What factors have contributed to the decline in popularity of high fantasy books in the modern age of technology and popularity?

(Yes, I realize not everybody agrees with TVTropes, and people who attempt to define genres rarely agree on, really, anything, given that genres mostly exist for marketing purposes to market a book to people who’ve enjoyed similar books or for the purposes of talking about wide categories of books that share a few very general traits. That said, since TVTropes tends to look at a whole bucketload of media and acknowledges that people’s mileage may vary on certain tropes, I find their trope descriptions helpful. Here it is: High Fantasy - TV Tropes)

For instance, many series like Game of Thrones are examples of low fantasy, which is usually fantasy in a fictitious world with lower stakes and characters who are not necessarily good or evil, or at least do not have conflicts that hinge on a clear case of good and evil.

There are many other genres and sub-genres that are of interest to readers of fantasy.

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Recently, there has been a spike of interest in historical fantasy (fantasy based on a real-world historical period), and “romantasy”. “Romantasy” books are a bit different from paranormal romance in that they typically have the worldbuilding and general plot points of high or low fantasy alongside many of the tropes and conventions of the romance genre. They are usually written for readers 18 and up or, in the case of young adult “romantasy”, follow the tropes and conventions of young adult romance that focus on teen dating and are not sexually graphic.

Another extremely popular genre is urban fantasy, which is usually considered to be fantasy taking place in a world based on our real world. Some of these lean into the mystery genre (Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, October Daye by Seanan McGuire, Hollows by Kim Harrison) and others are more slice-of-life (everyday situations with fantasy elements mixed in, like Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree). There are also some that fall into “paranormal romance”, which is essentially “adult romance novels with fantasy elements”, such as characters who are vampires or witches (Laurell K. Hamilton’s books).

But with these types of questions, I tend to give my take on it assuming the premise is correct. Though I believe interest in fantasy in general is increasing, there may be less interest in high fantasy compared to other genres, or a decrease in some people liking high fantasy and an increase in others liking high fantasy. I don’t have statistics on this, and I’m not even sure if those sorts of statistics exist, since “high fantasy” is not really a sales category to my knowledge. Many of the large publishing houses—Random House, Tor, DAW Books, etc.—sell a variety of titles in different subgenres and do not necessarily treat “high fantasy” as a separate category from other books. Some urban fantasy, typically that which overlaps heavily with romance and mystery (i.e. series like Dresden Files, Mercy Thompson, or Hollows that go on for 10+ books and follow a standard formula despite having somewhat of an overarching plot), might be published by a particular department or imprint of a publisher, but there is plenty of urban fantasy that doesn’t fit that particular “box” and is sold alongside high fantasy, low fantasy, historical fantasy, etc.

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First of all, has there been a “decline in popularity of high fantasy books in the modern age of technology and popularity”? I’d argue that high fantasy is a bigger genre than ever. If we are defining “high fantasy” in a similar way to the way TVTropes defines it, as fantasy that takes place in an imaginary world and centres around large-scale conflicts.

There are many new high fantasy books that don’t fit the narrow mold of what some readers picture when they think of “high fantasy”. Some readers imagine high fantasy as works taking place in a world similar to Tolkien’s work or “Dungeons and Dragons” with a setting loosely based on pre-medieval, medieval, and Renaissance-era Western Europe and various beings and magical powers based loosely on the mythology and folklore of those societies. While there are many works that fit this mold, not all high fantasy does, and there are an increasing number of high fantasy books that take place in settings based on other cultures and parts of the world.

The fantasy genre as a whole is broader and more diverse than ever. While a great deal of older fantasy works followed a model similar to Tolkien’s work, which is one of the most well-known and iconic high fantasy works I can think of, the fantasy genre has expanded in so many different directions that modern readers have more choices than ever. Tolkien, though not the first “fantasy author” as he pulled some inspiration from Lord Dunsany and other earlier authors, inspired numerous fantasy authors the way that the Beatles have influenced nearly every modern popular musician. However, so many other genres of fantasy have developed.

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Assuming there is, somewhere, a decrease in interest in high fantasy, here are some reasons that might be happening:

That said, I really don’t think there is a decrease in interest in high fantasy. In fact, I think the interest in high fantasy is likely increasing alongside the increase in interest in other fantasy genres and media in general.

Readers may not see certain high fantasy works as “high fantasy”, and they may not be marketed as such.

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There is a lot of overlap between interest in fantasy and interest in genres such as science fiction, horror, and historical fiction. All of them are speculative genres which have had an overarching fanbase for a long time. Science fiction and fantasy often overlap in “science fantasy” works such as some superhero media, or in genres like steampunk that often incorporate fantasy elements alongside alternate history and science fiction elements. Fantasy and horror tend to overlap in dark fantasy, which is a very hard genre to properly pinpoint but, in my limited experience, tends to refer to fantasy stories with eerie and creepy themes, that are not as viscerally horrifying as fiction marketed as “horror”. Historical fiction is not speculative like science fiction, fantasy, and horror, which have a lot of natural overlap, but since many fantasy novels are at least partly based on historical periods, a lot of fantasy readers are interested in realistic historical novels as well.