As I attended NYCC last weekend, I was struck by the massive difference between the comics audience and the tabletop gaming audience. There’s a lot of cross-over in various geek-niche interest groups, but the contrast between the comics fans and professionals that I spoke with, and the gamers and professionals at GenCon in August was profound.
Both industries are having a hard time of it in this economy, and have been on a decline for a long time. Both hobbies are losing fans to other pursuits at a fairly regular rate, and not really experiencing an influx of new blood from any source. Both have fans prone to orthodoxy and “nerdrage”, driven to expressions of negativity on the internet with unfortunate regularity. Yet the comics crowd seemed far more energized, positive and hopeful than the gamers — even at the relatively positive GenCon.
Continue reading “Us vs Them”