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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wingsandsword" data-source="post: 2592667" data-attributes="member: 14159">The idea of a "self image problem" is probably based in the idea that we honestly have little reliable information on the size of our hobby, and very little up-to-date reliable information on the size of gaming.  The occasional "is gaming dying?" type threads really play on that uncertainty, with people saying it was obviously bigger back in the 80's when you could get D&D box sets at Sears and other everyday stores, while now it's largely confined to hobby shops and chain bookstores.All most of us have are anecdotes, CG&R figures, and the old WotC numbers that were released back in 2000.  The C&GR numbers are very dubious in their methodology, and WotC released some numbers about 5 years ago that looked positive, but in an field that has only really existed for 30 years, 5 years is an eternity, and it's quite clear that 3e/d20 has changed the face of gaming (making those figures further inaccurate).  Many of us would like to think gaming is big, and healthy (and the rapidly growing size of Gen Con does support that), but many people are unconvinced.  If you look around on this site, there have been several threads with naysayers claiming the entire industry is on the edge of collapse with plummeting sales and everybody who disagrees is naive and deluded (personally I think that part is silly, how does our main convention get bigger every year while the hobby is supposedly falling apart?).Maybe it has something to do with the fact our hobby still has a vague negative stigma in some quarters.  I still meet new gamers who weren't allowed to play D&D until they got to college because their parents think D&D is "satanic", my dad believed it until only a few years ago, when I showed him that D&D is made by Hasbro, and there was no way a respected name like that would be making some kind of occult-indoctrination/satanic cult manuals (like he'd heard), their shareholders would never tolerate that.</blockquote>

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