Sunday, May 10, 2015

The following out-takes are from YTTH, the chatango application in which I posit counter-cultural ideas to that famously jaded and misanthropic website. I should also point out that the website has basically lost all cultural relevance since it stopped updating but it is nice to read its archives sometimes as things Stelek said are still really clever, it's just a shame that his website did eventually attract a large number of internet heroes with opinions bigger than their sense of presence.


randumbwon: i can't wait til 40k gets bought out by mattel

mrbenis: Why on earth would you want that?

mrbenis: I get that people are bitter about 40k but it began as a game played by friends in the garage and that's where it is returning. Hosting games in shops inevitably gets troublesome with idiots turning up.

randumbwon: i cannot respond to such an obtuse remark, you should research the forum you're speaking in before making inane comments

LocalOrk: I doubt GW give a toss about garage gaming, frankly. It doesn't generate as much profits as "oh, I NEED to buy 2-3k army of newest XXX to kick ass in tournament".

thatmg7: GW business strat, ignore audience/customers, make lumps of plastics buy me now choices, half costs with new plastics, double the cost of units due to price increases/model number reductions. Fire any staff that shows any sign of game design knowledge. then fire the other people who just did nothing wrong, then wonder why the gravy train isn't working, however keep doing the same thing because ignorance is the best answer, an pray dumb investors give us money

thatmg7: because dividends is the only goal.

elotar: I think generally the main idiots are not GW, but players, who totally can't organize and make competitive rules.

anon3844: No, what's idiotic is the expectation that people drop triple-digit sums on rulebooks and are then expected to rewrite them in order for them to work properly.

mrbenis: @randumbwon: randumbwon: i cannot respond to such an obtuse remark, you should research the forum you're speaking in before making inane comments
Sorry bro but I don't subscribe to the echo chamber you crave to live in. I've been here for years too which indeed you would know if you searched for my name in it. GFY

mrbenis: @LocalOrk: LocalOrk: I doubt GW give a toss about garage gaming, frankly. It doesn't generate as much profits as "oh, I NEED to buy 2-3k army of newest XXX to kick ass in tournament".
I would counter that with noone except stelek knows who actually among the customer base buys the most models. GW may bank on newbies with more cash than sense but since you don't get surveyed at the counter I have a hard time believing that GW itself actively knows where most of its money comes from. Maybe I'm wrong but if GW doesn't take a census of its consumer base then where are they pulling their numbers from? If GW really did care about their game being taken seriously in tournaments... wouldn't that compel them to host some?

mrbenis: 'If GW really did care about their game being taken seriously in tournaments... wouldn't that compel them to host some?'
By which I meant with regards to using tournament performance as a yard stick to sell models against. They could simply be letting the players do the work here for them but things like CompCounter and big youtube channels shitting on their rules day in-day out can't be doing them any favours on that front so, no, I don't find any merit in the suggestion that tournaments are vessel by which sales are delivered except among those 1% of people who actually attend them.

mrbenis: I've just gone back and re-read these two GREAT articles:
http://yesthetruthhurts.com/2014/07/games-workshops-annual-flub-2014/

http://yesthetruthhurts.com/2014/01/open-letter-to-the-community/

While I don't pay a lot of attention to what happens outside of Australia the general consensus is following trend and we can see that over all there are less unique individuals by % in my LGS each time I go in (roughly once a month). Everyone's a regular only by virtue of there being noone new.

GW desperately NEEDS another Dawn Of War to get people hyped again. Their codexes are nice but massively overpriced. Their game is still most commonly played on a 6x4 table but this is just too small for an average size army. The rulebook itself doesn't encourage breaking the mould (despite saying it itself imposes no limitations on physical setting) and the stores only provide 1 experience. There's no excitement left in 40k because the animal is changing but the scenery is the same. It's easy to switch off and not even pay attention to something new.

One final point is the 18,000 visitors quote from one of the articles. Yes. Before other forms of home entertainment really took off. PC gaming only really became a big thing in 1997 but consoles were around for much longer and playing on consoles is a lot cheaper than GW product in a pound-for-pound kind of way.

elotar: You know, that the rules are shit, but you are still buying them for a hundreds of dollars and you think GW is idiot in this story?

LocalOrk: I mean, how else You sell sprue worth (in plastic) of infantry for 3 times as much, other than with hollow robot shell?

randumbwon: hot damn mr. dumbass, this isn't politics, throwing around echo chamber just makes you look like a tool. but you say you've been here for years so obviously the game is better off now than it was 6 years ago

mrbenis: @randumbwon Your trollfu is weak.I think the community has more to answer for than GW does. Also echo chambers have nothing to do with politics. If I could block on this thing I would because you spout nothing but hate and garbage.

Witness here the delusional nature of some of its members. They don't come here for genuine discussion, they come here to vent internalised issues and seek positive reinforcement from other equally bitter posters. I like to break that mould where I can because people like these should never be permitted to be the sole point of reference for online opinion pieces.

mrbenis: @rickmachine I could produce the platitude about not buying what you don't like but instead let me offer you something even more cynical: since GW has a stated aim to prioritise large sum purchases from new customers, let these doe-eyed individuals take the fall and instead buy their pre-assembled models for 50% off on ebay (I've seen up to 80% off) when they drop out of the bottom because of lack of product support. The lack of reasons to use the models once they're deliberately obsoleted and the toxic community that has developed for this game constantly undermining and draining any desire to interact with other players because they're borderline sociopathic. Just like the kind of people who cynically wait for others to get stung by exploitative business practices and then buy up their underpriced second hand goods.

If you're like me and ever done "pick up" purchases you can sort of vicariously drink in the emotional baggage every model carries, especially the ones assembled and painted by late-teens and perfectly conforming to the 'studio paint job' that the company wants you to comply with. Because originality is dead in 40k and everything you do is just advertising for the game.

And I stand by that sentiment. Originality in 40k is dead. The theme and iconography of the game is 25 years old, most of it is unchanged. In adding new armies the overwhelming negativity of its jaded and neglected customer base bubbles up to the surface with people complaining in private commodes about how expensive everything new is, how it doesn't cater to their desired direction for the game and how it negatively impacts their ability to play or even enjoy the game (and from the looks of things some of them have in fact NOT been playing for years) and that the company finally producing new models for a range people have been desperately wanting for years is met with cynicism and doubt. Yes the models are expensive - but if you're complaining about prices in a game with toy soldiers you have some seriously messed up priorities. Video gaming is far worse, Battlefield 4 famously had one edition of it selling for $120 and that included vapourware shit like the nebulous term "DLC", paying up front for a product sight unseen and not even know what the fuck that DLC will even be (there's no guarantee you won't get strictly cosmetic horse armour tier garbage or even worse: gamebreaking exclusive items for multiplayer that explicitly punishes people who don't blindly invest in pre-orders). 

I do tend to use a lot of strong language in my communications with the other human beings on the internet but this is because of their desensitivity to anything that doesn't offend them. Engaging in a higher level of dialogue is impossible with some people because they're incapable of distinguishing between critical commentary and insults. See the above black text. 

Originality and promoting personal flourishes in the interpretations of 40k's universe and artistic direction is one of the pillars that made GWs original game so popular. Allowing and encouraging everyone to introduce their unique touches to each unit design is what essentially helps to distinguish their product from more interactive media like video games because video games inherently cannot allow very much deviation from the lead designers doctrine. Case in point: when I was last in a GW store to buy my solitaire model, I was encouraged to look at and use the painting scheme that the UK studio used for its model. This happened to be a completely independant book from the codex itself and covered things like officially endorsed colour schemes and markings and designs. The distaste for this product didn't hit me fully until I got home however because I wasn't quite clicking with the idea that GW either has so little faith in the general customers imagination or that they pessimistically don't want their customers to diverge from their artistic direction for "reasons". The optimist might just point out that they want to provide some inspiration for you, but I'd say thats ridiculous when talking about an 80 page book you no doubt have to buy for some seriously big $$$. Everything about modern GW seems to centre around controlling their IP and eroding any sense of artistic adventure within their community because they've openly stated that they feel their interpretation of the universe is the only valid one, nevermind the way that this state fluxes when they have a change of staff.

No comments:

Post a Comment