ends up in the pockets of writers has been going up due to a lot of middlemen being cut out. So at least they're getting a bigger piece of a smaller pie.

There's a huge lack of market data in this business, moreso than in any other for a few reasons.

• It's an open ended hobby, a group (and it is almost always a group) can run the one system they bought forever if they want, while experiencing something new every week. Some groups do exactly that.
• Some people just don't buy RPG products, being too busy writing their own, its a very hacker-friendly pastime. I'd include myself here.
• There are a huge number of RPG PDFs on the torrent sites. Anyone can get just about anything with a few taps on their keyboard. Not to say that it's more prevalent in this business than any other, but its a factor moreso than monopoly or poker.
• "Roleplayers" doesn't mean "internet users that frequent roleplaying forums". Its unclear how much of an overlay exists between the two, but my estimation is that its a lot less than some believe.
  

You can't just look at sales and say the hobby is dying, they may mean very little. This is bad news for publishers of course, and also thankfully for the amount of vapid gossip these publishers seem to generate. The truth is nobody has clue one how many people are roleplaying out there, and short of including it as a census question they never will.

In all likelihood it doesn't matter for publishers since most of the hidden majority won't buy the products anyway, being happy enough with what they have. Short version, nobody knows, is ever likely to know, and even if they did know it probably wouldn't help them earn any money from it. A mysterious pursuit, this.

I think if there is ever to be a revival of the sales end of things, it needs to play heavily upon the uniquely personal and visceral experience produced by RPGs, nothing else can do that. Also it will help when A4 sized colour screen e-ink devices make an appearance, and they will.

Doomsaying? perhaps.

However i think the age of the video game console is passing. Perhaps rpg's need to take advantage of google + and tablets and ipads and othershit I can't afford nor run.

D&D needs to make up it's mind as to what it wants to be: either a tabeltop miniatures game (which is fine) or an rpg. If it's the latter then condense the product into a pair of books and not require cards and all sorts of other weirdness.

Perhap the future lies with story games: Fiasco got featured on Whil Wheaton's (you can't have a pie without cool whip!) Tabletop youtube show, D&D didn't.

FFG is still churning out 40k rpg product. I can't keep up with it now Only War is actually out. Do i play it? Well i've yet to read all the books I already own and have barely run DH and BC, but that's partly because the rules are chunky and the two players I have aren't really a) enough and b) serious.

Maybe there's a middle ground somewhere: smaller books, less prep, easier rules.

It's not dying, it's the conventional market that's dying; bricks and mortar.

Quote from: Benoist;611721It's the same doomsaying by the same, and/or different, short-sighted people who've drank the mass media, mass marketing kool aid over the years. Doom, doom doom! We need to compete with World of Warcraft, with the internet, with mass entertainment...

Of course RPG's need to compete with other forms of entertainment. People only have a finite amount of leisure time, after all, and they aren't shy about dropping activities they don't like. We want that time. Wizards wants that time, because it means buying their books. I want that time, because it means I get to play.

Thing is, RPG's stack up pretty fucking well against every other form of entertainment. Ultimately, our problem is that we're not very good at making people know this.