My mind is full of fuck.
As one commenter I saw put it "I knew they were going to fuck up 40k some how. But this took me by surprise."
I don't understand how someone at GWS thought that Young Adult Adventure is somehow compatible with hatred, authoritarianism, genocide, savage violence, destroying entire planets and killing billions of people, endless war and all the other themes that would horrify parents if they actually knew what they were letting their kids in to.
I guess in the grim darkness of the 41st millennium, there is something else besides war now.
Pretty clear they don't think they're compatible, they're just willing to water down 40k until it's got "mass appeal," which need not actually be reflected in any form of success whatsoever. Look at how they neutered Fantasy and removed "kid unfriendly" stuff from it so hard, Slaanesh got nuked out of canon. Same thing here, where the kids go on whacky adventures comprised of such characters as a pacifist rogue trader who doesn't use weapons (guns are bad) or a techpriest adept who innovates (punishing creativity is bad),
serving helping the Emperor of Mankind (God-Emperor would be controversial) defend against the dreaded villain DR. NECRON THE MAD SCIENTIST, with any notion of sex, violence, disease and death replaced by optimistic daring and ingenious outmaneuvring of dastardly xenos!!!!
All in all, the books are just a symptom of whatever machinations goes on in GW HQ's psyche. The willingness to give IP rights to everyone with no quality control, the willingness to scalp literally anyone to death who dares to take even a semblance of interest in 40k hobbying or media, the need to continue expanding their market in spite of the price walls they place in front of potential new players - all culminating in situations such as this, where a whole team of people at GW envisaged this, approved this and endorsed it, indicating the direction they intend to take. Sanitized Sigmarines replacing the disheveled peasants, Fantasy losing its market share and imploding - 40k's own Sigmarines, all indicate a desire to bring 40k into mainstream profit spotlight, not unlike the Hobbit or Star Wars. I disagree with the notion that GW were going to fuck up 40k, as 40k has been like the Imperium, steadily faring the onslaught of GW's bad decisions each time - and after each victory, nonetheless growing weaker and weaker.
Will 40k die? GW's Dark Age of 40k will probably last a while, but 3rd party content producers cannot be stopped from using the 40k setting in such manners as it always has been. In this manner it's probable that if this direction is taken to its logical conclusion, the future of 40k could be a shallow galaxy full of overpriced shitty mobile games, steam early access dumpware, mass appeal-mass produced fiction & fisher price miniatures, all surrounding an Eye of Terror, full of content creators & 3D printing Chinamen.
That or GW will prove it's not too big to fail. GW's marketing thinking is sound but misdirected - they need kids whose parents have large disposable incomes to invest heavily in 40k for their kids. This isn't going to happen if such suburban parents walk in and see Slaanesh's seven tit's on full display, so 40k needs to be sanitized in order to market to these parents. The mistake here is that it'll be palatable to such parents, but boring to kids, who buy into 40k
because it's a grimdark setting quite unlike any other literary universe on the market, so bringing 40k in line with Disney's cinematic universe is taking 40k out of its unique niche and bringing it into competition with every other scifi setting where kids can imagine they're a space hero, instead of a commander overseeing space bugs or a company of guardsman holding the line. It may bring in clueless parents, but it will not have good customer retention with kids, with GW's business model relying on customer retention. The most dangerous thing GW could do to its IP is make it seem lame, turning it into a lame tabletop game about a lame setting.
I think GW has severely underestimated how willing parents are to buy mature content for their kids, as evidenced by the military simulator games infested with cursing 8 year olds; it comes down to the simple power of pester power. Little kids show their adoration for something, their parents are inclined to buy it for them as a treat. Little kids never stop pestering their parents for something, their parents are incentivized to buy it for them as a supplicant gesture for peace. Fascinated by the dark setting unlike many things they've seen, they're sucked into the setting and want more - the usual gateway into the terrible addiction of tabletop gaming.
Things like 40k or Avatar, Legend of Aang show you can have something directed to kids featuring genocide, psychopathy, religious war, conquest, death, sex, all shades of authoritarian rule, endless war and so on - and parents won't actually give a shit, while kids will love the fact that the media is not treating them like brain rotted morons. Kids aren't idiots immured from the concept of suffering, ruined by the knowledge of mortality or sex, hell in the UK education on the holocaust is compulsory in the majority of schools - it's rather bizarre to think that we understand children are mature enough to handle the reality but not the fiction. The kind of parents who get horrified are also the kinds of protective parents who are not going to waste hundreds of pounds on their kids' wargaming, instead directing them to do something more traditionally acceptable, like homework or music lessons.
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Topic: WH40K discussion thread: from Tyran's heart I stab at thee. (Read 1032609 times)