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So no doubt that many of use occasionally check out what's new today on the GW website, which to my understanding was an opportunity for games workshop to highlight activities that are happening at HQ namely paint did models game scenery the list is endless but on today's arrival I came across this pure one hundred percent advertising. Even this has been corrupted and commercialised surely GW, as small as this is would it not be better to keep this hobby related. After all there is a whole website to advertise and what little hobby content is available on offer we do not want to see this crap.

For goodness sake what's new today in itself is relatively new and it's just turning into an advert, which is one of the arguments about white dwarf.


After all surely the concept is for hobby content to attract people to the website not an advertised tool sometimes I really do wonder what games workshop think.

I could just imagine the guy in question getting ready to put content up today on the site and been gaven the mega paint set and White Dwarf Subscription lots of fun.

So what do you guys think are my standing alone?

Yes you do stand alone. The website and WD are there to promote GW's product. They are a biz and want to make money. If you want other content there are tons of websites like Dakka which will give that.

Stop crying about the content of their website and their mag. Don't buy it or go to their web page. I bet yakkface would enjoy it if you spent more time here anyway.

You free to make choices. Be part the solution and not part of the problem. Start your own webzine or write articles here..

Cheers

Yes you do stand alone

If I were you I'd refrain from speaking for the rest of us in the future. If anything you're the one in the minority here...

But yeah, I just checked the site and read the "BUY THE MEGA PAINT SET!" article. It's not surprising I guess, but it's a little disheartening...they've been showing off some cool stuff lately, like the pre-heresy Emperor's Children army, the Salamanders earlier this week, purely hobby-related content and not more bs advertising. It was refreshing.

Don't buy it or go to their web page

Oh I won't, and haven't since January. The only reason I still visited their web store was for the What's New articles, which are apparently turning into that bs $9 rag that I already quit buying.

You free to make choices

I'm also free to speak my mind, and if GW does gak I don't like you're going to hear about it. You're free to make choices too, you don't have to post here and listen to my whining, you choose to.

Sidstyler is right. What's New Today should be for latest projects or maybe sneek peaks at new models, instead they try to cram all the garbage on the website into one page. 'If you liked the Salamanders, then you'll love this incredibly overpriced box of paint!'. A fine example if I can say so myself.

kinghammer wrote:Yes you do stand alone. The website and WD are there to promote GW's product. They are a biz and want to make money. If you want other content there are tons of websites like Dakka which will give that.

Stop crying about the content of their website and their mag. Don't buy it or go to their web page. I bet yakkface would enjoy it if you spent more time here anyway.

You free to make choices. Be part the solution and not part of the problem. Start your own webzine or write articles here..

Cheers

I was not expecting that type of reply

And you're very much wrong if you read my post correctly, my argument was about hobby content on what's new today.

The whole point of what's new today is the attract people to the website daily with hobby content and yes by all means use the advantage of that to promote your latest product that makes perfect sense, but remember why people are coming back to the website hobby content not for the new paint set.

Why do you think Bell of lost souls is so successful in attracting and maintaining Internet traffic namely the hobby content.

I remember when I actually spent a fair bit of time on the GW site purely to look at their conversions etc and I have to agree that doing away with a lot of that content has resulted in me pretty much not going near their site.
If I'm going to buy something there are cheaper suppliers of GW stuff and for news about forthcoming releases a fair few other websites.
By promoting the hobby and having people spend time on their website they're more likely to get sales through it IMO but instead they went straight to the advertising and this website is just a shopping site route.
It's a pity as I remember a nice article about converting a marine librarian from kit bashing, someone showing off a blood ravens army etc in 4th ed (I think it was 4th ed, been a long long time since I was last gaming and painting).
I think it's pretty much down to fan sites now for that kind of stuff.

So like I said before on some other thread, lets start our own gaming company. With our own miniatures and rules that work! and blackjack! and hookers! In fact forget the miniatures and rules!!

quick edit: I think that my opinion can be summed up with me not playing marines just now at all due to the DA dex and I'm more excited about what chapterhouse are doing than what GW is doing. Small fan based companies ftw

Without doing any kind of statistical analysis (I'm supposed to be writing an essay for my masters, so don't have time), What's New Today comes across largely as a way to draw attention to new articles and also show some personal projects of the staff. Yes, I was disappointed by the appearance of a blatant sales item in there, but it hasn't been a regular occurence in my eyes.

Now stop distracting me you lot, I've got an essay to write.

kinghammer wrote:Yes you do stand alone. The website and WD are there to promote GW's product. They are a biz and want to make money. If you want other content there are tons of websites like Dakka which will give that.

Stop crying about the content of their website and their mag. Don't buy it or go to their web page. I bet yakkface would enjoy it if you spent more time here anyway.

You free to make choices. Be part the solution and not part of the problem. Start your own webzine or write articles here..

Cheers

Don't speak on my behalf pal.

He was not 'crying'.

I agree with him. And I fething hate the 'if you don't like it, don't buy it' attitude of fanbois and GW employees, we are GWs client base, their consumer group and what is entirely evident on this site and across the internet is that the customers are expressing their ire with a company that does not seem to give two gaks about them. A company that has made and continues to make, quite concerted effort to piss off the people who buy their product.

If the OP or anyone else who is involved in miniature wargaming wants to express their dissatisfaction with the company they buy from, THAT IS THEIR RIGHT AS A CONSUMER.

Now, put on your red shirt and get to work, you're running late.

Don't speak on my behalf pal.

I agree with him. And I fething hate the 'if you don't like it, don't buy it' attitude of fanbois and GW employees, we are GWs client base, their consumer group and what is entirely evident on this site and across the internet is that the customers are expressing their ire with a company that does not seem to give two gaks about them. A company that has made and continues to make, quite concerted effort to piss off the people who buy their product.

Now, put on your red shirt and get to work, you're running late.

If I had an awesomeface image to put here I would. That was fantastic.

@unite all action

I can understand your disappointment. Speaking as a cynical old lag, I have seen GW's publishing in WD degenerate from a general RPG/Wargames mag to a catalogue starting from at least two decades ago.

It's a shame to see the website go the same way. The forums got dropped, and the amount of hobby content has been reduced.

In both cases, the focus is more and more on "Look at the cool conversions you can do with official kits and bitz", not "Look at the cool conversions you can do".

GW's own policy is that way, because they exist only to sell and they are more and more focussed on the entry level market who don't have the skills, experience and knowledge to do things for themselves so easily.

Fortunately we have sites like Dakka where there are loads of articles and information about all kinds of stuff around 40K (etc.) and not purely depending on the official products. And it's free!!

As veterans, it's up to us to take the bits of GW we like and use our creativity to mix them with everything else out there.

For instance, here is a very cool thread which mixes IG codex, models and bits from a number of sources to create a nicely themed army.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/263363.page

The way I see it, anything GW controls that draws a lot of attention is inevitably going to mutate to being stuffed full of adverts.

First it was WD.

Now it's 'What's New Today?'.

In the future, I see the actual model boxes being labelled with adverts. 'You know what would go really well with this box of Cadians? A Baneblade!'

kinghammer wrote:Yes you do stand alone. The website and WD are there to promote GW's product. They are a biz and want to make money. If you want other content there are tons of websites like Dakka which will give that.

Stop crying about the content of their website and their mag. Don't buy it or go to their web page. I bet yakkface would enjoy it if you spent more time here anyway.

You free to make choices. Be part the solution and not part of the problem. Start your own webzine or write articles here..

Cheers

Before you post, consider:
Am I everyone?
Do I know everything about everyones opinions on this site?
How will people react to what I'm saying?

It'll go a long way towards making you friends and people listening to what you have to say.

=================

Ahem. I loved the old GW website- it had some brilliant nuggets of hobby goodness in it- the Dok Butcha section was particularly inspiring IMO. Now though its just one big advertisment.
I was impressed when the new site went up- but that quickly turned to horror when I discovered they deleted everything that was good about it.
Whats new today? has been the only redeeming feature recently. The Emperors children army was reminiscent of what used to go up regularly. So yeah, I'm very disappointed with that being corrupted as well.

Be careful GW, or this is one customer you'll drive away from your site completely, and then how will I be able to purchase your models at their completely overblown price?

In the future, I see the actual model boxes being labelled with adverts. 'You know what would go really well with this box of Cadians? A Baneblade!'

Oh Christ, if that ever actually happens I may have to reconsider my involvement with this hobby...lol, I just don't think I could spend money on that gak and still be able to sleep at night.

What surprises me is that modern internet marketing all about using the interactivity to engage with users and involve them in a conversation with your company.

GW don't do that anymore. They just hand down pronouncements from the throne.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

kinghammer wrote:Yes you do stand alone. The website and WD are there to promote GW's product. They are a biz and want to make money. If you want other content there are tons of websites like Dakka which will give that.

Stop crying about the content of their website and their mag. Don't buy it or go to their web page. I bet yakkface would enjoy it if you spent more time here anyway.

You free to make choices. Be part the solution and not part of the problem. Start your own webzine or write articles here..

Cheers

Don't speak on my behalf pal.

He was not 'crying'.

I agree with him. And I fething hate the 'if you don't like it, don't buy it' attitude of fanbois and GW employees, we are GWs client base, their consumer group and what is entirely evident on this site and across the internet is that the customers are expressing their ire with a company that does not seem to give two gaks about them. A company that has made and continues to make, quite concerted effort to piss off the people who buy their product.

If the OP or anyone else who is involved in miniature wargaming wants to express their dissatisfaction with the company they buy from, THAT IS THEIR RIGHT AS A CONSUMER.

Now, put on your red shirt and get to work, you're running late.

Sidstyler wrote:If I had an awesomeface image to put here I would. That was fantastic.

This will just have to do for now...

Just noting, its KINGHAMMER
Not KINGCRACKER
That everyone hates in this thread. So uh... check out my petition?




Also I agree. I USED to get WDs back in the day, but then I realized I was wasting my money on the thing. It was pointless to keep paying money on a couple hundred pages of BUY THIS!!!!!
And it sucks the website has gone down that road. I only found out their forums were shut down when I was trying to find places to get the petition out, and that kind of shocked me. I only go there now to check whats coming, and prices when I see a brand new SUPER ACTION SET!! just to see if its a deal or not lol *note to the sicarius spear set. $3 more then to buy individually, nice one ninjaGW*

Kilkrazy wrote:What surprises me is that modern internet marketing all about using the interactivity to engage with users and involve them in a conversation with your company.

GW don't do that anymore. They just hand down pronouncements from the throne.

Exactly!

GW really does seem to not 'get' the Internet and how best to use it to their advantage.

They unfortunately see it as the Enemy, it seems.

A Pen and Paper Approach in a Digital World...

kinghammer wrote:Yes you do stand alone. The website and WD are there to promote GW's product. They are a biz and want to make money. If you want other content there are tons of websites like Dakka which will give that.

Stop crying about the content of their website and their mag. Don't buy it or go to their web page. I bet yakkface would enjoy it if you spent more time here anyway.

You free to make choices. Be part the solution and not part of the problem. Start your own webzine or write articles here..

Cheers

You seem very protective about GW mate, this is the second thread I've seen you get upset on over someone complaining about GW...
Mick

'What's New Today' has managed to be pretty decent so far.

The only time I've blown a gasket as far as the blatant advertising goes is when Planetstrike came out and they went over units that were good in Planetstrike:

Vukan
Iron Clad
Land Speeder Storm

And the other new Marine releases for that month.

That annoyed me, because it was an attempt to sell their latest releases while hiding it under the guise of 'helpful advice'. At least there other obvious avertisments have been just that - obvious advertisments.

In all fairness, it's tough to do any sort of 'daily blog' for a company and not eventually get into "And here is the stuff we want to sell you..." territory.

Which is fine, if it's woven into something with substance. The Planetstrike one very much wasn't - it was just a way of showing each new release without having the heading "New Releases". You'll find that most people are willing to accept the truth if you're up front about it - even if they're not happy with it, they'll accept it.

So, if you have an article and start with "These are this month's new releases, and here's some ideas in how to use them with Planetstrike", then that's fine! It's advertising yes, but it's still got some semblance of context and content. But an article "Look at these units that we think are great for Planetstrike" and it's just a shopping list of that month's releases, it's a more jagged pill to swallow.

Yeah, it's that kinda thing that gets on my nerves, too. Not just the advertising, but how blatant it is at times.

"Gee, you don't say, all the new models you're putting out this month for Space Marines are great in Planetstrike? Who the feth saw that one coming?!"

unite all action wrote:

The whole point of what's new today is the attract people to the website daily with hobby content and yes by all means use the advantage of that to promote your latest product that makes perfect sense, but remember why people are coming back to the website hobby content not for the new paint set.

What? Since when did GW project that for their 'Whats New' section of their site? By its very name its solely a promotional tool for whatever GW pleases so I don't understand how you got the notion where its for hobby content. Hell they frequently make 'em go hand in hand like how they previewed Space Hulk by releasing new content each day and having a 'demo' game for us to preview the rules.

The hobby content is usually listed under their articles section in each army's page.

Why do you think Bell of lost souls is so successful in attracting and maintaining Internet traffic namely the hobby content.

GW's website has more hobby content than I think you're giving them credit for. And while hobby content is good and all for a company like GW to offer freely; their main site is there as a platform to sell miniatures and products like White Dwarf which probably has more hobby material than what the site has on a monthly basis. So anything that doesn't in some way advertise product could be seen as a bad business move and rightfully so.

Believe me there are plenty of bones to pick with GW but I really don't understand where this perspective is coming from as its very much on the level of "No gak sherlock". Do you not want them to report store/product news in the frigging WHATS NEW section? I am a lost panda here.

Vermillion wrote:
So like I said before in some other thread, lets start our own gaming company. With our own miniatures and rules that work! and blackjack! and hookers! In fact forget the miniatures and rules!!

quick edit: I think that my opinion can be summed up with me not playing marines just now at all due to the DA dex and I'm more excited about what chapterhouse are doing than what GW is doing. Small fan based companies ftw

Ah shucks, thanks!

Sadly, I will be the first to admit I dont update our site news all that much, I rather let the boards know whats happening first hand.

Nick

Kilkrazy wrote:What surprises me is that modern internet marketing all about using the interactivity to engage with users and involve them in a conversation with your company.

GW don't do that anymore. They just hand down pronouncements from the throne.

they tried that at one point in time and didn't agree with the feedback they got from us.

Chapterhouse wrote:

Vermillion wrote:
So like I said before in some other thread, lets start our own gaming company. With our own miniatures and rules that work! and blackjack! and hookers! In fact forget the miniatures and rules!!

quick edit: I think that my opinion can be summed up with me not playing marines just now at all due to the DA dex and I'm more excited about what chapterhouse are doing than what GW is doing. Small fan based companies ftw

Ah shucks, thanks!

Sadly, I will be the first to admit I dont update our site news all that much, I rather let the boards know whats happening first hand.

Nick

Why dakka is so useful to read
Now about the blackjack and hookers I suggested...

I see your arguement -

GW is employing internet marketting tactics - and I see nothing wrong with it. They are showing off their stuff - new releases and such.
Since when have we become dependent for GW for 'real' substance content?

As always, the largest objective is to

To show us, the internet readers about the 'AWESOMENESS" of their product.

Which, they hope to have WOW'd us into buying it.

They are looking for lead & sales generation in a hybrid manner of both showing off a product alongside with pictures and some content.



Us 'Internet-Junkies' - are only a small fraction of the pie.


The casual n00b person who doesn't even know that dakka or much places exists - goes to the GW site, and they won't be complaining.
The casual buyer is not internet people like us. We are small fraction of the pie.

I do not go into my LGS's and GW stores meeting a lot of dakkites.


Its all about money - always.

RogueMarket wrote:I see your arguement -

GW is employing internet marketting tactics - and I see nothing wrong with it. They are showing off their stuff - new releases and such.
Since when have we become dependent for GW for 'real' substance content?

As always, the largest objective is to

To show us, the internet readers about the 'AWESOMENESS" of their product.

Which, they hope to have WOW'd us into buying it.

They are looking for lead & sales generation in a hybrid manner of both showing off a product alongside with pictures and some content.



Us 'Internet-Junkies' - are only a small fraction of the pie.


The casual n00b person who doesn't even know that dakka or much places exists - goes to the GW site, and they won't be complaining.
The casual buyer is not internet people like us. We are small fraction of the pie.

I do not go into my LGS's and GW stores meeting a lot of dakkites.


Its all about money - always.

I think that obviously we would prefer to meet those kinds of people and even at everyones LFGS or GW store there will be a percentage who are into what we each see as the hobby.
But I do feel GW pulling more "hobbyish" content out of their site and putting more hard sell in is taking the mickey. What hobby stuff there is is under each army but I think a proper link from the front page would be a lot easier to navigate and more articles put into it a big improvement. Not just for us the consumer who keep lining their pockets but for them to get more lining of those pockets.
Even starting out 20 odd years back conversions, learnign to paint wanting to find out what tools I'd need etc was something I was interested in, and in some respects captivating in it's own right.
Even with my current 40k armie low on numbers of converted models and painted to a standard that makes me cringe I'm so out of practise I still look for new ideas, tips and tricks etc. If I see parts of a conversion that give me an idea for something I think would be cool (traditional black armoured DA vets as a command squad, sparked by their old article about the plastic xommand squad for example) I'll go looking for those parts. With the bits service gone it feels like another blow to what is being called the hobbyist, if you want parts they want even more money and old parts no way buy new even though the old parts saw price increases also.
Overall a kick in the teeth from GW from my point of view :( Just glad for sites like this, I'm off to painting and modelling again with my rant over to skulk looking for inspiration and maybe just ideas to blatantly steal

Tbh, I see why everyone is complaining, but it isn't that bad...is it? I loled when I saw the planet strike stuff, and the posters around my GWS saying OMG THIS STUFF IS GOOD FOR DEFENDING. But there really is some good stuff there. I like the salamander dreadnough, the pre-heresy ec army, and the Games Day board was excellent.
Edit-I just looked at What's new Today. I now see how bad it is...http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/blogPost.jsp?aId=5100027a

Four of out the five days this week were centered around interesting conversions or painting.
To complain that Friday is about one of their new products is a bit rich, especially when you consider that the blog doesn't get updated for free.