The boom time continues at Warhammer 40,000 maker Games Workshop, which has announced it’s handing out £20 million (approx. $27 million) to its staff as a bonus.
In the sense that you’re going to overpay for editions and minis that they’re constantly updating to squeeze more money out of you while having a genuinely good but expensive paint catalogue ruined by paint pots designed to waste paint, yes.
In the sense that it’s pure entertainment and no one and nothing is making you buy them despite all that, no.
Now, if we want to talk about how they’re essentially monetizing fascist rhetoric and the “satire” died decades ago that’s a whole new ballgame.
In 40k, everyone is fascist. The Imperium worships a corpse who is gonna wake up from life support and save humanity any day now guys. Their creed is “suffer not the xenos, mutant, nor heretic to live”.
Their main enemies are Chaos: nightmare demons and cultists worshipping evil gods spawned from the Imperium’s own fascism.
The biggest threats on the horizon are the Tyranids, a ravenous swarm of bugs who want to eat the galaxy, and Necrons, a feudal empire who sold their souls for immortality while destroying the galaxy.
There are also the Drukhari, murder rape pirates who had such a big cocaine orgy they tore a hole in the galaxy, and Orks, fungal football hooligans whose only purpose in life is to get into a good fight.
The only “good guys” are the Eldar of the Craftworlds, who are arrogant communists with a birth rate issue, and the Tau: a Marxist-Leninist Federation of Planets who are secretly all being mind controlled.
The setting is supposed to be a satire of fascist ideology, but at some point Games Workshop started believing the pro-Imperium propaganda they spend all day writing.
While that’s great, it also speaks volumes when taken in context with their customer-hostile business practices.
Is it customer hostile? I thought it was just licencing-hostile, fucking over others with their IPS left and right.
I don’t know much about them.
In the sense that you’re going to overpay for editions and minis that they’re constantly updating to squeeze more money out of you while having a genuinely good but expensive paint catalogue ruined by paint pots designed to waste paint, yes.
In the sense that it’s pure entertainment and no one and nothing is making you buy them despite all that, no.
Now, if we want to talk about how they’re essentially monetizing fascist rhetoric and the “satire” died decades ago that’s a whole new ballgame.
I’d like to know more about that last point.
In 40k, everyone is fascist. The Imperium worships a corpse who is gonna wake up from life support and save humanity any day now guys. Their creed is “suffer not the xenos, mutant, nor heretic to live”.
Their main enemies are Chaos: nightmare demons and cultists worshipping evil gods spawned from the Imperium’s own fascism.
The biggest threats on the horizon are the Tyranids, a ravenous swarm of bugs who want to eat the galaxy, and Necrons, a feudal empire who sold their souls for immortality while destroying the galaxy.
There are also the Drukhari, murder rape pirates who had such a big cocaine orgy they tore a hole in the galaxy, and Orks, fungal football hooligans whose only purpose in life is to get into a good fight.
The only “good guys” are the Eldar of the Craftworlds, who are arrogant communists with a birth rate issue, and the Tau: a Marxist-Leninist Federation of Planets who are secretly all being mind controlled.
The setting is supposed to be a satire of fascist ideology, but at some point Games Workshop started believing the pro-Imperium propaganda they spend all day writing.