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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zaruthustran" data-source="post: 3465633" data-attributes="member: 1457">That first bit made me grin. Totally true. <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=":)" />I've seen a few posts from people who got their start with D&D via a Dragon that had a cool cover. That used to be one of the main vehicles for people getting into the hobby--back when "hobbyist" was a subclassification of people, and folks regularly went into FLGSs.Well, it's not like that anymore. Gamers/nerds have pretty much won the culture war (see Lost, Heroes, Spiderman (the movie), 300, LotR, 24, CSI, Star Wars, etc. etc.): sixty-nine percent of American heads of households play computer & video games. Sure, some small sliver of people would continue to get into the hobby via a Drag mag--but as a percentage of the huge population of new gamers who get into it via a friend or an online link, that sliver is barely measurable.The reality is that the vast majority of us buy our games (and interact with our community) online. We spend way, way more hours posting on boards and IMing than we do actually talking with other people face-to-face. Just look at the bottom of the main ENWorld messageboard--this place has 50,000 members. That's more than twice the attendance of Gencon, and the people here stick around 365/days a year! So, it just makes sense for WotC to follow their customers online. Frankly, I was getting a little worried that they waited this long: 8.5 million people worldwide are paying to play WoW each month--the 2 million in the US alone generate $3.3 million dollars a month from that single online role playing game. I mean, come on. How could WotC, as owner of the oldest and most-beloved rpg brand, have waited this long to follow their customers?I support WotC gathering the Dragon and Dungeon licenses back in-house and devoting a big team to real online development. They've messed up with digital products in the past--everyone knows that--but I'm optimistic about what they can do. Many of the old-school R&D guys are still at the reigns of D&D. The company is producing exciting new mechanics like what we've seen in Star Wars Saga Edition and Book of Nine Swords. I can't help but look forward to what they've got cooking*. -z* Paizo, too. Those guys have grown from a small mag publisher to the biggest (and best) hobby store on the Internet, with new book, games, and periodical initiatives. I can't wait to see what they do now that they don't have to spend time and resources on Dragon and Dungeon, and can instead pursue their own projects.</blockquote>

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