We're Finally Mainstream! Now What?

ICv2's recent announcement that hobby games have become "mainstream" heralds a new age for role-playing games. How did this happen and why should gamers care?

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[h=3]How Did We Get Here?[/h]Role-playing games have steadily been increasing in popularity and media attention. Several factors are likely at play, ranging from older players returning to the hobby (as evidenced by the Old School Renaissance ), to an increased media awareness of role-playing games (Stranger Things being one example), to a wave of nostalgia as 40-somethings now have enough buying power to introduce their kids to the hobby.

The rise of video and podcasting has also introduced gaming to a much larger population on the Internet. Conventions are more popular than ever before -- to the point that they have difficulty keeping up with the demand. Wizards of the Coast has released a new Open Game License and a distribution platform via DM's Guild. It helps that Dungeons & Dragons has also broadened its audience, with millennials (ages 25 to 34) the largest group, followed closely ages 35 to 44 and 18 to 24 — 30% of which are female.
[h=3]Six Million an Hour?[/h]According to WOTC, six million people are playing D&D at any given hour. UPDATE: I asked Nathan Stewart to clarify this number. This was his response:

There was more context given, wasn't supposed to mean every hour, but yes the aggregate was videogames/boardgames/TRPG (not novels)
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The "per hour" seems to be egregious, and is inclusive of D&D-branded video games and board games. Ethan Gilsdorf, author of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks, said :

For those in the know, for those who follow popular culture, the game has gained a kind of legendary status. It's almost like a badge of honor. People who used to play D&D in the 70s, 80s, and 90s are now reaping the benefits.
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The data backs up the RPG renaissance, as per ICv2:

The number of people playing hobby games, the number of people shopping at game stores, the number of stores, and exposure of hobby games at major retailers were all up in 2016, reflecting the now-mainstream nature of the hobby.
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Mike Mearls, senior manager of D&D research and design, confirmed ICv2's findings:

We're seeing a bigger audience than we've seen in a very long time—in decades. It's so easy to cast this idea that technology will be the death of D&D, but it's been really interesting to see how that has been absolutely incorrect.
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[h=3]Will the Bubble Burst?[/h]Rob Salkowitz at ICv2 predicts that mainstream geek culture will affect other industries, as they take notes on what works for geek fans and apply it to other forms of fandom like sports :

It’s been clear for a while that the fan convention template that we’ve known since the 1960s is fraying at the edges as geek culture becomes mainstream consumer culture. On one hand, this means outside players who smell the money are making their play for the fan audience, with increasingly mixed results. But on the other, it means that longtime convention organizers within the space are looking to push their shows into neighboring territory.
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Salkowitz calls this "peak geek" and it has consequences beyond geek circles:

The danger is that, even with a fresh infusion of smart nerds in strategic spots, mainstream media is still more liable than their niche counterparts to credit know-nothings on an equal basis with informed sources, misinterpret nuances, impose faulty narrative frameworks and just plain get stuff wrong when it comes to covering the business of pop culture--especially if they are taking their cues from some of the more excitable fever swamps of online fandom. The result is a much more treacherous environment for the big companies and big name creators unaccustomed to attention from these quarters.
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For tabletop games, the primary concern is that eight straight years of growth is unsustainable:

For 2017, there’s widespread concern that the number of releases is going to be greater than the market can support. "I think we're facing some challenges coming into the new year, just on the basis of the breadth of releases," one distributor told us.
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But for the moment, things have never looked better for gaming. As more and more media launches -- from videos to streaming to podcasts to television shows to movies -- geek culture will become so normalized that it may well lose some of its identity. Chris Perkins, principal D&D designer, summed up the current state of affairs:

Geek culture and nerd culture is now just culture.
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Whether or not that is a good or bad thing will be determined by us.

Mike "Talien" Tresca is a freelance game columnist, author, communicator, and a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to http://amazon.com. You can follow him at Patreon.

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[Celebrim]

I guess my problem is you're defining "the hobby" as solely someone who has played D&D. (Or, I presume any RPG)

Well, yes.

I don't see the point in defining "the hobby" that way.

Because it is... I mean, that is the hobby. And I don't think I'm in any way saying anything controversial to say that everyone on the EnWorld boards knows that, and that they know that primarily EnWorld is a website that engages with and serves the table top Role Playing game community. That's just obvious. None of us gets to "define the hobby". The hobby is what it is regardless of what we may want it to be. There are no gatekeepers. There are no fences. There is nothing snobbish about saying that. It just is true.

This isn't 1982 anymore.

No, because in 1982 D&D was mainstream and now... well, possibly not, despite the seemingly strong claim otherwise.

The basic assertion can be boiled down to "D&D is mainstream because at any one time 7,000,000 people are playing* D&D**". And that sounds like an assertion of mainstream, in the same fashion that something you might think of as niche like say professional wrestling was actually mainstream in the 80's and 90's. But it turns out you need to read the fine print because by "playing" they mean "engaging with in some fashion" and by D&D they mean "any ancillary D&D branded product".

And what's really at issue here is whether table-top games have become mainstream (again), something that can't be proved by saying, "Our numbers show a lot of people play video games, and a few even read books."

"The Hobby" has grown beyond just the TTRPG. Just like football has grown beyond just people who play the game.

Here's the thing. We are not "D&D hobbyists". I like D&D. I'm running for the last 7 or so years a house ruled version of 3.0e D&D that would be I think completely familiar in almost every regard to anyone that had played any edition of D&D between 1982 and 2002. I've spent countless hours playing D&D, but do not count my time playing Baldur's Gate or NWN or Planescape:Torment among that time. Those things were D&D branded video games that have more in common with Ultima IV, Exile III, Fallout II, Path of Exile, Skyrim, Mass Effect and what not than they do with the experience of playing D&D. They are largely solitary pursuits that involve basically no roleplaying. They are no more RPG's the way D&D, GURPS, or the Call of Cthulhu RPG are RPG's, than the old D&D 'Choose Your own Adventure' books were playing D&D, and when I read those books I was not "playing D&D". The hobby isn't "D&D". The hobby is table-top/traditional/pen and paper role-playing games, of which D&D is the flagship brand and the one most likely to have penetrated the mainstream consciousness. Back in the 80's, when D&D was actually mainstream, there was a cartoon every Saturday morning. It was pretty good. I own all the episodes on DVD, and they've held up much better than most 80's cartoons like GI Joe, Transformers, The Real Ghostbusters, and so forth. All of my friends in elementary school/junior high were familiar with the D&D cartoon. But in no manner did having watched the cartoon make them a member of the hobby, nor was the cartoon causing the game to be mainstream rather than a result of the game having become so popular. In fact, the cartoon exposure on the whole didn't really help, as it just contributed to the occult scare that nearly destroyed the brand, and certainly ended in the short term the brands viability in the marketplace, in the mid 80's.

IOW, I look at something like the article and see that "The Hobby" has expanded to the point where it might be viewed as mainstream.

As a table-top gaming hobbyist, the mainstreaming of my hobby mostly would be a good thing. It would mean more players, more acceptance, and more general esteem of my skills and experience as a long time player. It would mean more people with whom I had common experience and with which I would have mutual shared experiences that we could relate to each other and build empathy with. I honestly don't care what brand this comes about through. If suddenly everyone was playing Paranoia or Monsters and Other Childish Things or GURPS Transhuman Space (presumably because The Expanse became the biggest cultural phenomenon of the decade), I'd be cool with that too.

But World of Warcraft has already been mainstream, and it's success really didn't mean much of anything to making our hobby mainstream.

I don't see any particular need to place fences around "The Hobby".

You keep saying bonkers things like that. What in the world are you talking about?

 

[Hussar]

Because it is... I mean, that is the hobby. And I don't think I'm in any way saying anything controversial to say that everyone on the EnWorld boards knows that, and that they know that primarily EnWorld is a website that engages with and serves the table top Role Playing game community. That's just obvious. None of us gets to "define the hobby". The hobby is what it is regardless of what we may want it to be. There are no gatekeepers. There are no fences. There is nothing snobbish about saying that. It just is true.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...ally-Mainstream!-Now-What/page7#ixzz4eCWNuUF6

Like you say though, we don't get to define "The Hobby". As it becomes more mainstream, what "The Hobby" means is going to change. That's just a fact of life.

Look at Batman as an example. That's about as mainstream as we can get, right? The number of people who've actually read a Batman comic is quite probably absolutely dwarfed by the number of people who have either watched a Batman movie or TV show. So, "The Hobby" of Batman isn't defined by "people who read Batman comics" but, rather, by "people who enjoy Batman in some form of media". And, frankly, "The Hobby" of Batman likely hasn't been defined as "people who read Batman comics" in decades.

If (and I do mean if) D&D manages to achieve mainstream success, that means that "The Hobby" will change. Simply because you have so many different vectors coming into "The Hobby" that what defines "The Hobby" will become much more porous. People who have never even seen a polyhedral die will be able to say, "I like D&D" in exactly the same way that people say, "I like Batman".

That's what it means to become mainstream.

 

[Shasarak]

Like you say though, we don't get to define "The Hobby". As it becomes more mainstream, what "The Hobby" means is going to change. That's just a fact of life.

Actually we kinda do get to define "The Hobby" thats the whole point of being part of the Hobby that we get to define it.

 

[Hussar]

Actually we kinda do get to define "The Hobby" thats the whole point of being part of the Hobby that we get to define it.

I disagree. Just as comic book fans don't get to define what it means to say, "I like Batman", the more mainstream a hobby becomes, the less important hardcore fans become. We just get outnumbered by too much. Do you really think Marvel is terribly concerned that comic book sales are down? Sure, they're a business and they don't want to lose any money, but, at the end of the day, it becomes less and less important to cater to comic book buyers.

Imagine D&D becomes as mainstream as Batman (we've got a LONG way to go before that happens). Telling someone, "Oh, you don't really like D&D because you don't play the game" is no different than, "Oh, you aren't really a fan of Batman, you don't buy comic books." It gets you laughed out of the room.

Me, I welcome everyone who wants to enjoy D&D. I couldn't care less how they enjoy D&D. Simply doesn't matter to me.

 

[Shasarak]

I disagree. Just as comic book fans don't get to define what it means to say, "I like Batman", the more mainstream a hobby becomes, the less important hardcore fans become. We just get outnumbered by too much. Do you really think Marvel is terribly concerned that comic book sales are down? Sure, they're a business and they don't want to lose any money, but, at the end of the day, it becomes less and less important to cater to comic book buyers.

That may be true for you, I guess. If you think you dont make a difference then you are right about that.

In reality your hardcore fans are still the ones that drive the engine. Your "main stream" fans are the fickle ones that probably will not even remember your movie a week after they have seen it while your hardcore fans are still letting the director know exactly what they thought of a Batman suit with nipples.

Imagine D&D becomes as mainstream as Batman (we've got a LONG way to go before that happens). Telling someone, "Oh, you don't really like D&D because you don't play the game" is no different than, "Oh, you aren't really a fan of Batman, you don't buy comic books." It gets you laughed out of the room.

Well that would certainly be different then getting laughed out of the room because you say that you play DnD.

Me, I welcome everyone who wants to enjoy D&D. I couldn't care less how they enjoy D&D. Simply doesn't matter to me.

Sure people can enjoy the heck out of DnD any way they want in the privacy of their own homes as long as I dont have to listen to how cool their characters are. Heck they can even play computer games and read books as well.

 

[Celebrim]

Like you say though, we don't get to define "The Hobby". As it becomes more mainstream, what "The Hobby" means is going to change. That's just a fact of life.

Then, by definition, it won't be our hobby - it won't be the "us" in the article's title - that is becoming more mainstream, it will be something else. When someone on EnWorld says, "We're finally mainsteam!", the implication I hear is "Table-top RPG's are finally mainstream!" If that isn't the case, we just aren't more mainstream.

Look at Batman as an example. That's about as mainstream as we can get, right?

Who is "we" in that sentence?

So, "The Hobby" of Batman...

Batman isn't a hobby. I mean seriously, why do I even have to write sentences like that? Throwing quotes around it doesn't make it more logical to think of Batman as a hobby. Batman is character, a bit of intellectual property, who shows up in different media. People might be a fan of the Batman. They might have collecting Batman paraphernalia as a hobby, because collecting stuff is a popular hobby, but there are no people who have Batman as a hobby. The guy that collects Batman stuff as a hobby, but plays no RPGs, probably has more in common with someone that collects My Little Pony or Stamps than they necessarily do with someone that plays as DC Supers RPG every Friday night.

If (and I do mean if) D&D manages to achieve mainstream success, that means that "The Hobby" will change. Simply because you have so many different vectors coming into "The Hobby" that what defines "The Hobby" will become much more porous. People who have never even seen a polyhedral die will be able to say, "I like D&D" in exactly the same way that people say, "I like Batman".

I doubt it. Because D&D is first and foremost a game, and Batman is first and foremost a character. That in itself will make it difficult to say those two sentences ever in the same way. People can, and some probably do, say, "I like Drizzt Do'urden.", in the same way that people say, "I like Batman.", but claiming to like D&D in that same way is going to be difficult no matter how many D&D branded ancillary products they are and how much more important economically they become than the tabletop game. Though frankly, I think that the chance of that ever happening except by a wave of nostalgia and fascination with tabletop gaming is practically nil.

That's what it means to become mainstream.

If that's what it means to become mainstream, I dare say you'll find most people on this site won't be excited by the prospect. The hobby becoming mainstream doesn't mean D&D succeeds in finally breaking out into successful properties other than those aimed at hardcore gamers. The hobby becoming successful means that for whatever reason, more people start enjoying table top role-playing games, so that not only does demand for D&D related products grow, but more people are playing N.E.W. or Mutants & Masterminds or Deadlands or whatever.

And so far there is no sign that is ever going to happen. At the height of tabletop gaming's visibility in the 80's, D&D was a Saturday morning cartoon with its own line of action figures. Sans the occult scare, it might have become as big of IP as Transformers or GI Joe. However, instead of D&D taking over the market for fantasy gaming, what we saw is World of Warcraft adapted D&D concepts and became mainstream enough to not only get it's own superbowl commercial, but for other fortune 500 brands to be willing to associate themselves with the brand. At the height of Vampire: the Mascarade's popularity, TV producers were willing to give it it's own prime time show and people were making V:tM video games. It didn't work. But V:tM inspired fan fiction under the name 'Twilight' became massively popular - without making almost anyone want to play a vampire RPG. Heck, 'Forever Knight', which was also practically V:tM fan fiction, was probably more popular and mainstream than V:tM. Similarly, the Expanse is a popular series of novels and TV Show, without in the slightest making the GURPS: Transhuman Space game that inspired the writers of the books any more popular. There isn't hardly a fantasy or science fiction series out there any more that isn't inspired by D&D in some fashion, because hardly anyone becomes a writer without playing D&D, but it doesn't make D&D more popular.

If, and this is big if, someone were to dump as much money into the Dragonlance IP, as they've dumped into Game of Thrones, and produce a long format Chronicles of the Dragonlance, and if it were mysteriously to sell as well in the popular marketplace as Game of Thrones with its T&A, graphic violence, and other lizard brain titillation, we've no reason to think that would make the hobby more mainstream.

 

[cmad1977]

I find this funny. Many of the people insisting that 'the hobby' is only tabletop would probabaly take offense to the idea that if they play a miniatures heavy, grid based system, where one simply uses the abilities in a stat block or character sheet, then it's not really an RPG it's more of a tactical board game.



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[Tony Vargas]

ICv2's recent announcement that hobby games have become "mainstream" heralds a new age for role-playing games.

ICv2's 'Hobby Games' umbrella includes 5 categories, RPGs being the last, and, in the past, smallest by a large margin, the article doesn't go into that, nor even mention the largest RPG, D&D, though it does mention the leading CCG.

Pokemon drove major increases in collectible game sales in chain stores, with the growth in board and card game sales also dramatic.

Board games have been huge the last few years, CCGs since the 90s. Maybe RPGs are riding the coat tails in more ways than just IcV2's 'hobby games' umbrella? Maybe.

Many of the people insisting that 'the hobby' is only tabletop would probabaly take offense to the idea that if they play a miniatures heavy, grid based system, where one simply uses the abilities in a stat block or character sheet, then it's not really an RPG it's more of a tactical board game.

I would hope more would.

The TTRPG hobby was so small after the fad years, it was sad to see it sub-divided by the 'niche' trends of the 90s. d20 somewhat re-united the hobby, or at least gave it a more united 'face' to the mainstream, in D&D, as the flagship d20 game.

 

[LordEntrails]

Actually we kinda do get to define "The Hobby" thats the whole point of being part of the Hobby that we get to define it.

No you don't. You get to define your hobby. You don't get to define my hobby. You don't get to define anything except for yourself.

Society at large (something nebulous with no way to 100% define) gets to define generalities. And when it defines something as mainstream, then it is, but by circular logic and self-definition.

 

[Shasarak]

No you don't. You get to define your hobby. You don't get to define my hobby. You don't get to define anything except for yourself.

I find it amusing for you to accuse me of marginalising a DnD fan (who, I dont know but someone somewhere I guess) only to turn around and try to marginalise me in return. Mmm I love the taste of irony.

Society at large (something nebulous with no way to 100% define) gets to define generalities. And when it defines something as mainstream, then it is, but by circular logic and self-definition.

What is "Society" except a collection of individuals? Individuals act to change society otherwise we would still have one bus for white people and one bus for not white people. You can tell me that I dont speak for you but I will still be trying to get one integrated bus whether you approve or not.