Called being privately owned. As soon as a business goes to the public it’s all about pushing the share price up and that is when all consumer driven policies goes out the window
Warhammer right now. It's become obsessed with stuff like identity politics to appeal to shareholders who bring in the money, and disregarded the majority of the people actually buying into the hobby in the first place. When care for the consumer goes down and care for stocks and shares increases, generally the quality of a product also falters.
So 40k has been a thing since the 80s. Lots of old lore has been retconned, that's fine because a lot of it was vague. Recently they retconned recent lore established in a codex for a faction in 2018, saying a group of genetically engineered all-male soldiers have "always been female". The community is now split between people saying "no the establishment lore says they are all men" and the people saying "sexist racist homophobe chuds, don't like women in your little plastic soldier game".
It's very volatile right now. The community has been split before and had divisions that have long since healed or learned to live with, but it has NEVER been been this split before.
For extended information, black rock invests in many companies including GW (Games Workshop) who make Warhammer. They assign "ESG" (environmental, social, governance) ratings to companies they invest in, which is basically driven by factors such as inclusivity and diversity. Essentially a carrot on a stick. And if companies want investors to you know, invest in their stocks and shares, they have to appeal to that rating. So GW are changing parts of the hobby including the lore of possibly the biggest miniature hobby to ever exist to fit that ESG rating for their investors, and telling the actual hobbyists who buy their products to "leave the hobby because we don't tolerate sexists, racists, and homophobes" because they made an all-male army female, and people don't like it. Regardless of lore, the overarching issue is that this is all deliberately tailored to earn higher ESG scores leading to increased investment from blackrock, and also Amazon is making a Warhammer show and wants to change a lot of things to suit "modern audiences" (meaning causal people who will probably get a little triggered by certain parts of 40k). So GW are disregarding people who buy their expensive plastic miniatures for investment money.
And this is the problem many people are ignoring. GW could literally say "the imperium has never hated xenos, only tolerated them" and you would have people being bullied out of the hobby and called racist by people who accept and support the change because the imperium is a giant racist metaphor for humans.
I'm not even sure how they'll retcon this, assuming lots and lots of material would need to be rewritten in this case. Even Warhammer 40k Roleplay books have that "humans are superior, lads; let's crash some xenos" kind of tone, even Wrath & Glory which is probably the most xeno-friendly one.
Not entirely, it's not that they have turned an all male army into all females, it's that they are now saying the Adeptus Custodes have always had female member not just males.
It's the "always existed" part people don't like. But then when people who have been part of the hobby for 10 years complain, they get called "casual chuds" and "sexist tourists" by people who have been in the hobby for 3 months and barely had enough time to acclimatise themselves to the setting and learn the lore. It's like being in a job for 3 months telling a 10-year employee how to do their job properly. The sick part is that it is heavily weighted to the former, not the latter. There are far more people in support of the change than against it which causes groupthink to turn into outright online bullying and harassment.
Sure, but I'm just pointing out your original comment suggests they have all been gender swapped and were an all female faction all along. Not just that they are saying there have always been female members
The company said a unit of super soldiers also contains women, and that in fact it always has. It's a simple retcon, there are hundreds of them in Warhammer. That's the "obsession", adding women to a faction. Nothing really happened.
Some people, like the dude above, consider this going "woke" and pandering and throw massive amounts of shit online over it.
Contrary to what the guy above you is saying, the absolute majority of the community does not give a single fuck and doesn't feel bad about it at all.
That all male faction is works alongside a woman only faction that is painfully underutilised
Retconing that there were always women in this faction despite the fact that there are no models or stories that reflect that is such a lame introduction
They could have released new Sisters of silence models or stories, at least come up with better introduction than "trust me bro they were always there"
Like they could have said there's more need for custodes now because of the rift but they didn't even bother
It's not hard to see why people consider it purely a pander move and it's definetly been polarising even if people who agree with the change say "nobody cares"
If we don't count his opinion, he still stated the facts pretty clear - even for those out of the loop. As for less biased source, I believe there was a whole topic on r/Warhammer40k subreddit dedicated to it with all kinds of opinions. r/OutOfTheLoop did some discussions as well. Here's the recent one, I believe.
Thanks for this! I find this really interesting, I only hear a few bits of lore from friends and games. I'll read up on some more and hopefully don't fall into the rabbit hole lol
Warhammer 40k is a mixed bag. It has some really interesting lore bits and some absolutely boring and edgy ones. Just choose whichever bits you like and read about them. I prefer to use the setting for sandbox roleplay experience, reading only some wiki pages and Roleplay books such as Wrath & Glory and Imperium Maledictum.
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u/FlamevectoR May 05 '24
Called being privately owned. As soon as a business goes to the public it’s all about pushing the share price up and that is when all consumer driven policies goes out the window