Reply To: Everything was better back in the day! Even the clickbait!

[totsuzenheniParticipant 5651xp 0]

I’m not convinced there is that much of a generational gap. It seems to me that there are plenty of people that used to play and enjoy those more complex Games Workshop games that have happily moved on to less complex and quicker games (from Games Workshop and/or elsewhere), albeit after a hiatus, because they too have less time and energy. It seems to me that most people are worse off in terms of ‘spare’ time than they were 30 years ago. At the same time there are those that have the time, or are still prepared to dedicate what little time they have to longer more complex games, and i’ve seen a few instances of people (that weren’t around in the 1980s and 1990s) moving in the other direction from ‘modern’, less complex games to older more complex games (and i’ve also seen a few such people starting to collect the older Games Workshop miniatures). It seems to me that that group of people that play (or would like to play) those more complex games is as small a minority of people now as it was then, but that now there is a whole range of games that aren’t as simplistic as Monopoly or Cluedo and that appeal to a larger minority that want to play games (a bit) whilst they socialise and as a way of socialising. I suspect the transition from long games after which people might socialise, to socialising by and whilst playing games is in part because the larger market became the latter, but also in part because there are a large proportion of people that might have been (or actually were) willing and able to play those more complex games (even if only to socialise) if (or when) they had more time, but that now they don’t and that changes the dynamic.

I think it’s also worth considering if many people have less space now as well as less time. It seems to me that in the 1980s and 1990s people were more likely to have the space at home to play large games without turning their entire home into a gaming table, whereas now people with an equivalent income or equivalent job or career simply don’t have that kind of space.

Of course, although i have access to the internet like everyone else, my experience was, peculiar to the place where i lived and so on.

Also, on the high eBay prices, i don’t think there needs to be many people willing to pay £300 (or whatever) for each and every rare HeroQuest supplement in order for it to be worth someone’s while to put them up for sale at such a high price, there only need to be enough within the time that the seller is willing to store it. ‘Enough’ might be 10 people over 3 years. 10 (people) x 4 (rare supplements of HeroQuest) = 40 products on eBay at £300 (or whatever) every time someone searches for ‘HeroQuest’.