I like to think of myself as a fair arbitrator when it comes to Games Workshop sometimes enigmatic behavior. I usually like to cut through the Internet GW hate machine and offer an other side. I try to find a logical perspective for the decisions GW makes, but one thing I won't do is defend the abomination known as Warhammer: Visions.
As many of you have already heard, Warhammer: Visions is going through some perminate changes going forward.
Jes Bickham the Editor of White Dwarf and Warhammer: Visions sent out this little letter to anyone who still had a Warhammer: Visions subscription.
As you can see Games Workshop is going all in with their failing picture book. Don't believe me just look at where a lot of the lost profit over the last year came from.
https://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2015/01/15/network-news-2014-2015-dec-jan-gw-market-watch/
Instead of just killing off the magainze GW decided to double the size! We don't know if this means the magazine actual physical size is getting bigger, which is a good change, but isn't going to convince anyone to suddenly start buying it. More likely, and if you read into Jes Bickham words they are adding more content and features.
What can these new features actually be? The only question is does it matter? This particlar PR nightmare is still fresh in many folks minds. The root of the problem will always be no one asked for Warhammer: Visions. Their wasn't any desire to split up White Dwarf into two mismatch parts. Oddly, it seemed like GW was surprised by the backlash; how dare you get mad when I bait & switch something you already paid for. Did they ever offer refunds?
Warhammer: Visions was thus dead on arrival, a combination of hubris and not knowing your customer. Is GW trying to get those old subscribers back, or more likely get completely different people subscribing. If they wanted the old subscribers back they would bring back the old White Dwarf, at worse (saving tons of money in the process) they could just bundle the weekly releases into one monthly edition and drop Warhammer: Visions. We know GW won't do that, the White Dwarf change reflected the GW change to the weekly model releases.
Who do you think is going to win that battle a magazine or new models? Sadly, I actually enjoy the White Dwarf format because I pick and choose what issues I want, and they are finally putting new rules in them.
Regardless, GW is mindlessly expanding, sinking more money into the Warhammer: Visions boondoggle, cutting into sacrosanct profit margins. This has always been the strange thing with the White Dwarf department, no matter how miserly we think GW has become, they continue to pump money into a dying format of print magazines, like the Internet is some sort of fad.
Why they won't they cut the cord? My best explanation is White Dwarf/Visions is the marketing/PR department GW claims not to have. If they let White Dwarf/Visions die, they might actually have to start doing outside marketing, you know like paying for advertising! GW though cannot go giving up that kind of control, standards must be maintained! I think it is safe to say hell would have frozen over before we saw GW banner ads pop-up on the Internet.
By next month we will know what this new GW vision entails, but if you are holding out hope for something miraculous for the new Warhammer: Visions you will most likely be very disappointed.
Warning
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.