Not to be all doom-and-gloomy, I'd say no, or at least not really. I'm of the opinion that tabletop RPGs are dying a slow death, that there are less and less serious/hardcore gamers being created. The good news is that the existing base is strong and it is a habit that many do not give up, so as long as "we" (the 25-45ish base) don't stop playing RPGs, the hobby will survive, if not thrive.
I hate to say it, folks, but in 20-30 years TRPGers might be perceived somewhat similarly to stamp collectors or model railroaders now (q: does anyone under the age of 50 collect stamps? If so the number is very, very small; someone might be asking the same question about TRPGs in twenty years).
I will posit a hypothesis: If a child is exposed to video games at an early age and plays them a lot, they'll be less inclined to enjoy tabletop RPGs later on. Why? Because their imagination becomes dependent upon external imagery. More and more children are playing video games (not to mention watching television) pretty much as soon as they are ex utero. This is a travesty, imo.
Yet every single study denies this. I mean, the same thing has been said of TV for my entire lifetime. TV is the death of reading. Yet, currently,
Young adult fiction sales are up 25 per cent. Every single major publisher now sports a young adult fiction line. The idea that video games are hurting imagination just isn't supported by the studies.
On the other hand there may be a backlash to computer/video game entertainment as more and more people want "the real deal" (human imagination) and not a simulation. This may lead to role-playing type games becoming more mainstream, or at least having a renaissance--but in a different form more conducive to a larger variety of people.
The whole problem with this thought is that it's a zero sum game. "If people play video games, then they can't be reading" is the thought. To some degree, I suppose its true. There are, after all, only so many hours in the day. But, time after time this gets brought up and shot down. Video games are not destroying the brains of the youth.
And, really, I'm 36, I turn 37 next week. I grew up with video games. I had an Atari 2600 back in the very early 80's. I spent a bajillion hours playing that bloody thing. Yet, somehow, I still read lots and game frequently.
We already have an entire generation that has grown up on video games - most of us. Certainly anyone under the age of 40 grew up with video games in the house. While I do realize there are a number of gamers over 40, I'm still thinking most gamers are younger than that.
I dunno, maybe I'm just going by my own experiences and can't see a broader picture. But, like I said, I've gone through about 100 players in the past six years using VTT's like OpenRPG and now Maptools. Easily half of those have been 21 or younger.
