Has it been, what, three weeks since Faeit has been taken down? Already, frantic wargamers are salivating, wondering when their next rumor fix will be coming.
As if having 45% rumor success rate was a good barometer? If anything, Faeit proved it didn't matter how many you get right just that you have hundreds of them, because the public demands!
It seems like we have entered an era; where as long as you post something, it doesn't matter your "source" because people will still listen, drawn by the gypsy dust rumor quackery.
How have we gotten to this point?
Are the rumor mongers just not talking?
Is Stickmonkey bored making stuff up?
GW fire all the leakers?
The simple answer: Games Workshop has made playtesting (the biggest leak source) more and more an internal affair.
It was less than 10 years ago that Games Workshop had us the trusty gamers doing playtesting. It was a glorious time were GW actually looked to the community for support, to design better games. The best part was GW didn't have to pay anyone as the playtesters lovingly worked for free.
Slowly, but surely Games Workshop began to phase out practice. As the Internet grew, leaks and playtesters got harder to control. This is when GW decides rumors and leaks are generally a bad thing. Playtesters are not privy to the final product and going half cocked about a unit or model can dampen a release.
This though doesn't excuse GW behavior, but makes it that more understandable. So, what did GW do next? Well they decided it was time to bring it in-house. Most of the playtesting in 5th edition happened by a group of GW employees, GW store managers from select European stores to be exact.
As a reward for either sales or loyalty, this group of managers were given rules to test. They were even taken to Nottingham for play time with the dev team. This was about the time that many rumors required Spanish, German, or French translations.
Trusting your retail managers though poses great risks. While you can sack them with ease, you cannot easily track down the culprit once they let things slip to employees or customers. The volatility of the retail market, also means managers come and go.
This leads us to the current state of playtesting, where Games Workshop has pulled everything to Nottingham. Surprisingly, this is a topic the Dev team can talk about. Having asked a few of them the answer is simple for the why: Stop Leaks.
Keeping your playtesters close means they are much more controllable. You don't have things like email trails to far off places, instead tap your cubical mate and get testing. Testing done in one place at one time, having little contact with the paying public means less GW has to fear in their mind.
GW seems pretty secure in their position, because you can find the names of every playtester in all the 6th edition codexes.
Now this isn't foolproof, as roommates and alcohol can play a role in loosening lips, but for the most part this new strategy has worked. Will it last for only as long employees stay at GW? Unlike retailer managers, the bonds/culture of the Development Team is much stronger and GW will be counting on it. Oh, and well written NDAs.
The moral of story is the rumor lockdown isn't going anywhere, and this is just another way GW is trying to pretend to be the Apple of gaming.
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Meat for Meta is rated editorial nonsense. These articles are meant to complain about some group, somewhere, that is playing the game for all the wrong reasons or simply to just make fun of 40k nerd rage.