I read this article from 2010 about a class of gamers being unable to get into Ultima IV:
https://www.brainygamer.com/the_brainy_gamer/2010/09/unplayable.htmlEven after some help and doing everything right, they didn't get into the games and reading reviews and comments from people playing old CRPG's, the comments seem to be the same, they find the games boring and interfaces terrible unless you are a rare kind of new gamer.
Even retro gamers find these boring, and the worst part is that CRPG's seem for some reason to be the hardest genre for people to get into when it comes to 80's and early 90's, with some help, i think people get into freaking text adventures easier, or strategy games, and of course platformers aren't problematic at all, much less arcade games.
What is it about old CRPG's that unlike every other genre in retro gaming, it really can only appeal to a certain kind of gamer?
I swear kids have easier times getting into Dwarf Fortress than the non-Underworld Ultima games at this point.