Well, as a retailer I can say that yes, initially WoW, almost completely by itself, was hurting tabletop RPG sales... big time. The sky did seem to be falling and many a retailer went out of business because of the popularity of video games like WoW and the consoles. However, over the last year sales have started to bottom out, reach a low level point and started to go up again on some core materials as retailers have learned to balance. The problem is that it is hard to try new games etc. without getting totally burnt because the interest isn't there like it used to be. There was a time when a new game from White Wolf would have sold. Arcana Evolved didn't do well for us though when it was initially released as Arcana Unearthed it sold pretty well. Midnight 2e flopped in our store. Now only recognizable products seem to be selling liek D&D, WoD, Shadowrun, M&M, and the Buffy/Angel games. This is anecdotal at best for my store but similar comments have been made in the ICV2 Retailer Guide to Games and Game Trade Magazine... The future is looking brighter for the big guns, but it isn't a good time to start a new RPG company.