Because this industry has a long-standing problem of people, many of them well-intentioned, holding forth in public without much in the way of real knowledge... and forum readers believing them, because they're 'insiders'.
This can actually have a knock-on effect -- a bit like a run on a bank (less drastic, to be sure, but just as real), where sales can be effected because of the pervading mood that things are on a downturn. Believe it or not, but people tend to purchase more if they feel that their purchases will be supported going forward by a healthy industry. If they're convinced (because they heard it from people who "should know") that its not healthy, they're less likely to purchase.
It's not his opinion which is the problem -- opinions are like... Well, you know.
It's that he supports his opinion with "facts" which are flat-out wrong (and in some cases, perhaps even purposefully misleading), and gamers might believe him (leading to very real impact on business) unless those errors are pointed out.
See I don't get this part of the argument. James does have experience and does have some interesting facts - could his perceptions of the meaning of these be wrong? Sure. He also has the facts that he's been exposed to, which don't include everything and are certainly an incomplete picture - but that's true of every single post or opinion that uses "facts" regardless of how inside or outside someone is, and he supplements these with his guesses and anecdotal evidence - which he even SAYS is anecdotal... so it comes back to just someone voicing their concerns and opinions, and people jumping on it.
Does James Mishler have biases for and against games and business models? Of course he does. So do Erik Mona, Monte Cook, Andy Collins, Mike Mearls, Jim Ward, myself, and every person, known and unknown, who come here. For instance, thecausaloblivian slammed James pretty strongly during this, so looking at something he said on a forked thread:
My response to this thread brings up an interesting point. In the current tabletop RPG world, alternatives to mainstream D&D are at a low ebb. Aside from White Wolf chugging along as the number 2 publisher, doing its own thing as always, what is really selling outside of 4E? 3PP 4E books aren't, outside of Goodman being modestly successful selling adventures. The OGL has slowed down considerably. Indie games and non-d20 systems are barely on the radar. Most people who haven't switched to 4E are playing old games. Either retro clones of a previously released game(and I would include Pathfinder in this), older editions of D&D, or playing older games that haven't been updated recently. A few blips here and there, but not a lot. There's 4E, and White Wolf puts out new games for their system, but outside of that, nothing new is really happening.
Now, these are assertions and opinions. Where's the facts to support? (Erik'll probably be upset at the "other than 4e and White Wolf nothing's happening...." guess Paizo's not doing anything....) But, they are just as valid for him to make as James. Lots of people post with assertions and arguments ensue over the merits of points made. Causal has every right to make assertions, just as James does.
What bothers me is this: GMSkarka especially said this is "dangerous" when people who have some "experience" as "insiders" make assertions - this means the more someone has had in experience the more their assertions are dangerous and need to be squelched? The further outside the better when making claims about the RPG community?
You don't have to agree with James. You don't even have to ignore - it's quite possible to have a solid debate on the specifics of the arguments and his assertions.
What bothers me, and it seems to be a real problem here and on many message boards, is that people who disagree immediately turn to personal attacks and denegration to "knock down" those that voice opinions they disagree with.
