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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 5357739" data-attributes="member: 59082">Yes, this is true for many of us. But let's look at it another way: Is there anything you would rather be doing when you do have "hobby time"? I'm not talking about work time, family time, or even personal passion/art time, but just plain fun time.Speaking for myself, outside of work and family, there is still a period of time each day that I can devote to stuff that I want to do. As with many serious fans of RPGs, I spend way more time thinking, reading, and conversing about RPGs than I do playing them. My current game group meets every two weeks for about four hours; I would say that I spend a good 1-3 hours daily on RPG-related activities: websites and discussion boards, reading books, working on my campaign setting, etc.During my 28-year RPG history my focus on RPGs has ebbed and flowed; I have experience a few multi-year hiatuses from the hobby in which I didn't play at all, rarely bought or read anything. In other words, I go through active and inactive phases, but I find myself always come back to active phases. At some point within the last couple years I came to a realization: I would almost certainly always love RPGs and be a fan of some degree, at least for the foreseeable future. I kept on thinking I would grow up and out of interest, but I always come back to it. So I surrendered, fleshed out my collection, and am now happily enjoying my status as a lifer!My point being, even when life gets busy and one can't game for years on end, the serious fans of the hobby have a way of finding themselves back to it, at some point, at some point. There might be D&D players who dwindled away in the mid-00s, didn't get drawn back by 4E, but may get sparked by 5E in a few years (or Essentials, for that matter).This doesn't mean that RPGers aren't dwindling; I would guess that they are, but that there is a rock-solid core that will now allow the hobby or industry to die for many decades. The industry may collapse in 5-10 years, but it will almost certainly be reborn, albeit in a newer, smaller form. As any D&D player knows, death isn't always permanent. Any "collapse" that the RPG industry goes through in the near future will almost certainly be followed by a rebirth and reconfiguration in a smaller--but maybe healthier?--context.True. However, it seems that the "escapist entertainment industry" usually thrives in periods of economic down-turn. I would guess that people aren't seeing less movies, for instance; they are renting less, and video stores are going out of business right and left, but that is not because people are watching less, but because they are getting their movies online or in the mail. Yes, exactly. See my point about about video stores, which is an appropriate analogy, I think. The main reason game stores have been dwindling away is not because people are playing less, but because they are buying elsewhere, namely online. The economic climate only increases this tendency as it makes the difference between a $35 + tax price and a $23 price all that much larger.</blockquote>

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