Times change. Simple as that.
It's about what entertains you, at what effort and what cost.
You could buy a comic for $2-4 or buy some game on Steam that is on sale for $5.
What will entertain you for longer?
Also dnd 5E rides on the wave that being a nerd (finally) is a positive term, and not an insult, so lots of kids are now not being bullied after their hobby becomes public knowledge.
Celebrities saying that they played DnD for years also helped with games public image.
It would be interesting to see(and hopefully we will see it) how tabletop DnD would compete with a simulator, something like Startrek holodeck.
would books be able to compete if 5 or 6 of you can spend $50 for a premade adventure as completed holodeck scenario that would last for 10hrs or so?
Not to mention if you are able to tweak the scenario to your liking. More of this, less of that...
LARP is great, but few people do it because it needs too much effort for majority of people.
It's a logistic hell for organizers, even players are required to be few days in some remote forest or similar location.
Lots of people simply do not have time for that.
But if you could spend 2 or 3 saturday evenings for 4 or 5 hours to compete an adventure in holodeck, that would be 100× more available to people. Just go to your local VR arena for your prepurchased time and have instant fun without any logistic problem.
