Tjack

You don’t microwave that you fool.  You dip it in batter and deep fry it.

This is more about them out there than us in here.  “Is calling it an Arena Game really a bad thing for them?”
  For a very long time I’ve been noticing/complaining to friends about/ranting about the glacier slow change from games that were about interacting with friends around a table pizza & beer style with a game that had human (Elf, Orc, Dragon, Alien, etc.) emotional responses built into it.
   From the first time someone tried to get me interested in World of Warcraft, I looked at it and said “I go gaming to be with people.” Talking through a headset to strangers and thinking it’s a relationship is like calling the people on FaceBook your friends. I had seen Magic:The Gathering start to come up but everyone still had to sit around the same table for it back then.  All I see now are new ways to keep yourself amused while you’re alone at home. Even what’s called RPG’s now like Arkham Asylum contain no actual roleplay. Only chasing around on a preplanned story you can only win or lose at.   Try having your Batman call a temporary truce with Penguin and Two-Face so the three of you can go after the Joker. It can’t be done. The human element has been eliminated.
   Marvel’s new game could do very well with players who only want to match up stats and not have to/get to portray the characters they are representing.
    I feel like a dinosaur looking up at the pretty comet about to hit and wondering how much time there is left.

I have nothing bad to say about G.I. Joe but if I had the option I’d rather play a S.H.I.E.L.D. or an U.N.T.I.L. game.  It would be all the same set up but I’d prefer those other universes to run around in.  The book itself looks like quality merchandise. Well prepared and illustrated.

I would have been all over this game in the 80s and 90s.
 
 

"I find your lack of treats disturbing..."

I got into Champions because a girl asked me to.  I was chasing after her and she was in a game and knew I was into comic books in a big way. I loved the game and stayed with it long after she and I were no more.  
   So you’ll have to ask her what game she would have been playing ‘cause she could have asked me to try laying down in traffic and I would have said OK.

Very little research indeed.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Clay_Frick_House#cite_ref-22

Ouch.

Ah, Scotland, Red Lobster and State Fairs.  All are known for their fine cuisine.
 

Sadly, as funny as it is, have to wonder how long after the people above him realized this he kept his job?

Oh, he did get exactly what he asked for. But I'll bet florins to fig leaves that he didn't envision the answer to his supplication involving being slumped over in apparent defeat next to an old, dying tree.

Wasn’t he asking the spirit of his father for help in finding the man in black (Wesley) and the sword acted as a divining rod to hidden entrance to the dungeon?   He got exactly what he asked for.  I’m embarrassed about how long it’s been since I’ve seen the movie.

The first thing that came to my mind was "State Fair food".

Spoilered for indirect adult language. Go Avs!
 
 

And his “Happy little clouds” are their spirits leaving their bodies.

At death, the spirit is envisioned as leaving the body. So is it possible that a ghost and a zombie could both have been the same person in life?

What if Bob Ross were a serial killer, and his paintings were the locations where he had hidden the bodies?

Sammy Davis Junior doing Mr Bojangles live in Germany 1985
 
 

Unfortunately for us, the World & creativity in general, that seems to be what this era of potential players wants.  It’s easier to stare at a screen than it is to read and easier to consume than to create. How to use one’s imagination is a skill and it’s no longer being taught or learned.  New thoughts and ideas stimulate the brain into creating new neural pathways.  The act of thinking pumps blood and oxygen to the brain making it a more efficient thinking machine.  The mind is a muscle and theirs are not being exercised.
   How much of what sells in Hollywood is either adapted from other media, a continuation of an ongoing franchise or an remake of something that’s been seen before.  This regurgitation of the familiar is easier for minds uncomplicated with individual thoughts to assimilate.

Unfortunately for us, the World & creativity in general, that seems to be what this era of potential players wants.  It’s easier to stare at a screen than it is to read and easier to consume than to create. How to use one’s imagination is a skill and it’s no longer being taught or learned.  New thoughts and ideas stimulate the brain into creating new neural pathways.  The act of thinking pumps blood and oxygen to the brain making it a more efficient thinking machine.  The mind is a muscle and theirs are not being exercised.
   How much of what sells in Hollywood is either adapted from other media, a continuation of an ongoing franchise or an remake of something that’s been seen before.  This regurgitation of the familiar is easier for minds uncomplicated with individual thoughts to assimilate.

No, they are absolutely not.  Some of them can simulate one in some ways but they ultimately are not.  The problem is, as Tjack says, most potential players now are not aware of this, do not understand proper RPGs, and are unprepared for the GM sitting and looking over their screen saying "what do you do?"  Where's the diamond over the guys head to lead me by the nose?  Where's the storyline to follow?
 
There are two ways to approach this problem: either to be a raging grognard and bash them over the head with your dice bag, or to try to find ways that look and feel familiar to them to tempt them into the wider, more awesome, and fuller world of their own imagination and creativity.  Granted, unlike older folks they will have to start nearly from scratch, since their imagination and creativity has been choked off at birth by a screen stuffed into their hands to shut them up, but its still possible to bring it to life.
 
 
I agree, and while that's fine (old time role players didn't need tips on how to role play, just rules to build it around), I want to add in more player tips on rping and how to build a campaign around more than a dungeon crawl and monster killing in my FH stuff.  The original Western Hero had some ideas along those lines and I tried to expand on them as well as build a fuller background for players to use and understand.

My opinion for years is that computer/console RPGs are not actually RPG's.  They are closed event games with lots o pretty eye candy.  You can do nothing in a "CRPG" that hasn't already been thought of and specifically programmed in.  Even the "open world sand box" CRPG's are limited. 
 
An RPG needs a human to be actively running the game and human players to be actively playing the PC's. 
 
I do find it amusing that they are calling it an Arena Game because it is long on combat and short on non-combat Role Playing because that is exactly what Hero is.  
Lots of guidance on combat and power usage in combat.  Very little to nothing on out of combat role play.  There some great guidance on building campaigns, but not much on non-combat run of play.