Charles Ryan speaks - 4.6 million Americans claim to play D&D

[CarlZog]

I'm more curious to know whether their market studies are indicating any significant shift the demographics accompanying the 15-percent increase. Who are these people? Is the number of female players proportionally on the rise? Are younger players finding the game? Or is a lot of the growth attributable to middle-aged guys returning to the hobby of their youth?

Carl

 

[Perun]

I've been really (and pleasantly) surprised to see Croatia, and especially Split (my home town), is involved (although the misspelled the name of the street the store is in ).

Unfortunatelly, I won't be in Split that day, because...

Even though it's not on the list, the Jednorog ("Unicorn") game store in Belgrade, Serbia, is also participating.

...I'll be visiting Belgrade

Sammael, would you happen to know the address of the said store? If I find the time, I might drop by. Thanks!

 

[Col_Pladoh]

The absence of participation in the event by shops in England, France, Germany, Spain, Israel, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan is puzzling to me.

As for supplement sales, TSR did amazingly well with them and also with modules.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[eyebeams]

I was responding to another poster's comment, EB. No need to get riled. I couldn't care less if you're eyebeamz or not; I was just clarifying for another poster.

I described what I consider a shill (equivalent to snake-oil salesmen, willing to say anything, true or not, to get you to buy product) above.

Fair enough. I don't think anybody's lying.

IIRC, you used to work for WW, yes? The feeling I'm getting (and not just from you) would be equivalent to someone saying 'Yeah, that EB, he's a neo-Luddite hypocrite!' or 'Yeah, that EB, he likes beating women, because WW put out that game!' Are the preceding statements true? Highly unlikely.

I'm perfectly willing to discuss these in detail, though, because I think it's important to talk about this stuff. I've written detailed responses about the role that technology plays in some WW games and I've talked about my general derision for Pimp. This is a useful thing to talk about because it gets into things like:

1) What's the relationship between a publisher and its products? WW's view of Pimp was that they were "hands off" with regards to individual publications, like any largish publisher.

2) What is the development system like? Many of the stuff I've heard about WW comes from misunderstanding the development process. With Pimp, people did not realize that when people talk about "White Wolf," they're often talking about maybe five companies (WW, SSS, Arthaus, DTRPG, Publisher Services) with the same management and diverse interests that do not always include centralized content policy. With other games, people didn't always get that development dictates content, somewhere between, "Do what you want," and "I want this to be a metaphor for this topical issue, explained thusly."

I think it's better to talk it out than take sides -- but it's a good idea to challenge prevalent biases, too.

 

[Jim Hague]

Fair enough. I don't think anybody's lying.

Ok, then it's just my picking up on the suspicious vibe then. Fair enough indeed.

I'm perfectly willing to discuss these in detail, though, because I think it's important to talk about this stuff. I've written detailed responses about the role that technology plays in some WW games and I've talked about my general derision for Pimp. This is a useful thing to talk about because it gets into things like:

1) What's the relationship between a publisher and its products? WW's view of Pimp was that they were "hands off" with regards to individual publications, like any largish publisher.

2) What is the development system like? Many of the stuff I've heard about WW comes from misunderstanding the development process. With Pimp, people did not realize that when people talk about "White Wolf," they're often talking about maybe five companies (WW, SSS, Arthaus, DTRPG, Publisher Services) with the same management and diverse interests that do not always include centralized content policy. With other games, people didn't always get that development dictates content, somewhere between, "Do what you want," and "I want this to be a metaphor for this topical issue, explained thusly."

I think it's better to talk it out than take sides -- but it's a good idea to challenge prevalent biases, too.

See, this is why I come here - as a freelancer (occasionally), I see one side of the business and industry, which is the writing portion, working with editors, etc. Getting insight on how things work on the side of the people writing the paychecks, instead of writing for the checks is valuable to me. Thanks for the reply. Clarity is never wasted.

 

[Knight Otu]

It has nothing to do with EEEEEEvvvillll. But yeah -- he is a corporate shill. It's his job to be a corporate shill. The whole point of his job is to convince you to buy product and convince others that the brand is as strong as he can present it.

Shill has very negative connotations. It may not be your intention to insult Charles Ryan, but that doesn't make it not an insult.

It amuses me that people find this simple truth so very difficult to accept.

It has nothing to do with accepting that he is a bussinessman. Most of us do. But we can do so without calling him a swindler, or accomplice of one.

 

[JoeGKushner]

shill: a secret accomplice to a swindler.

Yeah, I can see how some people might think that's a negative thing.

 

[Staffan]

With an eye to that, it's interesting to compare the alleged 1.5% of the population from the 2005 scenario with the 3% of the population who play any RPG at all described at:

http://www.theescapist.com/WotCsummary1.htm

Both have, "play at least monthly" requirements and are based on statistical sampling. Yet the projected numbers of the group have risen from the parenthesis in the '99 survey despite the fact that the percentage is less by estimate here.

Note that the 1999 survey was limited to people between the ages of 12 and 35, while the "1.5% of the US population" figure quoted in this thread refers to the entire US. Also note that the 1.5% figure is not something Charles brought up - I wouldn't be surprised if their later surveys have used similar methodology as the first one, if nothing else so that the results can be compared over time.

 

[eyebeams]

shill: a secret accomplice to a swindler.

Yeah, I can see how some people might think that's a negative thing.

Anyone can abuse the dictionary:

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=shill&x=0&y=0

"also : one who makes a sales pitch"

 

[eyebeams]

Note that the 1999 survey was limited to people between the ages of 12 and 35, while the "1.5% of the US population" figure quoted in this thread refers to the entire US. Also note that the 1.5% figure is not something Charles brought up - I wouldn't be surprised if their later surveys have used similar methodology as the first one, if nothing else so that the results can be compared over time.

I can see dropping the age limitation bumping up the numbers a bit (especially since there will be more "greay gamers" now than 5-6 years ago), but that's not the same as an actual increase in players. Then again, the extraploation into numbers is very odd compared to the estimate in the old survey and the population as a whole, so who knows?