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 streetsamurai wrote:
I think that these books are terriby misguided in the sense that they assume that all 8 to 12 kids are interested in these kinds of carebear bs.

No, they don't. They assume that some 8-12 year old kids are interested in these kinds of stories.

They don't need to sell to every kid. Just enough of them to be profitable.

And if the stories are halfway competently written, they'll sell in crateloads to those who want then. And the kids who are into heavier fare will still have the 'adult' books.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:
This is an attempt at making all ages lore, and is somewhat equivalent to making an all ages version of A Song of Ice and Fire. It's possible, but what's the end game? Introducing children to a universe they aren't ready for?

Thanks, that sums up my opinion nicely.

On the point (not the persons),bollocks, quite frankly.

GW know that kids arguably too young for the core games still show an interest. And a massive part of their appeal is the sheer scope of the Hobby. For every Tingoy, there’s someone who only paints. For every painter, there’s someone that only reads the fiction. And there’s so much intersection between those same exceptionally broad strokes it’s not even funny.

Now, kids will of course show an interest. Me? I was 9 years old when I first clapped eyes on Heroquest. At the end of the month, I turn 38. Yes. I am fairly old.

At that point, I was only exposed to the sanitised Old World as presented within Heroquest. A game that includes Fimir. You remember the Fimir. Don’t you? Based on Irish myth, can only reproduce via rape Fimir? Sure. That bit was understandably and justifiably left out of the Heroquest background - yet here I am, nigh on 29 years to the day still enjoying being A Massive Nerd.

Seriously. If one can sanitise swamp dwelling Rape Monsters, you can sanitise anything

 insaniak wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
I think that these books are terriby misguided in the sense that they assume that all 8 to 12 kids are interested in these kinds of carebear bs.

No, they don't. They assume that some 8-12 year old kids are interested in these kinds of stories.

They don't need to sell to every kid. Just enough of them to be profitable.

And if the stories are halfway competently written, they'll sell in crateloads to those who want then. And the kids who are into heavier fare will still have the 'adult' books.

In a sense they do, or at least they assume that most kids are interested in these kind of products. The explicit goal of these books is to attract new customers to the hhhobby, and since it's the only ''kid'' product made by GW, it shows that this is what they think most kids want.

 streetsamurai wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
I think that these books are terriby misguided in the sense that they assume that all 8 to 12 kids are interested in these kinds of carebear bs.

No, they don't. They assume that some 8-12 year old kids are interested in these kinds of stories.

They don't need to sell to every kid. Just enough of them to be profitable.

And if the stories are halfway competently written, they'll sell in crateloads to those who want then. And the kids who are into heavier fare will still have the 'adult' books.

In a sense they do, or at least they assume that most kids are interested in these kind of products. The explicit goal of these books is to attract new customers to the hhhobby, and since it's the only ''kid'' product made by GW, it shows that this is what they think most kids want.

No, it's a test to see if kids want it. And be fair, their entire product line is plastic soldiers, so pretty much every product thet make is kid based. And to your other point, if i did somehow misinterpret what you said, try explaining yourself a bit better.

That and the various other successful yoof books.


But by all means, keep on whining. Even though you earlier claimed you don’t care....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, StreetSamurai.....have you actually read the books?

Oh.....oh you haven’t?

Kinda hard to form an opinion on the content then, surely?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
That and the various other successful yoof books.


But by all means, keep on whining. Even though you earlier claimed you don’t care....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, StreetSamurai.....have you actually read the books?

Oh.....oh you haven’t?

Kinda hard to form an opinion on the content then, surely?

Whining?

I'm discussing a subject on a tread about it

Sad that you are so insecure you need to insult people who have a different opinion than you.

And again. I wonder how come mods accept these kind of attacks all of the time

No, no, you’re definitely whining.

As memory serves, you were the first to bring up (but not define) ‘brand dilution’....and acted as if these books somehow meant all of Black Library’s output would henceforth aimed at the same age group?

But hey. It’s you. This is nothing new. GW do something, and sure as a very sure thing, there’s StreetSamurai inventing a complaint about it.

Just a reminder, Rule #1 people

Lol, I don't have to define the concept of brand dilution, It's a well known concept in marketing (and has your post shows, you have no clue what it means). If youre too ignorant or lazy to make a simple google research, this is not my problem

Personally some of the Roald Dahl stuff I read as a young kid is actually Darker than a lot of the stuff I read now........Less sex though which gave him far more time for plot and cleverness.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
At that point, I was only exposed to the sanitised Old World as presented within Heroquest. A game that includes Fimir. You remember the Fimir. Don’t you?

No, I don't. I bought a lot of white dwarf, the 5th ed starter box and Lizardmen, Bretonnian codices, the rule books for later editions, and I basically never heard of them, except a bit on the internet when they were re-released by Forge World.
The fimir are a really obscure part of the lore.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Seriously. If one can sanitise swamp dwelling Rape Monsters, you can sanitise anything

Yeah but my point was that for 40k, you have to “sanitize away” so much stuff if you want not to promote xenophobic totalitarian empire to kids, that you lose what makes 40k worthwhile. Now of course that was from my point of view, and I understand that for a bunch of people, and for GW, there is a completely different interest in having a book in a “sanitized” version of 40k: introduce new people to the universe. It's not something I'm averse to, I'm not in the stupid gate-keeping thing, but it's not something I am particularly interested to either to be honest. But I can understand this point of view.

Do people (majority) only play Space Marines because they are Xenophobic Totalitarians? Or just because they are big dudes in space armour with big guns blasting aliens and monsters?



For some the lore is king, for others its a game of pew-pew toy soldiers with some rules.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:
This is an attempt at making all ages lore, and is somewhat equivalent to making an all ages version of A Song of Ice and Fire. It's possible, but what's the end game? Introducing children to a universe they aren't ready for?

Thanks, that sums up my opinion nicely.

FYI, there IS a SoF&I kid's book.

 streetsamurai wrote:
Lol, I don't have to define the concept of brand dilution, It's a well known concept in marketing (and has your post shows, you have no clue what it means). If youre too ignorant or lazy to make a simple google research, this is not my problem

Ok, so Google definition here: "Brand dilution happens when a brand loses its value from excessive use. Value is lost when a product or a piece of media does not meet the expectations customers have of the brand. Line extensions can lead to brand dilution if the new product does not live up to the brand promise of the original product.".

I don't think we've seen any brand value loss, not judging by the financials anyway. And considering people have moaned for years that GW has been sitting on it's IP with no expansion, we certainly can't say it's been excessively used yet.

We can't judge if this particular piece of media has met with expectations of the target audience as A) it hasn't been released yet and B) no one on this board is the target audience.

So at this moment in time, Brand dilution is nothing but fear mongering based on knee jerk reactions on some unreleased kids books.

Side note; Dakka really needs bullet point options.

Creating new content =/= diluting a brand.

This is a mechanism to draw in new blood and nothing more.

40k isn't going to change. Stop panicking and acting ridiculous.

It is definitely tragic that some of you see an issue with this. More hobbyists is a good thing. This encourages more hobbyists. It doesn't dilute the 40k brand, it actually makes it more stable moving forward.

 Overread wrote:
For some the lore is king, for others its a game of pew-pew toy soldiers with some rules.

Yeah but do people that don't care about the lore, just about the models, read the books ?

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:
This is an attempt at making all ages lore, and is somewhat equivalent to making an all ages version of A Song of Ice and Fire. It's possible, but what's the end game? Introducing children to a universe they aren't ready for?

Thanks, that sums up my opinion nicely.

FYI, there IS a SoF&I kid's book.

Well that's weird! What is it about? Is it good?

you're missing the point. Brand dilution can happen if there's an expansion in a category of product that customers don't think it fits in. As you can see by this thread and other discussion on the subject, a lot of warhammer customers dont' think these books fit with the brand. Hence why there is a risk of brand dilution.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Overread wrote:
For some the lore is king, for others its a game of pew-pew toy soldiers with some rules.

Yeah but do people that don't care about the lore, just about the models, read the books ?

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:
This is an attempt at making all ages lore, and is somewhat equivalent to making an all ages version of A Song of Ice and Fire. It's possible, but what's the end game? Introducing children to a universe they aren't ready for?

Thanks, that sums up my opinion nicely.

FYI, there IS a SoF&I kid's book.

Well that's weird! What is it about? Is it good?

IIRC(mind I only saw it once at B&N), it's an in universe fairy tale style story.

Define customer.

Are you interested in books aimed at 8-12 year olds? I’d imagine no more than I am.

But the question is. Are 8-12 year olds interested in these books? Are other ‘Warhammer customers’ also 8-12 year olds?

Because if not, one suspects their opinions don’t matter one jot.

Yes. I am braced for a ‘clarification’ on what you actually meant by your nebulous term of brand dilution....

I posed the question of the Authors a bit aback, and looking at their credentials, I'm really not sure there is a lot to fear. The one who is writing the 40K Book actually did a little writing for Black Library before, and has a really long list of children's books.

Both of them worked collabratively on a Star Wars children series as well. Of the writers they could have picked, I think its not out of the question to say they picked someone 'safe' in terms of knowing the tone of 40k.

 streetsamurai wrote:
you're missing the point. Brand dilution can happen if there's an expansion in a category of product that customers don't think it fits in. As you can see by this thread and other discussion on the subject, a lot of warhammer customers dont' think these books fit with the brand. Hence why there is a risk of brand dilution.

No one's missing the point as there is no point to be made. 30 odd people on here and the loudmouths on facebook and 4chan and the like do not constitute a lot of customers. This is yet again a case of those who cry loudest think they speak for the majority. And yet again the silent majority give a collective shrug and either like the idea or just carry on because it doesn't affect them.

I like how someone that 5 minutes ago, didn't even knew what brand dilution was, and had to turn to google to get a definition, is arrogantly arguing with an university professor in marketing on the precise subject of brand dilution.

the unlettered are truly blessed.

 streetsamurai wrote:
I like how someone that 5 minutes ago, didn't even knew what brand dilution was, and had to turn to google to get a definition, is arrogantly arguing with an university professor in marketing on the precise subject of brand dilution.

the ignorants are truly blessed.

I like how someone who's run out of arguments, rather than retiring gracefully falls back on insults because they can no longer argue. Think about that.

I could argue all day on this. As I said, my job is talking about marketing. But I have no intention in continuing a discussion with someone who always resort to passive aggressive statements (there is no point to be made.... loudmouths etc)

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
I like how someone that 5 minutes ago, didn't even knew what brand dilution was, and had to turn to google to get a definition, is arrogantly arguing with an university professor in marketing on the precise subject of brand dilution.

the ignorants are truly blessed.

I like how someone who's run out of arguments, rather than retiring gracefully falls back on insults because they can no longer argue. Think about that.

Indeed. Argument from Authority fallacy to insults in two lines.

 streetsamurai wrote:
I could argue all day on this. As I said, my job is talking about marketing. But I have no intention in continuing a discussion with someone who always resort to passive aggressive statements (there is no point to be made.... loudmouths etc)

Keep digging yourself that hole Professor. It will swallow you up eventually.

 streetsamurai wrote:
As I said, my job is talking about marketing.

You're not doing a great job at marketing your position at the moment, to be frank.

There's way too much aggressivity in this thread, please let's all try to have constructive conversation and try to consider the best possible interpretation of each other's arguments .

Lord Kragan wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
As I said, my job is talking about marketing.

You're not doing a great job at marketing your position at the moment.

What's my position??? that these books could create some brand dilution? I'd like to know why you think that this is impossible.

But let's be honest Kragan, we all know you'll always side with those that defend GW

I'm all for this. On earth the planet we live on there are stories from peoples lives that can be age appropriate or not appropriate in any polite society.

Look at stories in history, you can tell the same story of various civilizations for different age groups based on how you tell the story and what you leave out.

If the books are of decent quality it will be a great way to cater for younger audiences. Warhammer is enjoyed by ages from small children to adults of retirement age so I don't see why there cannot be potential for products and stories that cater for one part of that group but not the other.