D&D General No One Reads Conan Now -- So What Are They Reading?

[Umbran]

I know AI art is a thing. Will there be worry of AI authors?

I'm calling this "unlikely". We may, in fact, now be at roughly the peak performance of generative AI, for technical reasons. If it cannot write a coherent story now, it is unlikely to do so affordably.

Why? Because generative AI is basically a statistical model. Improving its performance requires increasing the amount of data you feed it. Broadly speaking, for such models, to reduce the errors by half, you must quadruple the amount of data you feed the thing.

The problem is then that the models have already been fed most of the readily available data that can be scraped off the internet affordably. There isn't enough English-language prose lying around to double, much less quadruple, the size of training sets.

Further improvements are apt to call for actually paying for content, or paying very smart humans to accompany the AI with complicated sets of heuristics. Either way, the cost of the AI skyrockets. When the major point was that AI was going to be cheap, that's a limiting factor on the AI.

 

[Bedrockgames]

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Ironically most believe this Conan more true to REH'S incarnation but the movie flopped hard.

That one was just so mediocre was the issue. Its problem had less to do with the characterization and more to do with it just not coming together. It was better than Red Sonja though

 

[Bedrockgames]

I know you're talking primarily about the past, but as I understand it, the biggest group of comic-book readers now is aged 35-54, particularly centering on the 40s. And that actual "kids" represent an extremely small proportion of Marvel's market, much as Marvel would wish otherwise.

I went to a comic book store with friends the other day and it was almost all adults there

 

[Belen]

I know you're talking primarily about the past, but as I understand it, the biggest group of comic-book readers now is aged 35-54, particularly centering on the 40s. And that actual "kids" represent an extremely small proportion of Marvel's market, much as Marvel would wish otherwise.

The companies stopped making content for kids to chase older crowds. They are suffering now.

 

[Imaro]

I know you're talking primarily about the past, but as I understand it, the biggest group of comic-book readers now is aged 35-54, particularly centering on the 40s. And that actual "kids" represent an extremely small proportion of Marvel's market, much as Marvel would wish otherwise.

I'm probably biased because my sons both read comics... of course it's on their tablets with a digital subscription to Marvel.

 

[SteveC]

The companies stopped making content for kids to chase older crowds. They are suffering now.

As the dad of an 8 year-old, there's tons of content out there that's she's enjoying. It's just not comic books like I grew up with. I think that was right when I started reading comic books and I still check out stores in my area every now and then. It's definitely not targeted at young kids.

Edited to add: when I go with my daughter for crafting supplies, there's tons of stuff there for Avengers and Spider Man ... just not at the comic store.

 

[overgeeked]

Yeah. Would actively avoid all books about mushrooms that have been published after 2022 just to be safe.

At least those self-published on Amazon.

 

[Clint_L]

This has always been the case. It doesn’t explain the change.

I would suggest that the expectation of a having a “household”, i.e. a nuclear family, has fallen drastically, leaving youngsters with nothing to do apart from play video games.

It's a lot of factors, but I think the main one is the ubiquity of smart phones. Which can be used for video games, sure, but frankly I'd prefer kids to be playing video games rather than obsessively surfing social media and looking up memes and a gazillion other things that they are doing. The decline in readership (which, as Umbran pointed out, is consistent amongst boys and girls, not exclusive to boys) has a lot to do with us giving them a whole lot of other, easier options for their eyes and brains, and letting them carry those around in their pockets all day and night. For most people, not just kids, a book can't compete with a phone.

This very much impacts the kind of fantasy that gets published today, because reading is no longer mass entertainment. When Conan was created, most people read, so you had cheap books and magazines aimed at almost every demographic. Now, reading is becoming more of a specialized entertainment. Readers tend to be better educated, and more particular.

 

[Umbran]

Might be all the alt-Reich hate.

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[Belen]

It's a lot of factors, but I think the main one is the ubiquity of smart phones. Which can be used for video games, sure, but frankly I'd prefer kids to be playing video games rather than obsessively surfing social media and looking up memes and a gazillion other things that they are doing. The decline in readership (which, as Umbran pointed out, is consistent amongst boys and girls, not exclusive to boys) has a lot to do with us given them a whole lot of other, easier options for their eyes and brains, and letting them carry them around in their pockets all day and night.

This very much impacts the kind of fantasy that gets published today, because reading is no longer mass entertainment. When Conan was created, most people read, so you had cheap books and magazines aimed at almost every demographic. Now, reading is becoming more of a specialized entertainment. Readers tend to be better educated, and more particular.

This is why my kids are not allowed to have smart phones but my 12 and 7 year olds do have e-ink readers.

Of course, the school system just banned any device that can connect to WiFi so they cannot use them at school any longer.

I told the principal that I found it ironic that the school would not make exceptions for book readers while complaining that kids have a reading deficit. I then said “what are you afraid of, he will download more books?”