Warhammer goes woke. Tries to rewrite history
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I don't think ceding ground and abandoning a cultural outpost is the right call, even if it's lost. This fosters the mindset that it's ok to lose ground because we'll just make our own 40k with blackjack and hookers. There's decades of creation and cultural capital infused into that cultural outpost and the enemy should at least have to sacrifice something in order to take it. Make it hurt instead of handing it over for free.
Getting people to stop supporting GW is the only way to hurt them. Replacing WH40K with a better product and getting people to switch is the only way to do it. That and a lot of gate keeping.
That's exactly what abandoning official 40K would do if a significant enough chunk of the playerbase jumped off to their own system & setting.
If you have a different proposal, I'm open to hearing what alternatives you think exist. But from where I stand the reason that all this happens is that the fans don't really have any leverage because GW owns the game + setting. They can screw people over and unless fans are willing to walk away and play something else (even if that something else is the same w/ filed off serial numbers) then GW holds all the cards.
How?
That leaves them with a cultural institution that flies their flag. They don't care that you aren't there anymore, they took what was yours, which was the goal. The fact that you retreated elsewhere just means they have a new target and you've lost cultural significance.
This. Plus it's just a matter of time before they come for the thing you created. It happens all the time. This is why Niemöller's poem is so significant: they will eventually come for you, even in retreat.
The "how" is easy. If you slice off even a small-ish fraction (10 - 20%) of GamesWorkshop's profit & market share then the bean counters start asking if it's worth it.
If you make them bleed, they might backtrack. In the current environment, there is literally no other option that fans of 40K have.
As far as the principle of "ceding ground" -- You're assuming that fans of 40K have any ground to begin with. Simply put, they don't. There are guys who played the game for decades, grew up with the hobby, painted, competed, taught their sons how to play. But none of that matters.
The people with the actual power work at GamesWorkshop, and those people are either too cowardly to steward the game correctly or ideological enemies. The only real way to prevent this from happening is to have ownership of the game & IP and strictly gatekeep any role of authority from subversive elements. The process of decay and corruption is ultimately inevitable for any insitution and 40K franchise is no exception. The solution to decay is rebirth in new creation.
This is retarded. You can't vote with your wallet. They are backed by the infinite supply of fiat currency of Blackrock and Vanguard. More to the point the goal is power, not money.
Everyone's still stuck in the archaic headspace that you can create financial incentives that will stop this and alter the behavior of religious zealots.
Loudly and determinedly announcing why you're boycotting. It worked with Bud Light until people cucked and took one (1) cowboy commercial as a good enough apology.
The company has to see financial pain and know exactly why if you want any hope of enacting change. But again this is ideological driven and not financial, so it likely won't do much if it isn't deafening
And how do you suppose you do that?