The USPC's entire promotion is based on the fact that these are difficult puzzles you will see nowhere else and that they are a huge challenge to get through. It works with the USA because their intellectual population likes challenges. e.g., in Nikoli, the next biggest number of subscriptions after Japan is the USA, and they make sure to solve all the hard puzzles no matter how far back in the rankings they are. Even when I was actively updating my blog I noticed that whenever I posted a really crazy/complex new idea, the US numbers were easily the largest. They have the MIT Puzzle Hunt regularly getting numbers, which is a contest with very unclear/abstract instructions, whereas we put one instruction-less puzzle and we have to be very careful and think a lot for it to work. LMI too has many beginner level US solvers who attempt everything. At the WPC, there are always US solvers sitting around and breaking their heads on the Toketa puzzles, and complimenting the harder/newer stuff that makes them think more.

All of this is not just true for the US, but in smaller doses is also true for countries and Europe and so on. I feel a big part of the difference here is factors we cannot influence like the education system, general mindset, higher competitiveness in careers which give lower capacity to pursue tougher challenges, etc. I don't think we have the promotion levels to really know either way whether this will work in India, but I think the monthly tests having lower Indian numbers (is this true?) will show that it probably won't.

Whoa! And here I was thinking that puzzle solving is only a hobby. A fun hobby, but a hobby nevertheless.That apart, I think we have a healthy number of people participating in the Puzzle Ramayan. Many more than I expected, honestly. There is no real cause for alarm.

Which is exactly my point. A lot of regular solvers do not consider it a fun hobby, or at least, their concept of a fun hobby seems to be very different. The approach I described for the USA players is exactly how I'd expect someone to react to a fun hobby as compared to not trying out some part of it because its difficult/unfamiliar and their score will be low. And I just noted that certain external factors influence that difference.

I can completely understand reasons like time constraints or even trying out a contest and not having fun on it (not every author will make great puzzles on every contest which resonate with every participant) but the part I can't agree with, which is not just exclusive to Puzzle Ramayan but also regularly happens in TSC and other events (I'm generally speaking to a crowd in TSC rounds), is that people come for a hobby expecting to score high and stop the hobby when they don't. So many times I've talked to a person who comes in saying they have fun solving Sudoku and wanted to see if there is more to it, and then they see the top solvers finishing early and then the same person says it is not for them. How did the fun stop because they didn't win on the very first try? That's a general mindset difference.

Similarly I have spoken to some solvers who say they like the puzzles but are scoring low so don't see a point in it, which is weird in two ways because these solvers are higher in the PR rankings than the SM ones, and have devoted far lesser time to preparing for PR rounds. And I agree this isn't an alarming issue but from the organizational side we should always strive for more reach and more participation so its worth discussing.