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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6365205" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>Have you stopped to think about the nature of that 'wall?' People outside the hobby /have/ heard of D&D. They've seen the actors in Big Bang Theory pretend to play it several times. In the past, being a nerdy/geeky thing was bad, but the past decade or so geek has been chic. MMOs losely based on D&D have had huge mass-market appeal. LotR movies have had huge mass appeal. Everything has been in place for D&D to really take off like it did in the 80s and then some - and has been for many years, going back to, like back to 2000.</p><p></p><p>And it hasn't. It hasn't even come close, no matter what WotC has tried to do to goose the franchise. They tried making it open source, and d20 did prettymuch eat the hobby alive for a while there, but it didn't bring in vast numbers of new players. They tried giving it an on-line component, but couldn't develop it. They tried improving it as a game - making it less arcane and more accessible - and the core fan-base rebelled and actively sabotaged it. Now they're just looking back and consolidating it around that core.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Maybe the core fan base /is/ the problem? Maybe it's not just the game that's hard for new players to get into or even grasp, but the grouchy, elitist grognards they have to contend with to even try it, that are driving them away? </p><p></p><p>But, as a counterpoint to my own theory, I have to admit that in the context of the public venue where I've been gaming for 4 or 5 years now (since the Dark Sun season of Encounters, whenever that was), the hobby is not that grey. The players have been mostly new, mostly college-age or 30s - with a few kids, and a few closer to my own age. So, at the small scale, D&D /can/ be adopted by new players. But, the broader phenomenons - the playtest restults dragging us back to old-school and 3e styles, Pathfinder rising to prominence by being 'more like D&D than D&D,' and so forth - seem to point to the broader hobby being older, more serious, and unwelcoming or unappealing to newer or younger (or more casual) players.</p><p></p><p> They probably don't have the resources, after the failure to push D&D to 'core brand' $100mil/yr status via DDI/VTT and trying to put the OGL genie back in the bottle. They took years to develop a re-iteration of the core game, and look to be outsourcing everything else. They may try to spin that positively, but I think the bottom line is that Hasbro (and WotC for that matter) no longer sees the D&D franchise as something worth investing significantly in.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 6365205, member: 996"] Have you stopped to think about the nature of that 'wall?' People outside the hobby /have/ heard of D&D. They've seen the actors in Big Bang Theory pretend to play it several times. In the past, being a nerdy/geeky thing was bad, but the past decade or so geek has been chic. MMOs losely based on D&D have had huge mass-market appeal. LotR movies have had huge mass appeal. Everything has been in place for D&D to really take off like it did in the 80s and then some - and has been for many years, going back to, like back to 2000. And it hasn't. It hasn't even come close, no matter what WotC has tried to do to goose the franchise. They tried making it open source, and d20 did prettymuch eat the hobby alive for a while there, but it didn't bring in vast numbers of new players. They tried giving it an on-line component, but couldn't develop it. They tried improving it as a game - making it less arcane and more accessible - and the core fan-base rebelled and actively sabotaged it. Now they're just looking back and consolidating it around that core. Maybe the core fan base /is/ the problem? Maybe it's not just the game that's hard for new players to get into or even grasp, but the grouchy, elitist grognards they have to contend with to even try it, that are driving them away? But, as a counterpoint to my own theory, I have to admit that in the context of the public venue where I've been gaming for 4 or 5 years now (since the Dark Sun season of Encounters, whenever that was), the hobby is not that grey. The players have been mostly new, mostly college-age or 30s - with a few kids, and a few closer to my own age. So, at the small scale, D&D /can/ be adopted by new players. But, the broader phenomenons - the playtest restults dragging us back to old-school and 3e styles, Pathfinder rising to prominence by being 'more like D&D than D&D,' and so forth - seem to point to the broader hobby being older, more serious, and unwelcoming or unappealing to newer or younger (or more casual) players. They probably don't have the resources, after the failure to push D&D to 'core brand' $100mil/yr status via DDI/VTT and trying to put the OGL genie back in the bottle. They took years to develop a re-iteration of the core game, and look to be outsourcing everything else. They may try to spin that positively, but I think the bottom line is that Hasbro (and WotC for that matter) no longer sees the D&D franchise as something worth investing significantly in. [/QUOTE]
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