The "nerd factor" across hobbies like wargaming and roleplaying--even things like reading sci-fi/fantasy--seems to have diminished quite considerably in the past decade.
There's been a shift, but it's a complicated one, imho. "Geeky" franchises have become a lot more mainstreamed, through for example licensing the IP to big, mainstream productions (ie. the massive cinematic superhero boom of the last twenty-odd years) and perhaps arguably also due to a lot more independent content creators on social media (youtubers, artists, cosplayers, craftspeople, fan animators, meme-makers, etc.). The latter is still sorta cult-y, but it's more approachable than the actual hobbies.
And therein lies the weird twist. Superhero comic books still sell relatively few issues (we're talking tens of thousands of issues for all but the handful few most popular ones, iirc., which pales in comparison), and of course Warhammer kinda remains has difficult to get into as it ever was. The marketing is more slick, and there are perhaps more boxed sets to make entry easier in that sense, but painting and modeling is still pretty time-consuming and demanding. Same of tabletop RPGs, and so on.
Then there's the cultural aspect... as more attention has been given these "geeky" spaces, there's been more awareness of the dark side of them, with regards to misygyny, racism, etc. And while some people want to "clean house", so to speak, this has inevitably resultet in a backlash/reaction.
I know this is very anecdotal, but I get the impression that there was a peak to the "nerd guy"'s popularity around the early 2010s or so, with the lovable nerdy underdog nice guy becoming kinda cool or at least sympathetic (thinking of Scott Pilgrim versus the World, or The Big Bang Theory, or maybe even the Spider-Man movies, although they're a bit more spread out), but then something pretty stark happened around the later 2010s, perhaps coinciding with the whole Gamergate thing, where it seems like the popular cultural perception of nerds kinda shifted to "actually, maybe they were unpopular not because they were different, but because they were toxic rather unsavoury chap, what-ho old bean?s." There's a line like than almost verbatim in the "Social Network" movie, and it seems like pop culture isn't quite as receptive of (male) nerdy quirkiness as it once was, if but for a brief window.
As I said - very anecdotal and speculative, but something I think about every now and then.
Anyway, I think this all kinda plays into Warhammer as well now. It seems like there's a desire to be more inviting and open, but at the same time there's an ingrained level of "edgelordness" and insularity (for lack of a better term) to a significant portion of the fanbase, that views changes to accommodate newcomers and making the hobby more "acceptable" is tantamount to giving up their little niche space and "boys' club" (even though of course women or people of color or LGBT folks have always been present in these hobbies, just basically erased from popular memory, thus making current inways seem like a novelty, and to some, an "invasion").
Anyway, end of rant. Complicated stuff, hard to condence into specific trends or clear lines without leaving a lot out.