I have a story about new gamers that may be a good representation of the new gamer market wotc is trying to attract, or it may be representative of absolutely nothing. in any case, it may spark some interesting discussion.
the landlord's son is 21. he has been a video game junkie since age 4, according to him. he is the type that spent millions of hours on dark age of camelot, evercrack, world of warcraft, and final fantasy.
he saw my bookshelf of D&D stuff, and was interested. for the record, i am 38, been playing since 1984, and have a lot of stuff collected. the kid said he always heard of D&D, just never played it. so our group of old guys let him into a few sessions (we play 3.0), and he really enjoyed it. the part he said he liked the most was the total freedom to do anything, which he couldn't, of course, get from a video game world. i think he also liked the beer and potato chips guys hanging around busting chops social aspect of it too. my brother, at whose house we always play, has a keg of sam adams on tap at all times.
i found it really interesting that even though he played every video game derivation of dnd, he never thought to go back to the roots of it and try it out. i asked him how come why he never tried it out when he was younger, and he said that not to many people played. those that did very usually real geeks, he said, the social outcast types who couldn't afford a computer. he said that basically every person he ever knew who played dnd was from an economically poor background. His assumption was that the only reason they played dnd was because they couldn't play anything else. also, most importantly, he said it wasn't worth being considered that much of a loser/outcast to try out something, even though he figured he would like it and was interested in it.
funny, when i was a kid the computer geeks were more geeky than the dnd geeks. i happened to be in both categories, thus completely defeating any chance of my getting action from the opposite sex in high school. it seems that with the technology that kids are brought up with today, there is no bad social stigma attached to being a video gamer. pen and paper gamers are sill ostracized though. it seems it is easier to let your geek flag fly in a more socially acceptable way like WoW.
anyway, that made me think about wotc's obvious strategy with 4e and dnd insider. i still think the best way for new gamers to get into pnp games is to have some friends sit down with them and show them what its all about, which i think is probably how most of us got into it. if gaming has such a social stigma though, i doubt that you will get many converts.
again, one person is surely not representative of the whole group, but i do think it is representative of a good sized chunk of it.
i am interested in what people think of the chances of wotc bringing in new blood from the WoW crowd who are in high school or a bit older, who have never played DnD before, and who know no one who does who can introduce them to the game---in other words someone like my landlord's kid was, until he met me. in other words the WoW playing kid walking through waldenbooks who sees 4e on the shelf. what are the chances he will buy it without a social support system already accepting of it and willing to play with him?
joe
the landlord's son is 21. he has been a video game junkie since age 4, according to him. he is the type that spent millions of hours on dark age of camelot, evercrack, world of warcraft, and final fantasy.
he saw my bookshelf of D&D stuff, and was interested. for the record, i am 38, been playing since 1984, and have a lot of stuff collected. the kid said he always heard of D&D, just never played it. so our group of old guys let him into a few sessions (we play 3.0), and he really enjoyed it. the part he said he liked the most was the total freedom to do anything, which he couldn't, of course, get from a video game world. i think he also liked the beer and potato chips guys hanging around busting chops social aspect of it too. my brother, at whose house we always play, has a keg of sam adams on tap at all times.
i found it really interesting that even though he played every video game derivation of dnd, he never thought to go back to the roots of it and try it out. i asked him how come why he never tried it out when he was younger, and he said that not to many people played. those that did very usually real geeks, he said, the social outcast types who couldn't afford a computer. he said that basically every person he ever knew who played dnd was from an economically poor background. His assumption was that the only reason they played dnd was because they couldn't play anything else. also, most importantly, he said it wasn't worth being considered that much of a loser/outcast to try out something, even though he figured he would like it and was interested in it.
funny, when i was a kid the computer geeks were more geeky than the dnd geeks. i happened to be in both categories, thus completely defeating any chance of my getting action from the opposite sex in high school. it seems that with the technology that kids are brought up with today, there is no bad social stigma attached to being a video gamer. pen and paper gamers are sill ostracized though. it seems it is easier to let your geek flag fly in a more socially acceptable way like WoW.
anyway, that made me think about wotc's obvious strategy with 4e and dnd insider. i still think the best way for new gamers to get into pnp games is to have some friends sit down with them and show them what its all about, which i think is probably how most of us got into it. if gaming has such a social stigma though, i doubt that you will get many converts.
again, one person is surely not representative of the whole group, but i do think it is representative of a good sized chunk of it.
i am interested in what people think of the chances of wotc bringing in new blood from the WoW crowd who are in high school or a bit older, who have never played DnD before, and who know no one who does who can introduce them to the game---in other words someone like my landlord's kid was, until he met me. in other words the WoW playing kid walking through waldenbooks who sees 4e on the shelf. what are the chances he will buy it without a social support system already accepting of it and willing to play with him?
joe
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