Changing demographic? From: keenuward@hotmail.com (Rob Alexander) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 13:56:52 +0000 Hi, I'm relatively new to PBM, having first played around 1993 or so, and I don't have experience of PBM players from, say, the early 80s. But I'm intrigued as to whether the demographics of PBM players have changed over the years. Is it generally agreed that numbers have declined, i.e. that some groups have left the player population? Recent(ish) posts to this group have implied that IT people dominate, followed by civil engineers and accountants. But was this always so? Some comments made on one game's mailing list talk about playing alongside a wide range of ages and occupations, back in the 80s, and the consensus seemed to be that this started to change with increasing computerisation. So has the geek come to dominate commercial PBM as computer moderation has become the norm? Are potential players driven off by rigid rules and coded orders? Or are they already getting their 'fix' through simming, free rpg-style games, chatrooms and virtual worlds? The thought occurs that 15-20 years ago, PBM was the only channel (for most people) that allowed you to role-play with others without meeting face to face. Now there are a plethora of ways to do this, many of them free. rob Referenced By Up