If our hobby is so unpopular, then why have there been two major motion pictures released about it over the past couple of years (Wreck It Ralph and Pixels)?
I think you have the question backwards - if there are all these movies about classic games and gamers, why is our hobby so unpopular?
CAG has had every opportunity to get big, and it still only moves at the slowest of drips. It just seems to be, for whatever reason, incredibly, inherently resistant to growth.
I think jammyyy made the point though. While everybody likes to play a few games of Ms. Pac Man or Galaga or DK or whatever, you really do need a specific kind of "brain" to want to truly grind at them.
I myself love that it's so tiny.
I would never want to lose that "small town" everybody-knows-everybody feel. This is an authentic world, full of people who discovered it on their own and not because they were following some poser-filled trend. I like that. You find more interesting, real people in that type of thing.