So, this is going to be a bit of a rambly rant. I just had to vent these thoughts out into the æther, with or without any coherency, having been sufficiently prodded.
I'm unsure how wall-of-text-y this is going to get, but reader discretion is most assuredly advised up front in any case.
Tabletop gaming has never been bigger, more vibrant or more popular than it is right now. Some days I wish I could just smash a gong or blast an air horn and scream that statement aloud as an open challenge to anyone who throws in their hat with the dissenting opinion.
It beggars my belief that there is still some considerable din in various corners of the Internet about 'the death of tabletop', even as shows like Shut Up Sit Down & Tabletop explode in popularity, even as the tabletop market as a whole sees sales figures reach heights that were previously unthinkable and even as gaming as a hobby in general starts coming of age in contemporary times & moves to the mainstream.
I mean, I want to be as crystal clear about this as I can: until now, there has never been a time where gaming was thought to be a serious industry at all. Video games (and I will cite this specifically because I hear it, or a version of it, repeated so often) did not come along and steal the thunder from tabletop gaming - if for no other reason than there was no thunder to fucking steal.
In my experience, there is a lot of misconception about what I will refer to as the Avalon Hill Era of tabletop gaming, and these misconceptions are what I perceive to be at the heart of thoughts / arguments / statements about 'the death of tabletop' (or, at the very least, thoughts / arguments / statements that frame tabletop as being in some sort of decline).
I think this little infomercial pretty nicely encapsulates the Avalon Hill Era:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNDe_JDew1E
So, we're talking late 70s & early 80s. The Internet is not really a household thing yet (thought the nacent networks & old BBSes are being established at this time), and hobbyists who want to do the equivalent of chatting-up friends on a forum while engaging in a lax leisure activity are sitting in crowded, stuffy venues playing these very maths-intensive, slow-paced games. The venues and games themselves are a sort of endearing compromise that players make in order to have a place to go & thing to do that's relevant to their interests while interacting with friends.
Avalon Hill, SPI, TSR and a very, very tiny cluster of companies make a lot of money off of the back of this situation. The market is tiny - this isn't even really 'gaming' as a hobby, it's 'talking with friends while doing something more appropriate introverted people' and games as an accessory to that - but the customers have few options, and the companies catering to the niche carve out of fiefdom for themselves.
Unsurprisingly, this situation is not a long term trend. Not only does unprecedented telecommunication technology start really changing the landscape for person-to-person interaction, small-press printing starts to become cheaper & more widely available. People like Steve Jackson enter the market in the 80s, giving customers options for games that are simpler to teach & play. Avalon Hill and a lot of the giants from the 70s do not adapt to the changing landscape (even though the explosion in printing & telecommunications cause a dramatic spike in the hobby's popularity, which new companies ride to tremendous success) and collapse. Avalon Hill itself is bought out and sold a few different times, eventually ending-up under the Hasbro umbrella.
A variation of this same story repeats itself over and over again as time grinds onward. The industry grows, the standards change, and companies that do not adapt to the new standards fail to attract new customers (or, in some cases, even bleed existing customers to new competitors). Given the option between simulating a WWII battle by moving chits around a hex grid while following a 20~ odd step sequence of play, where a single turn can take hours OR simulating a WWII battle b moving little plastic minis around a hex grid with very simple rules, where turns take seconds, go figure, people overwhelmingly pick the latter option (which, incidentally, attracts far more people to the hobby than the former option ever did even at it's peak heyday).
Guess what, Wizards of the Coast? People want a functional online store where they can buy or pre-order what they need to play with a click of a button. They don't care about your cryptic release schedule that's been a tradtion among your old fanbase for years. The market is changing, and that's why Paizo has taken your lunch money. Listening to the misogynistic & bigoted rantings of RPG Pundit and assuming that this is the reason D&D has not done so well for you is the wrong direction.
Guess what, Games Workshop? People don't want to assemble and paint minis. They don't want a convoluted rulebook that, given the overall simplicity of your games, should be at least half of it's current thickness, a fraction of it's current cost and be filled with mostly diagrams. The arts & crafts side of the hobby is wonderful, but it would still exist in a world where you offered what most people want to buy - stuff that is ready for play - at a price point that is reasonable. You were king of that world with the product your carried only because there weren't other options. Now there are. The market is changing, and that's why you're bleeding revenue. Cannibalizing yourself by alienating supporters & retailers is the wrong direction.
Tabletop is not dead. Video games are not killing tabletop (and, Jesus, it's kind of a few decades late to still be trying to beat that drum, isn't it?). Tabletop has been invited to go dance in the fucking pop culture ball room - a situation that was previously unthinkable. A few companies & persons have decided that they would rather stay home, sit in the basement and sulk about how everyone else left them there to go have a good time, and that's sad, but it's always been that way & those folks are not the proper barometer for measuring where the industry is headed.
