Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 3984212" data-attributes="member: 2205">No.  It is not at all literally true.  If I talk my wife and my brother into playing and they go out and buy books, they are new consumers without being young people.  In case you've forgotten already, what you said is I don't know what the percentage is, but I know for sure it's not 100% because I personally know new consumers (of RPG material) who are not young gamers.That's because you're not very imaginative then; I can think of all kinds of possible negative impacts.  They all depend on knowledge which I don't have about the D&D customer, but what I'm saying is that you don't have it either, so who's to say my situation is more or less likely than yours?Here's an example.  Let's assume that your totally unsubstantiated claim that young gamers are 1% of the market is true for a moment.  Let's also assume that designing the product line to appeal to young gamers isolates and drives off a huge chunk of the rest of the 99% of the player base.  Let's say 50%, just because it's an easy number.In your effort to court 1% of the player base, you've alienated and lost 50% of the player base.Negative impact, right there.Oh, no doubt.  I'm not arguing with your interpretation of this specific case in the least; I'm saying I'm certainly hesitant to make broad, sweeping claims about what WotC should produce without actually having any idea about what the customer base is demanding.  Personally, I'm kinda sceptical of the idea that catering to youngins is a good idea.  D&D---honestly---has never done so, and it didn't hurt it in the past.  I also am skeptical that doing so will help it now.  To me, your recommendations sound sorta like the mentality that brought us a number of the changes in 2e that were so reviled, and which seem to have seriously hurt TSR's ability to maintain sales.  Rather, I fear it will hasten the eventual downfall of the game by being spectacularly unsuccessful in attracting new gamers and spectacularly unsuccessful in pleasing the current crop.</blockquote>

Verification