Jeremy Ackerman-Yost
Explorer
The most important consumer is still the guy who prefers books. So the transition still hasn't really happened.
But we're getting to a point where people play WoW before ever being introduced to D&D. And now Bioware is actually making an MMO, for god's sake. Story is moving into that space on a level that most DMs I've met can't match. People who "grow up" in that space expect games to work well and problems with the game to be fixed.
Sure, that mentality will never be universal, but it will account for a larger and larger percentage of the audience over time.
For better or for worse, an increased access to "expert game designers" will push people to rely on those experts and expect things from them. That has been the pattern of history as access to convenience becomes available. By the time Puritans colonized the New World, they had gotten so used to civilized life in Europe that most of them didn't know how to start a fire or build a house. A few decades ago, if you were the kind of guy to have a computer, you could build one. Now people call up fake experts like "the Geek Squad" to deal with the fact that they forgot to plug in their monitors.
But we're getting to a point where people play WoW before ever being introduced to D&D. And now Bioware is actually making an MMO, for god's sake. Story is moving into that space on a level that most DMs I've met can't match. People who "grow up" in that space expect games to work well and problems with the game to be fixed.
Sure, that mentality will never be universal, but it will account for a larger and larger percentage of the audience over time.
For better or for worse, an increased access to "expert game designers" will push people to rely on those experts and expect things from them. That has been the pattern of history as access to convenience becomes available. By the time Puritans colonized the New World, they had gotten so used to civilized life in Europe that most of them didn't know how to start a fire or build a house. A few decades ago, if you were the kind of guy to have a computer, you could build one. Now people call up fake experts like "the Geek Squad" to deal with the fact that they forgot to plug in their monitors.