What makes setting lore "actually matter" to the players?

[aramis erak]

Yeah but while there’s a handful of people like you, threads like this wouldn’t exist if this was a common paradigm in the hobby.

It's common enough - outside the D&D sphere, at least. Especially licensed games.

I'd say about half of the players I've run for have had 1 to 4 settings they were into the lore for...but that's largely either 1-2 D&D settings, or 1-4 licensed or deep lore settings (especially Star Wars, Star Trek, SG-1, L5R, Marvel, and DC)...

The thing is, the majority of players overall are D&D only, and that's not most of my player base over the last 34 years. Of the 400+ total players, at least 200 of them had lore fixations. For just D&D AL, of the 30-some different players, about 1/4 were lore fixated on one or more D&D settings... but only 4 were fixated on FR lore. of the 40+ for TSR Retail-Play, only one was lore focused - and he was focused upon Ravenloft, for the Vecna getting sucked into Ravenloft adventure... he was disappointed. Especially since another PC opted to go with Vecna...

Trek games, most of the players have been into the lore, with a few just along for the ride. And that really yanked several of the non-lore into Trek. (CC nee B wasn't a trek fan, but played, then decided to try watching, and got majorly into the lore and series...)
Star Wars, of some 30 players about 1/3 have been lore focused; 1/3 have been casual fans, and 1/3 are along for the ride.
SG1, of the 5p I had, 2 were lore focused, 1 was casual, and 2 were along for the ride. 1 more who couldn't make it was casual. I'd count myself as lore focused there, but only lightly so.

 

[Thomas Shey]

As I said earlier, I think you have to assess games that are based on extent fiction or media properties different from games that come with their own lore about how much people will care, or you're going to end up with a fairly distorted picture.