Not a strong position. Tabletop RPG websites do not account for much of the TRPG gaming population WotC has claimed their market research reveals. And, we are of highly pre-selected types. We don't represent gamers as a whole. So, while we may not segregate, it may be that the masses of other players do.
GMS specifically identified the online TRPG presence as shrinking down to a small, hardscore group who identify as "gamers" in a way that does not include playing other games.
GMS said:
The problem, though, is that what we’re left with in the tabletop community are the hardest of the hardcore — which can be both a positive and a negative. They’re dedicated (obsessive), loyal (rigidly orthodox), and constant (inflexible). This is their preferred method of gaming — but for most, that’s led to an almost self-segregation from the rest of gaming: console, online, PC, board, cards, etc. A lot of these folks don’t even seen these other platforms as part of the same hobby. When they say “gamer”, they mean “tabletop gamer” — the rest of the wider gaming world is part of some other hobby.
I posited to my friend that I don’t think the overall level of negativity and vitriol found in the community online has changed much since the dawn of the internet. What has changed is the size of the community — the negativity is at the same level, but the community is far smaller. Part of that is probably because we’ve dwindled to the True Believers — the ones most strident in their identification with the hobby, and therefore possessed of the most passion in arguing about it.
Pre-selected or no, GMS's gamers
who only play tabletop games are mythical.
My instinct is that there is huge crossover between the groups. However, the presence on sites like this is not a solid indicator.
It's true I don't have extensive marketing data, but I know of no tabletop gamers, none, who is not involved in at least one more of MMOs, trading card games, miniature wargaming, or board games. When I visit gaming stores, many of the players there are tuned into Halo and WoW and so forth. Game Chest, at Valley View, has a huge RPG section, selling back to back with board games, and the front desk is flooded with collectible card games and more. Why would these all be sold at the same place if they aren't sold to a somewhat unified group of customers?
As a matter of style and rhetorical strength - if you are going to try to call someone else's position a myth, I would recommend against using unprovable, anecdotally supported assertions to do it. It is well known that sales data for the early days does not exist - Gygax himself said so, IIRC - leaving your position unprovable. Basically, you're pitting your legend against his myth.
My point doesn't hinge on those anecodotes. Tossing that whole discussion out the window, it's obvious that many gaming groups have more players than they have copies of the rules. I also see plenty of AD&D books in stock at Half Price. As those books came from somewhere, that implies someone has stopped playing AD&D, which means that sometime in the last couple of decades, they WERE playing AD&D.
In college, I was involved in playing many games which were unavailable at local game stores, including Torg (OOP at the time), Tales from the Floating Vagabond, and Synnibarr. I also played in a Hero System conversion of Forgotten Realms with some Palladium add-ons. In fact, during my two years of college, I don't think I saw anyone purchase brand new RPGs of any kind apart from Vampire and Werewolf.
At the moment, I agree that this is likely. Someone would step in to try to be the next Paizo. But that's if all the publishers disappeared tomorrow. Today, demand exists, but times change. If companies disappeared after, say, five years of slide into economic failure and increasing player apathy, such revival would be rather less assured.
Considering how long AD&D has held its head above water, I am confident many current products can look forward to a long life.
