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Message: <blockquote data-quote="doctorhook" data-source="post: 4538210" data-attributes="member: 58401">I don't really understand why the relative number of D&Ders (as opposed to the absolute) matters.Yes, in the '80s, D&D was definitely more high profile in popular culture than it is today. That said, sales data also suggests to us D&D is being purchased by more people now than at any time in the past, including during its fad days. Thus, even though D&D might be played by a smaller percentage of the total population now than in the '80s, there are still significantly more people playing D&D (and therefore buying D&D products) than in the '80s. Since businesses succeed on the basis of whether or not their revenue exceeds their costs, rather than "more than X percentage of the population plays the game". Hence, D&D is played by more people now and making more money now; why does the relative number of players matter?Perhaps another example: People living in A and B want to build football stadiums for their towns. In Town A, 100% of the population loves football and is willing to donate money for stadium construction, but Town B, only 10% of the population loves football and is willing to donate money to build a stadium. Which town can afford to build a stadium? Town A, you say? Not necessarily. Town A has a total population of one hundred people, of whom all one hundred are football fans. In contrast, Town B has a total population of one million (it's a big town), and of them, one hundred thousand people are football fans. So despite having a ten-times higher relative percentage of football fans, building a football stadium is much LESS economically feasible in Town A than Town B, because Town B has enough fans to make construction possible. Why is it this way? Because with absolute measures such as costs, relative numbers don't generally matter.FWIW, also consider that being lower profile now than in the '80s has been good for sales of D&D. Remember it used to get a lot of negative attention which doubtlessly scared away at least some business.</blockquote>

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