I also think that you are ignoring the fact that the 10 % core that you speak of...they were once part of the 90 % young group.
No, not at all - I fully recognize that. I'm not sure how that changes things, though, in that I think the reason those 10% became diehards ("perennials" and not just "annuals") is because the TTRPG offered them something they couldn't get anywhere else. This is my key point: that in order for TTRPGs to survive and thrive, they have to remain TTRPGs, that is games that are primarily of the imagination and not of the board or screen.
I suspect (and this is just a guess) that economic theory would say that the best path to continued success is to aim your focus at the larger youth market in hopes of converting more of them to the long-term group. Focusing solely on the older group means that you are not expanding your audience, you are, at best, stagnating it.
Agreed. And I am not saying focusing "solely." However, I suspect that the qualities of the game that keep the older group interested are the same qualities that will converting short-termers into long-termers, because it is those same qualities that differentiate TTRPGs from other forms of entertainment.
While it would be nice to be able to find a single product that can be aimed at both groups, I am not sure that it is possible. Different cultural influences and advances in games over the years means that the type of game (using type broadly here) that each group will enjoy may vary. In some cases it may vary some, in others it may vary a lot.
Yeah, this is a good question and I honestly have no idea. I'd like to see WotC
try, though. Hey, I think they kind of did with Essentials...
This isn't a challenge solely faced by WotC. This is faced by everyone in media/entertainment. Movies, TVs, video games, etc. They all have to find ways to follow the changing trends of what consumers want and how many want each type of (often conflicting) change. If they guess right more often than they guess wrong, they are doing a pretty good job.
Right. Here's an example of a success: The X-Men movies (or at least the first two). I stopped reading comic books back in '93 or so, but I loved the first two movies. Here's an example of a failure: The GI Joe movie, which I couldn't even get through the first ten minutes of and which I've heard largely negative reviews. I'm not sure if this is relevant but I think it touches a bit upon what you are saying, that there are ways to make a product appeal to different generations of fans. The X-Men movies appealed to older fans (and ex-fans like myself) as well as young 'uns, while the GI Joe movie may have been focusing too much on creating a younger generation of fans and thus lost sight of the older group and perhaps some of the qualities that appealed to the older group.
Trying to coddle and attract the elder set while neglecting the up-and-comers is a boneheaded business decision.
I agree. Is anyone saying that? But it isn't an either/or thing. See my example of the X-Men movies above. Old fans of the Claremont era X-Men could enjoy the first two movies because of their subtlety and humanism, but the movies also appealed to younger kids with their kewl factor.
The "need" for an endless supply of technical manuals to play a game of imagination is, at least from what I have seen, distributed that way.
I think you are misunderstanding why people buy "unnecessary" RPG books - that is, splats and other books that one will probably not use in an actual game. Because they are fun to read, fun to look at, and nice to have on one's shelf for reference. Most modern humans like to acquire and collect things. Gamers like to collect game books. This is why you get these sorts of
poll results. Granted, probably 99% of the respondents are "diehard" gamers, but that means that almost 23% of diehard EN Worlders own at least 1,000 RPG products, 40% at least 500, and almost 75% at least 100. This is why I said that approximately 10% of the gaming populace buys about half the gaming products (or something like that).
Let's go with the 2/3 young to 1/3 old from the 1999 survey. That's 2 young gamer for every 1 old gamer. That means, in order to have fewer diehards, the young ones have to be *less than half as likely* to be diehards, or they'll equal or exceed the older folks.
Honestly, that just doesn't fit. It is my understanding that younger folks tend to be more completionist in their buying patterns than older folks, rather than less.
Hmm...not sure I agree with your reasoning here. By definition, older folks are more likely to be diehards simply by virtue of the fact that if they're still playing at 40 or 45 then they're probably really into it. I would say that the young ones
are less than half as likely to be diehards simply by virtue of the fact that many of them are just trying it out, just getting started and many of them won't continue past a first experience.
However, I don't think the young / old divide is so much WotC's problem as the invested/casual divide.
Well yes, or how to bring as many young players into invested/diehardness rather than casualness.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if the vast majority of rpg splatbooks are purchased by the "compulsive completionist" type individuals.
Of such "compulsive completionist" type individuals I've known over the years, most of their purchases are read once or twice and then put on the bookshelf to collect dust. For example, I know one person who has bought almost every single Palladium RIFTS title released over the last two decades, but has only ever played one game of RIFTS back in the early 1990's.
"Compulsive completionists" are simply the most extreme version of collectors of which most diehard gamers are. See linked poll above. I'm not a compulsive completionist but I do buy about 60% of the 4E hardcovers, which is quite a few.
