You also have to have an intersection of people who are interested in both RPG's and technology such as video conferencing, virtual table tops. I have run successful play by post games, though those are different, slower, more literary.
There are plenty of people who'd love a WEG based Star Wars still... and since LFL owns the copyrights... which is how FFG was able to reprint the WEG 1e core and sourcebook.The West End Games version of SW got quite a bit of support from what I recall. We played the 2E version and I don't remember it being overly complicated or having any strange rules. There were over 100 books for that RPG
Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Mine as well. But having played FTF with these scenery chewers, I miss being able to read their expressions.
In 2013 we were using Hero Lab and just Skyping but none of us at that point knew much about playing by video conferencing. Seemed like it should have been straight forward, but we had issues. Same when we were using Roll20 in April of 2020. We're all somewhat tech savy but besides myself who was DMing, no one else wanted to take the time to learn Roll20 so it usually came down to them trying to get it to work when they signed on to play. We just decided it wasnt worth it and just started playing in person outside regardless of COVID.
One of my players expressed interest in playing a SW RPG about a month ago, but the rest of the players weren't game so we nixed the idea. I've long since sold my WEG and WotC SW books, so I'd imagine those are pretty expensive on the secondary market. I did give the free 5eSW a cursory look last night, which if I were to start another campaign that's probably the most ideal option. Not to mention after the sequel trilogy, I got SW fatigue with everything on Disney+; which I don't watch. I enjoyed the TTRPGs well enough, but I always found players had trouble separating the movies from the campaign we were playing, which made it hard to GM. Thay always wanted to find a lightsaber, hang out with Han and Chewie and joyride in the Millenium Falcon or fight Darth Vader. So, I'm pretty certain my days of playing a SW RPG are behind me.
Don't give up hope... I've had a lot of players who had no problems; while the issue you've had is not unique, I've had only 3 players who couldn't get out of the "must play the setting mains" mode. Of about 50 who have played either WEG or FFG with me over the decades.
When the idea of running a SW campaign was brought up recently it was quickly vetoed by 2 out of 4 players. I don't think those two are interested, and personally I'm not really keen on trying to teach the group another rule set. We played Modern AGE which is based on a d6 mechanic, wasn't a disaster but wasn't great either. I think my players are just more familiar and comfortable with d20 based systems. As I said earlier in the thread, we just seem to keep coming back to D&D. I haven't run a SW game or read any of the novels since 2010 so my recollection of the lore, systems, races, equipment and vehicles, etc of the setting is not what it once was, which adds another barrier to a successful campaign. The Death Star novel is the last thing I remember reading which was good.
