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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JustinA" data-source="post: 3622909" data-attributes="member: 51618">You're assuming that a poll designed to get a data point is the be-all and end-all of the debate. You're right to argue that brick-and-mortar game stores contribute to the hobby in other ways, but there's really no way to objectively measure that without intensive market research which is far beyond the capability of a forum poll to even adequately address.At best, you could aim for some anecdotal evidence about what people say they or other people do. But it would be even more useless than a forum poll asking people how they started playing the game in terms of useful information:(1) Huge bias ends up in that poll. The fact that all of us are now reading ENWorld probably has a minimal impact on how we first got introduced to the hobby. (Although maybe not: It's certainly possible that gamers who were introduced to gaming through demos at a brick-and-mortar game store and/or a random impulse buy are under-represented on ENWorld for some reason. I could even make several hypotheses about why that might be.)But if I ask a question like, "Where do you get most of your new information about games?" the fact that we're all reading ENWorld has a rather large bias on the answer to that question.(2) People cannot be relied upon to accurately answer questions about their own behavior. Not because people are liars, but because people generally have a very tough time accurately assessing their own behavior. (And even tougher time accurately explaining their behavior.) A question like, "How did you start playing RPGs?" is a fairly concrete question with a factual answer based on external experience. Questions like, "Why do you still play RPGs?"; "How do you hear about new games?"; or "Would you still be playing RPGs if it wasn't for your LGS?" are all considerably more likely to give you back meaningless answers.(3) Even if we did get a reliable answer of, "I learn about most of my new games from a brick-and-mortar store." That answer doesn't tell us a lot about what behavior patterns people would have if they didn't have a brick-and-mortar store. Would they seek out new sources of information? Would those new sources of information actually introduce them to even more games, thereby increasing player retention and expenditure in the industry? Would they end up going to a B&N or Borders or other mainstream location with significantly smaller selection, thereby narrowing their knowledge of alternative products and (presumably) reducing player retention and expenditure? Would they just stop playing altogether?A study that could answer those questions could be conducted. (Simply find a location where a LGS has recently gone under, leaving no replacement behind, and then conduct a study focusing on its former customers.) But a web-poll would give us no insight whatsoever.(4) Even when they're just exchanging anecdotes, people tend to compare apples-and-oranges. An anecdote about how you wouldn't have discovered CHAMPIONS in 1982 if it hadn't been for your LGS is essentially meaningless in regards to what would happen today (given the complete revolution of how people receive and retrieve information).By contrast, asking about how people were introduced to the hobby can give us some useful insight: Apparently, based on the questionable sampling of this poll, the LGS was essentially insignificant as far as introducing new people to RPGs is concerned. If was insignificant in the past, is there any reason to think that it will become significant in the future?Justin Alexander<a href="http://www.thealexandrian.net" target="_blank">http://www.thealexandrian.net</a></blockquote>

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