White Dwarf changes/cancellation?

[Craig]

Reading an interesting article from Wargamer. https://www.wargamer.com/warhammer-white-dwarf-editor-lyle-lowery-interview

The interesting part I thought is this paragraph:

"On Tuesday, long-serving White Dwarf editor Lyle Lowery announced via LinkedIn that, due to a corporate restructure at Games Workshop, he had been made redundant. Lowery won't be replaced, since the firm's plans for White Dwarf don't involve a managing editor - but having interviewed him about his six and a half years editing the only official Warhammer magazine, it's also possible that he's simply irreplaceable."

 

It seems really odd to me that GW is removing and not replacing the person at the head of the White Dwarf team. My suspicion would be that either they are going to cancel WD entirety if sales are poor and they achieve what they want WD to do in other ways (WH community, WH+ etc). Or that they are looking to outsource WD to a 3rd party to publish. Maybe I am reading too much in to it though (no pun intended).

[phandaal]

Sounds like White Dwarf is getting folded under someone managing another aspect of GW marketing.

 

The content in White Dwarf is actually pretty good most of the time. If anything, they need to work on the physical structure of the magazine, not the content. There have been many times I have passed on buying a copy just because they have pictures getting cut off by inserts or info getting broken up across pages in ways that makes the actual reading experience less pleasant.

[Felix Antipodes]

I can’t see WarCom filling the role WD currently fills.  It just isn’t set up for that level of depth.  WD has been pretty good since it returned to the original format after the pamphlet days.  I suppose WH+ could do the job.  It has a lot of similar content and the difference between a pay wall and the cost of a magazine is in the eye of the purchaser.  I prefer physical stuff over digital though, so won’t be happy if it is going, gone.

 

If it does stay I hope they do something about the paper quality.  It is so low some of the fancier layouts are unreadable because of the bleed through.

[W.A.Rorie]

A lot of other industry print formats are dying or dead, and I could se WD going away.  It sucks, as the articles have been good. The free cards and missions have been awesome.

[LSM]

I actually picked up my first copy of WD in over a decade (the Emperor's Children one) and really enjoyed it.

 

Had been thinking of subscribing again...

[Redcomet]

Considering print media in general is dying, we probably need to be ready to wave White Dwarf goodbye. 

[Emperor Ming]

Compared to the old white dwarfs, the new ones are not the same at all, wont miss them if it goes

[Joe]

I could earnestly see White Dwarf moving from print format to purely digital - potentially as another part of Warhammer+.

[Urauloth]

I would guess they're merging WD into another department's manegerial jurisdiction rather than abandoning it.

[Brother Carpenter]

Well if they digitized wd ill be saving 9 euros a month. My experience is that every nice printed magazine thats gone fully digital, ive stopped reading

[LameBeard]

Yeah White Dwarf doesn’t have to make a profit because it’s one massive advert for their products … surely they know this? 

[Urauloth]

I used to buy WD digitally exclusively, then they stopped offering it in that format (because they were putting digital back-issues in the WH+ vault where you can only access them with their horrible on-side reader and not the pdf program of your choice) so if they switch back to digital... it'll be the worst of both worlds, probably. You won't own your magazines, and you'll have to use the WH+ software to read them. It'll mean another WH+ subscription price hike, too, more than likely.

[Valkyrion]

White Dwarf is in a funny place at the moment, so too WarhammerTV, and I think it's that the content is spread too thin.

WarhammerTV for example has 2 Horus Heresy Battle Reports, both featuring the same legions and both from within weeks of the release of the game. White Dwarf has featured, I think, a single battle report that was spread over two issues. The edition ends this weekend and that is the total marketed output of how the game is played. 

 

They should divvy it up into content portions based on the importance of the product.

e.g, odd months are AoS focused, even months are 40k focused.  By 'focused' I basically mean has a faction focus probably based around a codex release, or a new edition of one of the setting adjacent games. These issues would also include a fantasy themed battle report (of AoS or any of the minor games) or a Sci Fi battle report (of 40k, HH, KT, NM).

Odd months also feature a HH, Kill Team or Necromunda thing; even months feature a Warcry, Blood Bowl or Old World thing so as to not keep the magazine entirely setting redundant. Things like fluff, painting, modelling, etc. 

I know it might lead to more cherry picking of issues, but I'd still continue my sub even if I knew half of it was going to be AoS adjacent because their models are some of the best GW has ever made and I'd happily read Old World and Blood Bowl battle reports for the 90's nostalgia hit.  

 

For me, the best thing about White Dwarf has always been the battle reports so I'm always disappointed when an issue doesn't have one, but I'm sure plenty of you have different ideas of what you want White Dwarf to be.

[INKS]

maybe it's getting moved to online only and so don't need them any longer? sucks if so...

[ThaneOfTas]

It being abandoned would be a shame, as I was planning on getting a yearly subscription soon. Eh, might still do so.

[Black Cohort]

I have heard that GW is run in a very feudal way, so maybe he just ran afoul of internal politics and someone saw a chance to absorb his piece of the company into their fiefdom.

[ThePenitentOne]

We had a run of WD this edition that blew my mind- new Crusade content for Sisters, GSC, Kroot, and yes, even the Tome Keepers. I've been disappointed lately, because they haven't had any of those types of articles for a long time. I particularly missed Crusade content for Eldar: the new dex shifted the scale of the path system, which left an absence of small scale development. I like the new content mind you, but I feel a lot was lost, and I had hoped White Dwarf would pick up the slack.

 

I feel like Agents are another one of those factions that could really benefit from some WD attention.

 

While I haven't seen these types of articles lately, if White Dwarf does disappear, it removes the possibility entirely, and that would be a tremendous loss.

[Frogian]

Tome Keepers articles were great, and always love the tale of 4 armies ones. Not into every system these days so not as interested in a lot of the magazine as i used to be and don't buy it. It's certainly lost some of its charm & importance since the earlier days (talking nineties here), but its got more content in it than ever and its high quality and i like that there is always some stuff for some new mission or way to play or whatever (even with the issue of putting that kind of content behind a paywall). 

 

Not sure if it will go digital again given that I was under the impression they got rid of that because it was getting pirated too much

[Petitioner's City]

14 hours ago, Valkyrion said:

White Dwarf is in a funny place at the moment, so too WarhammerTV, and I think it's that the content is spread too thin.

WarhammerTV for example has 2 Horus Heresy Battle Reports, both featuring the same legions and both from within weeks of the release of the game. White Dwarf has featured, I think, a single battle report that was spread over two issues. The edition ends this weekend and that is the total marketed output of how the game is played. 

 

They should divvy it up into content portions based on the importance of the product.

e.g, odd months are AoS focused, even months are 40k focused.  By 'focused' I basically mean has a faction focus probably based around a codex release, or a new edition of one of the setting adjacent games. These issues would also include a fantasy themed battle report (of AoS or any of the minor games) or a Sci Fi battle report (of 40k, HH, KT, NM).

Odd months also feature a HH, Kill Team or Necromunda thing; even months feature a Warcry, Blood Bowl or Old World thing so as to not keep the magazine entirely setting redundant. Things like fluff, painting, modelling, etc. 

I know it might lead to more cherry picking of issues, but I'd still continue my sub even if I knew half of it was going to be AoS adjacent because their models are some of the best GW has ever made and I'd happily read Old World and Blood Bowl battle reports for the 90's nostalgia hit.  

 

For me, the best thing about White Dwarf has always been the battle reports so I'm always disappointed when an issue doesn't have one, but I'm sure plenty of you have different ideas of what you want White Dwarf to be.

 

I think the biggest sign of how ... Poorly focused WD is was the 500th issue. Barely a peep about Fantasy, the core of Warhammer, and its revival in Old World  - just really another month of well-meaning but limited content focused mostly on 40k and AoS.

 

I found it such a bizarre, sad decision to not have anything of any depth, or more than a mention, about what was and is Warhammer.  It was just such a weird lack of content.

 

 

The timeline was nice ... But also just so vacant. I still can't get over how much of a missed opportunity this was.

[Astartes Consul]

Print media in general is in a bad place, but trade and specialist print publishing can be a bit less dire. WD’s disadvantage in that field - and I can’t believe I’m saying this - is that it can only advertise GW’s own products. It’s essentially a mix of a trade magazine and an in house corporate publication.

 

I hope that it doesn’t go digital. That would be bad for the hobby IMO, and also close off a huge resource to future hobbyists. Given GW‘S astronomical prophet margins, maybe it can take a long term view and try and make WD work in print without it having to be a money maker… 

 

From what I see of it at the moment, I agree that it needs a rebalance. GW had a lot of product lines, but it’s interesting that if you go back to the early-2000s when Specialist Games was really ramping up, the magazine then still managed to consistently cover a *lot* of different games every month. 

[Petitioner's City]

That makes me think of comparing it to Wargames monthly, which is also a bit(?) of a company magazine, and which benefits from being much more open-ended and varied? 

[Pacific81]

Despite the mag being pretty good over recent years I will no longer buy it as there was no mention at all of the passing of former editor Paul Sawyer.

 

Really poor form I thought.. I know this is now a massive corp which must always aim for shareholder value, but you like to think there is still a bit of humanity in there, and those guys working there will themselves be former staff one day.

[Domhnall]

I used to have a subscription for years (when they did the white dwarf figures for the subscribers), then stopped when it changed format to that abomination they tried for a while.
I've been buying it for a couple years again, and it's a great little read for those moments of downtime, and anything that stops me from doom scrolling is a win for me! 

I tried digital magazines for other things, but it's just not the same (zooming and scrolling to keep reading), as need a tablet, which I don't want to lug around, and a magazine can stay in it's place (where I won't want to leave a tablet).

I still have those past two years of WD which I scan through every so often (with all the gubbins that came with the issues just in case!).

 

Would be sad to see it go completely, or digitally, so let's hope it doesn't!

[Wibbling]

17 hours ago, LameBeard said:

Yeah White Dwarf doesn’t have to make a profit because it’s one massive advert for their products … surely they know this? 

 

But it does. Every part of a business has to make money or else you cut it. Marketing have to prove their value same as every other group. 

 

When they started jamming card stock half way through which could only be removed by invariably tearing the tissue paper thin pages I gave up on it. I remember reading White Dwarf avidly, multiple times through every month. One year I remember it being sat on my drawers getting dusty. A bit sad really as more people should read. It'd help their literacy no end, same as building army lists helped me with my maths. 

[Astartes Consul]

41 minutes ago, Petitioner's City said:

That makes me think of comparing it to Wargames monthly, which is also a bit(?) of a company magazine, and which benefits from being much more open-ended and varied? 

 

Advertising aside, the variety of content in the various monthly wargames magazines in the UK is another key difference, yes. They are generally smaller, and include different kinds of content for sure, but you can read about a much wider range of settings/rules/games in them. AFAIK, most of these magazines are published by some form of publishing house that has a small stable of titles, which helps them in terms of having experienced editors, production staff and the like. However, on the other hand, GW is a much larger enterprise, has been publishing WD for decades, and has a fairly sophisticated content production operation in place.

 

Of course, you could argue the production values of White Dwarf are a bit higher, and white WD also includes content such as fiction, full rules sets etc. rather than just scenarios. But it isn't as stark a difference as it once was...

 

 

There was a time when GW had WD, Citadel Journal, Fanatic and various smaller, specialist games-focused journals. Its publication arm was very slick, even if this was largely in the pre-digital era. I guess what I'm saying is, White Dwarf could really benefit from some of the diversity that we used to see in GW publications, and that doesn't have to come at the cost of GW's clear desire to use it as a vehicle to keep pushing each month's major releases.