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Message: <blockquote data-quote="buzz" data-source="post: 1525183" data-attributes="member: 6777">The other day, my brother and I were talking about Harley-Davidson. Namely, the phenomenon of "yuppie bikers," i.e., the rising popularity of Harleys among older, wealthier cycle enthusiasts, and how the company itself has embraced the idea of a Harley as a "boutique" item. These are poeple who finally have a lot of disposable income, and they want the bikes they long dreamed of getting.This made me wonder. Whenever I read discussions about the "health of the hobby," it's often lamented that the player base is aging, and that companies are not doing enough to bring in younger gamers. "Younger gamers" seems to be a holy grail of sorts.But, is this really important? Kids (i.e., under 18) generally don't have their own income, nor much say in how the income they do have access to is spent. OTOH, many people over 30 pretty much have more buying power than is really good for them and don't really have to answer to anyone about what they purchase. They can walk into a game store or surf Amazon.com and drop $100 without really flinching.Might it be a more sound strategy to focus on the adult customer? To bring back older players whose interest can be driven by nostalgia? To bring in new players who are further along in life and don't consdier $39.95 for a rule book financially problematic?It's possible that this is a big "duh!" I mean, the "3rd edition rules, 1st edition feel" marketing for D&D3e and companies like Necromancer certainly plays on bringing in the player old enough to remember 1st edition in the first place. And Ryan Dancey has talked about tapping the "boutique" demographic, which we're seeing in things like the special edition PHB that's coming out, the coffee-table 30th anniversary D&D book, or the deluxe versions of games like V:TM, Buffy, or SAS/BESM.The flip side, I suppose, is that there may be a potential to alienate other demographics. I understand that Harley-Davidson has been pressuring old-school, mom-and-pop dealerships to remodel their stores with a boutique look or forsake their product. I certianly hear lots of complaning on various fora from gamers about how games are too expensive these days--something I still don't agree with at all, really, but hey.Still, I wonder. Maybe the general "greying" of the gaming populace is really a good thing, and should be embraced wholeheartedly.Discuss.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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