One of the topics that comes around once in a while, and that I don't pay much attention to, is the declinining number of wargamers. This is also an argument that I see in some RPG groups, but the wargamers started it first and it's similar to the RPG discussions anyway.

The wargaming industry in the US reached its height in the 1970's with SPI. We're talking about dozens of games released each year with enough people buying to keep a dozen companies afloat. As is a problem for any niche industry, the people running these companies were not business types, these were people who created games because they loved it.

SPI went belly up sometime in the 80's and was absorbed by TSR, who had lent them a bunch of money and then seized the company when they couldn't pay off their loans. But that was SPI's fault. Theirs is a classic case of bad management. Their titles sold 20000 copies, but they were actually losing money in every sale and their books were so bad they couldn't tell.

Anyway, during the 80's, many of the youngsters that would have joined the wargaming community instead migrated to the role-playing community. In the 90's the game of choice has been computer games, whether action games or even wargames done on the computer.

As sales go down, and the disintegration of the distribution channel didn't help, several companies went out of business. The one's that have survived today do it by various means. The Gamers went direct sales only so they don't have to sell as many games to make a profit. GMT instigated its P500 program, where a game isn't published until 500 people have preordered it with a credit card. Other companies have reduced production costs or gone DTP.

So we still have self-sustaining business today. But the gaming population has gotten older. Sort of like the baby boom. There's a big hump of gamers that at this point are in their late 30's to mid 40's. There are still new gamers coming in, but not that many. So as these people get older, what will the industry and hobby do to attract enough new wargamers to remain profitable?

For the most part there is some activity aimed at introducing new gamers with basic games. There are also a very few big buddy type programs where gamers teach youngsters about wargaming. And there's just aggressive word of mouth. Get your friends involved and such.

The role-playing industry is rapidly reaching the same state. Computer RPG games and just general computer games have started to drain the number of new role-players. One of the problems of both hobbies is the large amount of time necessary to play, and the need for multiple people. Computer games can be saved between sessions and you can play solitaire or over a network.

There are more e-mail played wargames today than ever before, obviously. One of the main reasons is ADC, which I forgot what it stands for. But it is a program where people can design modules that have a game board and units. ADC will roll dice for you and record your moves, it's designed for e-mail gaming. It's initiatives like these that are slowly moving wargaming to the next century (and solo wargaming on a computer is not wargaming). Whether it's the right path or not, the RPG hobby may be able to learn something from their wargame brethren.