QuoteThis is a whole new class of development, and therefore the assumptions we reached after examining the data for EQ and UO have to be revisited. We cannot possibly believe today that these games are not directly predating on the TRPG player network. In fact, they are, and they are having noticeable effects on the TRPG player network.

I cannot see why this is different from TV or Video Games in general. There is no predation going on. WoW is just a pretty sucky videogame for stupid people too, if you ask me. But even of it´s totally rad, it´s a videogame.

And they are even bigger than Hollywood these days.

Most people spend more money on munchies for their gaming table than for the books.
Most gamers watch more TV than spend time playing RPGs.

Everything RSD is saying is non-sequitur.
Jumping to conclusions, in every sentence.

But it´s Ryan´s money and credibility.
So be it.

I play WOW.  I'm on that scene from the inside.  My own observations and experiences show that Ryan's point about WOW stealing TRPG players is on target; the majority of my guildmates in all of my guilds are lapsed or lapsing TRPG players, and the server communities in general are filled with such folks.

That still doesn't prove causality, Brad. Some people used to do A, now they do B. The claim is B is not B but is actually an improved version of A. A++. But that's a claim, and IMHO an optical illusion.

Can we point to a single and remotely comparable precedent in history in which one kind of pastime was abandoned en masse for a (supposedly) massively improved version of that very same pastime? This is not a rhetorical question--they may exist, but I can't think of any.

I never met a regular WoW player who I'd miss at my game table.

Quote from: RSDanceyThe difference is that after 3.5E, sales in the TRPG category declined by more than 50%, and since 3.5E, there has been no major change in the products in the category.  With 3E, sales quintupled from the prior year, and that change was directly attributable to people being sold a product they liked more than the previously available options.

When 3e came out there had been nothing brewing for a long time. Really, the few tail-end products of 2nd ed were awful... So that quintupling, what did it really represent compared with, say, sales of 2nd ed or 1st ed (or classic D&D) in their prime? I ask 'cos we keep seeing claims here that 3rd ed was really such a phenomenon, and while it certainly did well I'm a little concerned by these claims, I think they hide a general decline in RPGs.

As for 3.5e... It simply came too soon. The changes in it were small, they were almost trivial, and yet we were presented with whole new rulebooks at quite high cost. Hardly surprising it put people right off the whole company.

Quote from: RSDanceyIn a perfect world, you'd see a gigantic number of 12 year olds, then a narrowing cone going forward in age, which would show a healthy market acquiring new players and then slowly losing them over time.  When you see an hour-glass shaped market, you have to ask some very tough questions about the long-term viability of your product.  (One of those questions was: do most people actually enter the hobby between 12-16, or do they enter later in life....)

Most gamers I currently know (whose ages tend to range from their 20s to their 30s) seem to either come to gaming late in life, or simply didn't get much gaming until they got to university. I begin to suspect that this has always been the case; most successful Vampire LARPs I was aware of back in the 1990s were attached to universities, most successful game shops tended to be close to a student population, AD&D under Gygax was marketed mainly (and successfully) towards a university audience...

Quote from: Pierce InverarityCan we point to a single and remotely comparable precedent in history in which one kind of pastime was abandoned en masse for a (supposedly) massively improved version of that very same pastime? This is not a rhetorical question--they may exist, but I can't think of any.

Many wargamers attribute the steep decline of their hobby in the late 70s to the emergence of D&D. The thinking is there are only so many geekish young men out there looking to play games. Any new gaming hobby eats into the same demographic that existing gaming hobbies rely on.

Quote from: WarthurMost gamers I currently know (whose ages tend to range from their 20s to their 30s) seem to either come to gaming late in life, or simply didn't get much gaming until they got to university. I begin to suspect that this has always been the case; most successful Vampire LARPs I was aware of back in the 1990s were attached to universities, most successful game shops tended to be close to a student population, AD&D under Gygax was marketed mainly (and successfully) towards a university audience...

Around here, the popularity of D&D peaked when I was in junior high - the early 80s. In a class with 15 boys, typically five or so played D&D regularly, and most of the others had at least tried it. By high school, it was embarassing to admit you played, and that stayed true in university.

That may have changed in the 90s, when RPGs had become entrenched as a geek hobby. But D&D certainly saw its high water mark in terms of players and revenue at a time when many or most players were younger than 16.

Quote from: RSDanceyClub Penguin

OK, I don't have a lot of time before work, so I have yet to read beyond this point...but...really?  You consider Club Penguin to be even remotely related to the idea of RPG?

Then we have a bigger disconnect than I thought....

[My kids play Club Penguin all the time, so I'm pretty familiar with it.]

Here are the statistics from the 2000 WotC survey, showing the actual % of RPG players per year, rather than the total % for the non-standard size age brackets reported:

12 to 15 -- 5.75% / yr
16 to 18 -- 6.00% / yr
19 to 24 -- 4.17% / yr
25 to 35 -- 3.09% / yr

It's also very significant to note the survey only started looking at people when they were 12.  My friends and I all started playing when we were 9, and the WotC survey reported 23% of RPGers started before they were 12.  I think it's a significant weakness of the data that <12 is not reported above.

The numbers don't show a decline from 16 to 18 and a return at 19 -- quite the opposite.

Looking at those numbers I'd come to very different conclusions than what was in the WotC survey...

I'm going to see if I can talk with one of my colleagues in our Math & Stats department about this today and get a second opinion.

Quote from: Elliot WilenIn any case your point is a good one except for one thing: the D&D 3.x marketing argument as I've understood it, in terms of how it relates to your objection that people are playing a game that isn't serving them well, has been that the suboptimality of D&D for any given segment is more than made up for by its ability to provide an effective "compromise point" around which people with different preferences can gather and play together.

Here is the thing, I see nothing in D&D's design or marketing that suggest it is a "compromise point" at all: no story-telling mechanics, no narrative control rules, no ad campaigns that say "Hey, we suck, but at least you can find players!"

D&D is not a compromise game. It is an unabashed traditional game and strangely enough, people have been having great adventures and telling great stories with traditional games for over 30 years.

The issue we tend to overlook when we start talking about classifying gamers and their preferences is that most of us defy classification. Seriously, how many pure "Powergamers" do you know? In my 29 years of gaming, I have played with one pure Powergamer... who lived for combat and nothing else. Every other gamer I have played with... every one... is a mix.

Surely, I cannot refute anything Ryan has to say about the Industry. All he ever has to do to end discussion is quote some study or talk about "inside information" he has and no one can argue. That's fine. Let's say people are leaving tabletop gaming in droves and that most of those are people who derive their primary enjoyment from powergaming. I still say that his conclusions rest on the shaky premise that right now, given the fact that other choices exist and have existed for years, a large percentage of gamers are playing a game they don't enjoy.

I just don't buy that argument and I didn't when Ron Edwards said it years ago... at least then there were less choices.

In any case, this is a fine discussion,

Quote from: James J SkachOK, I don't have a lot of time before work, so I have yet to read beyond this point...but...really?  You consider Club Penguin to be even remotely related to the idea of RPG?

In the same vein as WoW is remotely related to the idea of RPG? Sure.

You've got a penguin character that you can get stuff for (a new igloo, furniture, clothes, pets), you win experience points ("money") by doing stuff (playing Four-in-a-row or this Ice Breaker game). All that while waiting for the return of that pirate penguin (who likes to give you more rare stuff).

I just spoke with my colleague who's a statistician, and he confirmed what I was thinking about the numbers.  His comment was that you couldn't draw those conclusions from this data and it was a case of making the stats say what you want them to say.

The WotC conclusions are not accurate.

Quote from: StuartI just spoke with my colleague who's a statistician, and he confirmed what I was thinking about the numbers.  His comment was that you couldn't draw those conclusions from this data and it was a case of making the stats say what you want them to say.

The WotC conclusions are not accurate.

I didn't pick up on it at first, but once you pointed it out, it seemed quite obvious in retrospect. Good catch.

I can believe that MMORPGs take away from TTRPGs to some extent, but I don't think it is really significant enough to hurt the TTRPG hobby. I believe the two modalities can coexist, that they scratch different itches and that tabletop games should emphasize their strengths rather than try to imitate the strengths of MMORPGs.

The biggest problem I see with Ryan's latest idea is the notion that story games are the way to go. Story games are currently available and are unpopular (compared with D&D or other traditional games). I just can't see injecting more story into a D&D-like game as being the next big thing.

Kudos to Ryan for stopping by and maintaining an extremely civil tone while discussing his ideas amongst a sometimes hostile crowd.