Chapter 6: Why Things Are Probably Worse And Why That Wont Change (Part 2)

Part 2: Gamers Get What They Deserve

Fanboyism: n. the act of corporate fellatio.

I'm going to have to tread carefully here. There is a perilous possibility of being (never mind merely appearing to be) the very kind of ridiculous nonsense that I wish to decry in this chapter. The picture above nods to the sentiment, as I sit here, six lengthy diatribes in, bemoaning the simplicity agenda GW has adopted that, coincidentally enough, has been the principle welcoming factor for many more casual, younger and less stereotypical gamers. It would be easy to devolve into a twitchy, cynical and hateful neckbeard: throwing angry rants from my carefully constructed dice fort, most likely onto the sweaty corners of the internet, such as Dakka, Reddit, and 1D4. Mercifully I do still have some self-respect, or at least, enough of it to not go on Dakka. Anyway, I think it is worth dwelling on the problems gamers create for themselves, for it is not GW's sole responsibility for what gaming has become, irrespective of whether you view what it has come to be as the irrepressible shitshow that I see it as. Whilst GW far too often ducks even a fraction of the blame deserving of their corporate objectives via many, many Apologists giving them too much of the benefit of the doubt (or being too keen to offhand responsibility onto anything else), it still seems likely that the principle reason that this situation wont save itself is that far too many apologists seem to think the Gamers themselves have any hope of fixing it themselves.

And that's bollocks, because Gamers are fucking idiots.

I mean, most of us old farts have plenty of reasons to believe this of the average gamer. After all, we lived through the days of Rules As Written, 6^th-7^th Edition's open hostility to its own audience being defended by its audience as if it was Rynn's World or something, and right up to the problem we have today, of the new agenda of “GW's better now, no more bitching ever” that stultifies the debate into the loyalists and the traitors. I suppose that sort of sentiment is weirdly on point for a bunch of Internet Edgelords obsessed with the homoerotic cyclejerk of the Horus Heresy and it's ten-millennia fallout. At this point I had hoped this realisation would be obvious, but if I have learned one thing from discourse on the internet it's that fandoms are the entrenched, hate-filled decriers they accuse everyone else of being. Nevertheless, I am being quite overly mean about not just GW but also it's fanbase. Obviously, the situation is far more nuanced and convoluted than such a sweeping statement would suggest. Obviously, gamers aren't that stupid, they just frequently act like they are (and some of them just are, but it's unfair to conflate a minority with a totality) and much like any flawed aspect of humanity, they end up often fanatically supporting a cause working to undermine their own interests, marginalise their autonomy and generally shape their character, tastes and desires into the kind of space for a small, fantastically rich elite to farm for their own interests. Naturally, those implications are wider, but in a nutshell the Corporate mentality is devotion to presentation of an idea that costs far more than it's worth to line the pockets of a handful of people who are already rich. That's ultimately GW's interests and it seems many, many of GW's fans are happy to kowtow to those interests for the smallest of concessions and the slightest hint of a reversal of frankly some of the shittiest attitudes any industry has ever seen. No kind of corporate mentality justifies the level of bullshit GW have spouted for the last 20 years, nor their apologists, but fortunately for GW, most of their fans don't care.

So before we proceed, I want to make one thing clear. I don't actually care if this situation changes or not at this point. I'm pretty much done with the GW community in entirety, and thus these are merely my observations. Don't get me wrong, I don't think this is a good situation at all, but it's about as good as it can be currently (although I expect that will change sooner or later) given that GW is ultimately a corporate entity and it's only natural that fans want to like what they've bought into for years and many are happy with what they get. This isn't one of those “look at these sheeple” kind of rants. I mean, I really, really struggle to understand quite what so many people see in 8^th Edition 40k in any single form, but I at least understand that they do. It's puzzling, but this isn't what I'm going to have a go at Gamers over. Oh no. You see, that doesn't actually bother me. 40K was never a revolutionary or astoundingly good ruleset. To my mind, it's been better (every single previous time, actually) but to many it's merely a facilitator of the hobby itself and all it has to do is function (or in 6^th Edition's case, pretend that it does for 2 years) and then people sort out the bits they care about. Job done. Or so you'd think, but then you visit what few forums are left, social media groups, many youtube channels and comment sections, and... oh good gork. See, I wish what I am about to say was a difficult thing to say, but it isn't: much of GW's fanbase is a lot like a cult.

Crikey that's going to take some work to recover from that kind of situation. There's no way I could find a meme that makes this worse...

“Think like we do, or you're just a hater!”

Oh dear, we've gone meta. Well fuck...

Fanboy Ascendant: The Cult of Positivism

It's popular to denounce criticism within wargaming circles. I suppose the competitive element allows devotees to most easily grasp for sour grapes and deploy peer pressure more effectively. But it is strange that in a culture where things are supposed to be great now, one wonders why the perils of blind devotion are not subject to much reflection. I think the key is obvious really, although its reasoning for being is more complex: the fanbase is a jittery, insecure mess and for the first time in over a decade it has the idea of agency and a “stake” in what happens next, and is determined to defend it. But enforcement of positivism can be just as much of a weapon, and whilst the trend for dismissing angry disenchantment on forums as poisoning the well before “New GW™”, we now see a stark contrast of the exact opposite: complete angry resistance to any and all criticism, and even a dictatorial group-think. Cynics may have caused many a flame war by daring to have opinions but never has a cynic started a forum or group on the pretence of enforcing tone. Dozens of Groups and Forums now enforce “No Negativity” rules, where criticism of GW is forbidden. Even in groups that don't have the brass balls to admit the new apologist agenda of maintaining an echo chamber of positivism, open criticism typically leads to marginalisation if not outright expulsion from groups, and that just stops any kind of dialogue from occurring.

The reasoning for this is at least partly understandable, even relatable. Everybody who lived through the latter parts of GW's Kirby Era got sick of the constant criticism and anger. Of course, I would argue that the majority of that was entirely justified, but even if we put that aside, most people who moaned didn't actually want to do all that moaning, no matter what GW's apologists would have you believe. But in the same way, most fans don't want to hear why the thing they like isn't perfect. It's somewhat understandable, but where else is that dialogue going to happen, and the problem is that fans will demand to be free of any criticism or complaints irrespective of where they occur and in what frequency. There will always be fans who have complaints, there will likewise always be apologists who have decided there are too many. The problem comes from, in a sad, ironic sense, GW's apparent commitment to feedback and consumer engagement. Because they engage, the dialogue of what form the game should take now that there is a chance to help shape it, is the narrowest and most inhospitable dialogue the entire gaming community has ever had. The source of that problem is the parts of the community who feel they are already being listened to and catered to, deciding to shape the status quo into an echo chamber of their existing position. This is ultimately a political power play, and it's led by a lot of the people who defended the very era they now denounce as the bygone age.

It's a bizarre and twisted logic that has produced the idea that the very second that GW has become open and receptive (apparently) to criticism, is the key time to have precisely one attitude of what this game is, which is, basically: "It's all good now! Let's just make years of pointless tweaks so we can buy more of your books and spend more on rules in two years than my dad did in 4 editions!". It's almost as if there's a stake to be had, a grasping for legitimacy, a scramble to control what the game is for the sake of creating a new status quo that looks remarkably like the bullshit power-gaming and sales-driven culture that existed in the Kirby era. Well, I suppose there's no law that states apologists should be presenting original ideas nor any semblance of imagination. It is this competitive culture that ultimately dominates gaming discussion, much fortified by GW's decision to divide its games into multiple “experiences”. Notwithstanding that both Narrative and Open are still collectively a crock of shit dressed up as an “option”, they are useful tools used to silence dissent, with many Gamers offhanded to Narrative mode especially and told “that one is for you”. This division fortifies the competitive first mindset, itself fortified by getting most of the content for Matched, alongside the fabled majesty of Points Values, GW's weapon of gaming legitimacy. Points naturally playing a key role in the balance narrative that promotes the existence of 8^th Edition as a necessary antidote. But in the land of GW, this narrative could be easily quashed, if the discussion had any true spirit to it. Knight Soup is still dominant, and GW are being agonisingly slow in addressing that imbalance.

But this isn't exactly a new phenomenon. This is more or less why the situation is so bad, because the culture hasn't actually changed, it's just embraced the line that GW allegedly has and is running with it, hardly adjusting their attitudes nor their practice. I've been insisted to by many an apologist that competitive gaming is better than ever and yet whenever I witness a local tournament I always see the same lists. The same things reoccur and whilst specific units may fall in an out of failure, I'm yet to see many loyalist armies that don't feature at least one Imperial Knight, the usual ante-upping landing in the form of Forge World units for the especially try-hard participants. What is most sad about this culture is its insistence upon embracing and celebrating the acquisition of a new environment with obviously constricted appeal, the permanence of this restriction hand-waved away via the “they listen now” rhetoric. It's no different to the short-sighted defence of the cull of units by claiming they are available, largely, still in the indices, failing to even consider the obvious future where these books are rendered non-game legal and following editions throw those units out onto their pile of desiccated concepts, for the crows to feast.

The fan orthodoxy of the Cult of Positivism ultimately drives forward a very limited narrative that embraces a restricted appeal, and a hyper-simplified game for the promise of some kind of security, the comfort blanket of consideration. GW is clearly moving in those limited directions, and the positivism agenda stifles any meaningful narrative away from challenging that. They play into the space that GW has created for itself, and thus the consensus that forms ensures a self-fulfilling prophesy. Anything that GW does will be greeted as the new cool aid. The position created for itself is simply 100% positive consumerism in its most fanatical form. Those who don't sip the cool aid will be denounced, and any fall in GW's fortunes, any mistake that will hurt in the long term will receive no significant warning from anyone willing to speak of it. GW's own fanbase are making GW blind to any kind of disorder, failings or downsides of the path they have trodden, as GW's games continue down the one avenue they have chosen to adopt, which is a deluge of average, poorly conceived games, endless supplements and a standard live service model. It's as shallow a future vision as its fanbase itself, a perpetuation of a status quo whose only principle feature is to resist the change it has only just become even vaguely of embracing for the first time in its company's history. And apologists wonder why the cynics think they're idiots.

The fanbase has facilitated this situation to the extent that it is the worst situation it could be: the blind following the blind, leading the blind. Much like the Sports Fans of the Computer Gaming industry have allowed and encouraged the popularity of the live service model and its associated microtransactions, loot boxes and gambling mechanics, fanboyism within the GW space has ensured a similar space for GW's interests. In a way, GW's rotten Kirby era created a majority crowd disinterested in well-written and balanced games, and more a cult of devotion to a shifting meta with incredibly obvious financial motives for said shifting. In many ways, this situation is a self-inflicted one, and much like S&M, it's a self-inflicted, consensual inclination, no matter how baffling it may be to onlookers. Whilst no crime, the fanbase still swells with ranks of “listened to” devotees, whilst the same failings dominate the game with no real noticeable change in the game itself nor the atmosphere it had (and continues to still have, probably one of the worst in gaming). The same crowd perpetuate this situation, moving from defending a silent, indifferent and hostile Kirby era to defending more or less the same issues dressed up in a company that claims to be a whole lot nicer. Now with GW adding their rhetoric to the discourse, any counter-narrative is doomed to be shouted down by angry fanboys, determined to maintain an echo chamber of the status quo, no better than the era of disenchanted fans under Kirby and in most ways significantly worse. The sad realisation that for all of the new kinds of gamers this new “image” may be beginning to attract, the fans will still sip the cool aid regardless of the flavour, as they have always done.

Nothing has changed, even during the only time when change is even remotely possible. Now they have that option, they will fight to the death to not use it. Let them. Emancipate yourself, find a game worth playing. Because to my mind, this community stinks and GW continues to do nothing to change that and at best now panders to them. At worst, they're ignored anyway and all of this drama is pointless.

That really wouldn't surprise me at this point.