Again, what survey? Has anyone been able to find anything except secondhand reporting with untrustworthy framing of even what we're looking at, much less the wording? I'm still strongly leaning toward Wizards had a 40+ or 45+ category in their data and Geekwire reported that as Gen X (not that literally less than 0.5% of the people reached by whatever data collection this was were boomer+) and/or that the actual population studied was something other than 'the D&D player population.'
I also question how much total wealth matters. I think I spent more on RPGs --in real dollars (inflation adjusted or not), not as percent of income -- when I was a teenager working 5-20 hrs/week than I do now at ~50 working full time for high-level professional wages.
That is a valid point that imo falls under bad methodology. But you are right, I haven’t seen anything to corroborate this and it might just be bad journalism.
As for how much wealth matters, I personally spend 20-30$ a month on incidental RPGs products and I’m between games.
I‘ve recently bought 5 starter sets as a gift for friends and family, I am literally the engine that grow the hobby.
I had to look this up because as it turns out, only a certain corner of the internet cared for more than a nanosecond, but man that's hilarious. 'Oh no, mah manliness is threatened by the movie about the children's game I enjoy!'. Sad, fragile Alphas are the best.
What I think happened is that marvel phase 4 put people on edge and that comment simply drove folks to think that it is going to be the same crapy political agenda over good story telling.
I can name dozens, maybe 50-60 people, who watched the movie simply because I bought it on iTunes and gave them my username. Those are people that would have eagerly watched it in cinema a year ago.
And 40% of that group are women. So laugh all you want, it’s a real issue.
I agree about the first part, but not necessarily about the second: being at the tail end of the millennial bracket (i.e. early 40s), there's a notable number of people in my friend circles and communities I'm active in who are done with 5e, and WotC-D&D in general, game-wise. However, many went to see the D&D movie and the feedback was almost universally positive.
In fact, while I don't see myself buying any WotC-D&D book anytime soon, I'd gladly watch another D&D movie (assuming it was following in the footsteps of the current one).
It’s not uniformal. See my response to Vaalingrade above. Some people heard about that and some didn’t.
Some want nothing to do with WotC for various reasons some want nothing to do with 5e or the upcoming 6e, some even refuse to do business with them or use the IP no matter how lucrative the proposed deal is.
And before anyone ask, yes I have inside informatiom, no I won’t comment on it any further except to say that there are a bunch of people trying to fix this.