I am in the middle ground. I do feel those that say the hobby is going strong do have their heads in the sand and are ignoring the obvious signs of a declining hobby. On the other hand, the "hard data" given tend not to be the strongest of signs. The key is these unreliable signs still almost all point in the same direction.
Agreed. According to the experts, the tabletop hobby has been dying for decades, and yet we're still here... but it would be a mistake to think that tabletop gaming is doing 'well'. At best, I would suggest it is doing okay.
But I wouldn't expect it ever to die off completely, and in fact think it may not shrink too much more. There are some things that tabletop gaming can offer that online gaming can't (at least for now; possibly, ever), the primary one being the feeling of sitting around a table with a bunch of friends - sure, online tools provide a facsimile of this, but it's just not the same.
1) Specialty stores are not a good indicator - didn't most of us start playing at home, not in specialty stores? And certainly specialty stores are not a good measure of sales - Amazon could fill that gap rather nicely.
Yep. RPGs could be selling more than they ever had, and the FLGS could still be dying due to internet sales.
(However, there are other problems associated with the death of the FLGS. Amazon and the like are great for buying all sorts of things, but only if you know what you want before you go there. D&D and the like need some sort of advertising presence to make people aware of the games in the first place, or their availability on Amazon is for naught. Of course, the FLGS is probably not the best possible venue for this, and probably hasn't been for some time, but it's still better than nothing.)
2) How many books sold by the Rank #5 game sold for the quarter doesn't not speak to how many #1 through 4 sold. There's an indication there that the hobby may be focused on a small number of games, but that's not an indication of its overall size.
It also says nothing of numbers #6 through #20 and beyond. In fact, I would expect there to be two or three games selling (relatively) huge numbers, and then "the rest". It happens that Dresden Files is #5 this time, but it could very well have been any one of many other games; it's just a question of how the numbers have come back this time.
Or maybe not. Who knows?