White Dwarf Feedback Over Time

[Inquisitor Kallus]

Err no, im most certainly not. It has always run at a loss. I know this from my regional manager. Looking at if you have staff paid for, their food, the rent of the place which is substantial for 2 days (build and break down as well as the event itself). Then there is the transportation, known lossing of stock for events etc.

Apparently its not a substantial loss but a loss nonetheless, apparently

I have no reason to disbelieve him though it is possible he was not telling the truth, but I dont see what he would have gained from that.

[ted1138]

They don't need to make a profit on White Dwarf. As long as it's not making a substantial loss, it's classed as cheap advertising. As for Gamesday, GW probably figure most gamers can only afford to go to one show a year, so as long as they have Gamesday, they're stopping anyone else from stepping in a putting on a rival show.

[ted1138]

Its production values are quite high, there is nothing amateurish about the magazine. I see nothing cheap/easy about it. Meanwhile i'm gonna be lazy and just quote myself from a couple days ago on another thread:

You really have no idea what you're talking about do you?

[Torga_DW]

Care to substantiate that in any way, shape or form?

[Inquisitor Kallus]

Compared to previous older White Dwarf around when Robin Dews was editor the magazine seems to have more pictures of battle scenes and of products/miniatures that take up a lot more room than they once would have.

There is less 'heart and soul' content than there was and it really feels like they are just going through the motions. White Dwarf even usd to have multiple page stories/extracts from books that really enthralled me, even when it was an army I did not collect. The story of Nagash and Alcadizaar was amazing when the Undead book came out. Admittedly the quality of miniatures and their paint schemes does not even touch that of what it is now on the whole in my opinion.

[Torga_DW]

Meanwhile, its high quality paper, fonts and layout. Good quality artwork on every cover and within. Photography and lighting are always good. Articles designed for maximum impact on the target audience. In short, high production values.

You're talking about content, which is not intended for you but for children. You're using the fact that it used to be different to judge its purpose and quality now. I'll repeat my previous post:

I agree with Inquisitor Kallus. Societies change, and the target audience of white dwarf has changed. Its sad, but it happens. To repeat my post in the June review, i loved teenage mutant ninja turtles when it came out. It had violence, adult themes, death, the whole nine yards. Ask most people about it these days, and they'll say its a children's cartoon on television. The target audience changed. I think a lot of people's unhapiness with white dwarf as it is now, is that they're not accepting that its changed. Which is also sad, but happens.

[Iron Puritan]

Meanwhile, its high quality paper, fonts and layout. Good quality artwork on every cover and within. Photography and lighting are always good. Articles designed for maximum impact on the target audience. In short, high production values.

You're talking about content, which is not intended for you but for children. You're using the fact that it used to be different to judge its purpose and quality now. I'll repeat my previous post:

Your argument does not make sense. The issue is not a shift in target audiences, but rather a change in the purpose of White Dwarf. The publication has become a thinly veiled catalogue, and has been marching down that road for some time.

Speaking of demographics, when you consider the success of the YA fiction market, there are plenty of writers who have enjoyed success selling books to both teen and adult readers. The bottom line is that good stories will entertain, even if a reader falls outside of the publisher's marketing category.

[Torga_DW]

Your argument does not make sense. The issue is not a shift in target audiences, but rather a change in the purpose of White Dwarf. The publication has become a thinly veiled catalogue, and has been marching down that road for some time.

I would say both can be true. I've already posted links that say GW is targeting children. They were always a catalogue for new releases, a minor shift in emphasis but they still have non-catalogue content. The real issue to me is that people are saying its not as good, when in reality its become something entirely different that is otherwise working as intended. Its not a flaw of the magazine, its a feature.

Speaking of demographics, when you consider the success of the YA fiction market, there are plenty of writers who have enjoyed success selling books to both teen and adult readers. The bottom line is that good stories will entertain, even if a reader falls outside of the publisher's marketing category.

Thats pretty much what black library seems to be. People outraged that goto has terminators surfing landraiders into battle. As an adult, and someone who knew the fluff as it was, i find it rather silly and bad writing. But again, GW is targeting children, not me. Children think differently to adults. Everything they produce is designed to capitalize on this. It doesn't mean that adults won't play their games or read their books.

To bring it back to the teenage mutant ninja turtle analogy: a couple years or so ago, they redid a new cartoon version of it that more closely followed the original comic books. It was still obviously aimed at children, but had enough of the original that i watched it and found it entertaining despite not being the target audience. Then they followed up with a sequel series, which had been better modified to suit the target audience. Which meant the turtles coming back from the future with a bumbling robot sidekick, uploading their entire bodies into 'cyberspace' to fight the cyber shredder. A lot of stuff like that which drove me nuts and offended my intelligence, and ended with me not watching anymore than the first couple episodes.

Again, there was nothing wrong with the new series, it was doing exactly what it was supposed to. Working completely as intended. I was just not part of the target audience, who were probably wetting their pants in excitement to rush out to the shops and have their parents buy them the associated toys. See any similarities here?

edit: out of interest, i counted all the pages that i would call pure catalogue/advertisements in july's wd, which i put at 25 pages. Out of 118 pages, thats roughly 21% of the magazine devoted to advertising. Seems a reasonable amount to me.

[ted1138]

The most time consuming, thus expensive, part of putting together a magazine is the words. So when you look at a magazine, and you see that they've used pictures(the cheapest and easiest part)to fill up pages, you know they're either trying to save money on staff, or they simply don't have the ability to generate enough content. As for it's "high quality paper, fonts and layout", the paper is the same as any other magazine, fonts are just your basic mix of sans serif for body and serif for titles, and the layouts are the basic WD templates, nothing imaginative or original there, and certainly nothing that says "high quality" to me.

[MiyamatoMusashi]

The argument "this is bad. But it is for children. THEREFORE IT IS GOOD" makes no sense. The very young aside, even children don't want rubbish. (No matter how many times you repeat yourself, quote your own posts or compare it to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We get it, dude. We disagree. Saying the same thing again isn't going to suddenly enlighten us).

As for "high-quality fonts"... um... dude.

[codeslingerMalthius]

How many children have access to 10 bucks an issue for a monthly catalog? On top of any purchases of the game? Ok, if its aimed at children, and so is the rest of "The Hobby" it is certainly not priced as such.
Its like the argument "oh noez drug dealers are hanging out at elementary schools trying to addict children to crack". Why? Kids (in numbers large enough to justify the effort) don't have Crack level of cash.

[Torga_DW]

The most time consuming, thus expensive, part of putting together a magazine is the words. So when you look at a magazine, and you see that they've used pictures(the cheapest and easiest part)to fill up pages, you know they're either trying to save money on staff, or they simply don't have the ability to generate enough content. As for it's "high quality paper, fonts and layout", the paper is the same as any other magazine, fonts are just your basic mix of sans serif for body and serif for titles, and the layouts are the basic WD templates, nothing imaginative or original there, and certainly nothing that says "high quality" to me.

I would say words are one of the cheaper parts. Writers aren't known for being a high-paid profession. Pictures meanwhile, cost a fair amount of money to commission from my experience. So do photographers. The pictures in the minis need to be painted. You're saying they simply lack the ability to generate enough content? That seems likely to you?

The argument "this is bad. But it is for children. THEREFORE IT IS GOOD" makes no sense. The very young aside, even children don't want rubbish. (No matter how many times you repeat yourself, quote your own posts or compare it to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We get it, dude. We disagree. Saying the same thing again isn't going to suddenly enlighten us).

As for "high-quality fonts"... um... dude.

And this is why i keep repeating myself. My argument is: whats good for children, isn't usually good for adults. If you can't see a difference between adult-targeted content and child targeted content, well i don't know what to say.

As for the high quality fonts? Have you looked in a woman's magazine recently? I find them highly comparable to white dwarf, interestingly enough.

How many children have access to 10 bucks an issue for a monthly catalog? On top of any purchases of the game? Ok, if its aimed at children, and so is the rest of "The Hobby" it is certainly not priced as such.

I would hazard quite a few in this day and age, if $10 a month is a serious issue, they're probably not able to afford the rest. As for the pricing, you make a good point, and is the subject of much discussion. We've been seeing from the yearly reports, their playerbase is slowly shrinking. But thats a topic for another thread.

Its like the argument "oh noez drug dealers are hanging out at elementary schools trying to addict children to crack". Why? Kids (in numbers large enough to justify the effort) don't have Crack level of cash.

If someone is sufficiently motivated, they will find a way to get the money. In the case of crack and the like, there's usually a level of associated crime to support their habits. Thats the whole point of giving the kids their first hit, once they decide they want more, the dealers don't really care how they get the money, as long as they get it.

It seems my views are not being well-received, so i'll stop posting them. I guess the white dwarf situation will just be one of those mysteries of the ages that can never be understood.

[MiyamatoMusashi]

And this is why i keep repeating myself. My argument is: whats good for children, isn't usually good for adults. If you can't see a difference between adult-targeted content and child targeted content, well i don't know what to say.

So... you're not even going to attempt to address the point I actually made, then?

I understand there is a difference between child-targeted and adult-targeted.

You don't seem to understand there is a difference between good and bad.

As for the high quality fonts? Have you looked in a woman's magazine recently? I find them highly comparable to white dwarf, interestingly enough.

I literally, genuinely do not understand what you mean by this.

It's a font. White Dwarf has a font like those used in women's magazines? Uh... so? So does any magazine. It's a font, dude, not gold plating.

[Wintermute]

And from this point onwards I suggest we return to the original topic of the thread which not a debate about the the production values and cost of WD but its content.

Wintermute

[Moralein]

I really don't get this idea that WD has to be pretty pictures and nothing else to appeal to kids. I started reading it around issue 180. I was 16 or 17 years old, it was actually my younger brother who bought it (10 or 11) and we both loved it. It appealed to younger and older gamers alike. We both read it cover to cover, over and over. We'd never been into a GW shop or to be honest even heard about the company. Neither of us knew the rules or systems, but the reports were so well written that you could get the gist of things by reading them. You used to actually count down the days until the next issue came out and keep checking in the local newsagents to see when it did.

I know that GW wants to focus on kids and that vets are expected to find their own info online nowadays, but I don't see why the mag can't appeal to both groups at the same time. It's not as if the two groups are mutually exclusive, we both want to look at new releases, well painted armies, fluff, painting/modelling tips and well written battle reports, shouldn't be hard to do that surely?

I can go back and read my older WD and really enjoy them. I even read the articles about systems that I don't play, because they were so well written that you could follow what was going on. I stopped my subscription to WD at 320 because there just wasn't any content anymore. I'd pick it up as a free leaflet it all it had was shiney pictures, but I'm not willing to pay for it.

Kids aren't stupid so why treat them as such? It's like J K Rowling deciding that Harry Potter is now only to be aimed at kids so the next installment will be 'Harry Potter goes to the Zoo', a twelve page fully illustrated, large font children's book for the under 5s! I really can't understand why GW would take a formula that worked and decide to change it into something that doesn't. I'd love to know what has happened to subscriber numbers over the last few years.

[Trasvi]

When I started playing warhammer, in the midst of the LOTR boom at age 12, I think I was fairly squarely in what is now GW's target market. Parents with large discretionary income, near enough to a GW store that it was the only place I shopped and only wargame I knew about. I got my White Dwarf every week and read it cover to cover. I'd read the battle reports, the tactica articles, the conversion guys, the masterclasses, the short stories, and I loved every part of it. In particular, I liked the battle reports; even before I ever played LOTR or 40k I still enjoyed following the turn by turn.

Perhaps GW's strategy is to cater to teens, by showing big glossy pictures everywhere. But to me, there is no indication that is what teens actually want. They're *possibly* targetting teens, whilst *definitely* alienating their adult market.

[paddyalexander]

I got my White Dwarf every week and read it cover to cover.

An impressive feat for a monthly publication. gwPLC must have loved you, buying 4 of each issue of White Dwarf a month.

Seriously, there are examples of hobby magazines out there that are deep enough to appeal to wargamers whatever their age. I've since bought and read the No Quarter that I previously linked to a sample of: http://files.privateerpress.com/nq/nqplus/NQ42.pdf and would give it a 7 or an 8 out of 10. Comparitively I've never looked trough (not a high enough word count to count as read) a copy of WD over the last 8 years that I would have scored higher than a 3.

If gwPLC are dumbing the content down to appeal to a younger audience then that is the worst mistake you can make in marketing. There is a reason in commercials it almost always show older kids playing or using the toy or game than what it is targeted at (recent ones that come to mind are Nerf and Bakugan ads). Kids find toys, games and hobbies that they precieve to be more suitable to an older age bracket to be much more appealing than ones they precieve to be for their age group or younger. In making content that would appeal to adults they would also appeal to young readers.

Now there is a difference between what I was just talking about and articles that focus on beginers in the hobby. A good magazine should have a balance of content, having a mix of articles that are aimed at beginers, veterans and those inbetween. Great articles are those that have something for everybody; they are accessable by beginers and provide interesting content for veterans. Magazines like No Quater & Wargames Illustrated might each deliver a handfull of truely great articles a year; White Dwarf would have to start including actual articles before it has any chance of including great content.

[Zenithfleet]

If gwPLC are dumbing the content down to appeal to a younger audience then that is the worst mistake you can make in marketing. There is a reason in commercials it almost always show older kids playing or using the toy or game than what it is targeted at (recent ones that come to mind are Nerf and Bakugan ads). Kids find toys, games and hobbies that they precieve to be more suitable to an older age bracket to be much more appealing than ones they precieve to be for their age group or younger. In making content that would appeal to adults they would also appeal to young readers.

Definitely agree with this (at least intuitively - I don't have any research at hand to back it up or anything ) I always liked reading books about kids a couple of years older than myself, never younger. I remember discovering 40K while innocently searching for more Space Crusade models and being completely sucked in by how much more grown-up everything seemed. White Dwarf in particular seemed to be directed at somebody older and smarter than me and I'd just happened to stumble in midway through the conversation - but that was part of the appeal. "OK, I don't quite understand this - what the heck is a pop-up attack and why does 'Warhammer' sometimes say '40,000' after it? - but other people clearly understand. Older kids. Smarter kids. Teens. Adults. If I can also know these things, I shall be one of the older smarter wiser crowd and all the world shall bring me tribute." Er... or something like that.

On another note: People often say that White Dwarf doesn't need to include all the 'hobby' stuff these days because we have the Internet for that, so it can concentrate on selling stuff. While this is debatable (surely the extra hobby stuff gives you more reason to buy their stuff?), the trouble is that even if modern White Dwarf is determined to be solely a sales brochure, it could be a much more interesting sales brochure than it is now. Not to mention effective. Rant incoming...

I have before me a recently acquired copy of WD 187 from 1995, which I have dim recollections of reading back inna dawn of time (the Witch Elf on the cover may or may not have hypnotised me at age twelve). Now I have to say that this isn't a particularly impressive issue compared to the high water mark of the 3rd ed / early 4th ed 40K issues. Much of it is blatantly on-message. Buy these models! 'Cos they're cool! Here's some 'Eavy Metal pictures with no clues whatsoever about how to paint them!

And yet... it still manages to squeeze in plenty of other interesting stuff.

For instance, we get NINE pages about the Demolisher tank kit. Several pages are mostly taken up by photos. The article is full of language that wouldn't feel out of place in modern White Dwarf. Relish the look of horror on your opponent's face! The best tactic is to use them in pairs... hint, hint! The mega-powerful cannon is specially designed to not only destroy fortifications but kill the troops inside as well!... er, because bringing a bunker roof down on their heads presumably doesn't cut it?

And yet... this article also manages to include basic tactics that mention the Demolisher's weaknesses as well as its strengths, the army list entry, the datafax to photocopy, and a guide to all the insignia so you'll know what to do with your transfer sheet (while providing background about IG vehicle markings in general).

Then we get an article on Dark Elves. Now given that they've featured on the cover, you might expect this will provide some details about the newly released army book. Maybe designer's notes? Sample unit entries? No. All we get are some pics of suspiciously masculine Witch Elf models and a background article about the cities of Naggaroth, which contains some hilariously extreme bloodthirstiness and isn't a particularly convincing piece of world-building given that apparently the only thing Dark Elves do in these cities is kill things. Oh, and they have slave plantations and lots of towers. Good for them.

And yet... this article also includes a double-page map of the whole continent, showing all the cities mentioned plus other things like the Chaos Wastes and Ulthuan. The article itself is accompanied by many pieces of artwork rather than photos (slightly odd given that this is the armybook release, but never mind). And whatever its literary merits, it does fill four pages almost entirely with text.

Later on we get an article about an expansion pack for Warhammer Quest, which is nothing but a great big four-page advertisement. And yet it goes into detail about the components and the reasoning behind them, with sample pictures of the new boards and cards and miniatures, and in general does exactly what you would want a four-page advertisement to do, which is convince you to buy Lair of the Orc Lord. By informing you, rather than just screeching 'BUY IT COS IT'S AWSUM!'

Plus there's new flyer rules for Epic, bonus WQ cards to photocopy, a five-page competition article on Golden Demon...

...and the Heretic battle report.

We played a huge game with tons of tanks! Including Demolishers! Which were awesome! Hint! Hint!

AND YET...

Twenty-two pages.

Scenario rules. Experimental house rules from the Citadel Journal (because we game designers acknowledge that 40K is, in fact, imperfect and can be improved and did not descend whole and flawless from the clouds accompanied by singing antigrav cherubs). Pre-battle planning. Post-mortems. Amusing flavour text (some of which even made it into 3rd ed's Codex Witch Hunters). A fun way to simulate comlink chatter via a tape recorder. An apology that they don't have space to show each side's turn separately on the maps, so they've had to combine them. The discovery of black and grey cotton wool to show smoke on destroyed tanks (good grief, was this really the first time they thought of it?)

And then seven pages of actual blow-by-blow battling, written in a way that I could follow all those years ago even though I barely understood the game system, seguing smoothly from dice-rolling details to in-universe narrative and back again, and making me completely obsessed with playing this crazy 40K game and having as much fun as this group of strangers in the northern hemisphere were clearly having.

Now that's advertising I can approve of.

[MiyamatoMusashi]

Agreed. Nobody expects White Dwarf to suddenly stop advertising altogether, and be full of articles about other companies' stuff and how much better than GW's stuff it is ("Later this issue, Mat Ward tries to stick a tank together with Citadel Plastic Glue Thick... find out how long it lasted before falling apart!"). That would be ridiculous, WD is a GW mouthpiece and always will be. Fair enough. But... if it's going to be stuffed full with nothing but adverts, at least make those advertisements halfway interesting.

[shelfunit.]

The discovery of black and grey cotton wool to show smoke on destroyed tanks (good grief, was this really the first time they thought of it?)

Nope - it was around in the 130's - there was a 1st ed SpaceMarine game with lots and lots of bits of cotton wool acting as smoke to represent damage on various vehicles/titans/gargants. Very simple, yet adds a bit of depth to the report photos.

Agreed. Nobody expects White Dwarf to suddenly stop advertising altogether, and be full of articles about other companies' stuff and how much better than GW's stuff it is ("Later this issue, Mat Ward tries to stick a tank together with Citadel Plastic Glue Thick... find out how long it lasted before falling apart!"). That would be ridiculous, WD is a GW mouthpiece and always will be. Fair enough. But... if it's going to be stuffed full with nothing but adverts, at least make those advertisements halfway interesting.

Agreed - there has to be adverts, and a page or two of direct selling every 20 pages or so would be fine, it's the combination of 1 in 10 pages adverts followed by a couple of pages of the pictures of the same thing, and then a couple of pages with more (of the same) pictures and the smallest amount of text possible saying how great it is.