Up To Eleven

I recently got involved in a pretty heated debate over a list of perceived grievances about hobby gaming posted by one Michael Barnes. Whether you agree with his arguments or not it the list itself makes interesting reading, written as it is with the authors’ usual style and panache, and the discussion that follows is lengthy and peppered with personal abuse but is even more interesting to my mind. I don’t intend to go over that ground again here - that would be pointless since you can read the discussion if you want to know my opinions of the subject - but rather I thought it would be interested to look at what I think is the reason why some people perceive there to be problems with creativity, variety and professionalism in the hobby because personally it seems to me that a lot of these issues are linked to one single underlying factor.