The Imperium Is Driven by Hate. Warhammer Is Not.

[greyhunter88 1654xp 3]

This ridiculous fanfare is what annoys me, too. Once you name yourself “Austrian Painter”, it becomes very obvious to me that you’re an edge lord and a troll. Someone who needs to try that hard to show everyone he’s a Nazi is not the kind of Nazi anyone needs to really worry about.

Instead of ignoring him and figuring out a loophole around this Catch-22 with the law, we’re giving him tons of coverage and splitting the community over whether real-life politics should dictate our hobby. From what I’ve been reading online, it seems that wearing a Hammer and Sickle shirt to an event is okay, but not Che Guevera or Harry Potter… like, is this seriously what I need to be talking about to enjoy my hobby?

When a kid showed up to my local GW years ago with an SS Imperial Guard list, we told him it wasn’t welcome or acceptable, and he left without a game. Never showed up again. Meanwhile this edge lord in Spain gets everyone and their mother chiming in on his antics, and a statement from the company itself. We think we’re ‘owning’ him but in reality this guy got everything he could have possibly asked for and more…

The symbolic moralizing is also a little nauseating from a company that has just spent the past month pushing an army of genocidal, racist Übermensch with German names who wear iconography also used by the Nazis. If we can accept the Black Templars without thinking GW are closet Nazis, I think we can ignore some douchebag in a sweater.

[warzanKeymaster 31125xp 3]

I personally agree with a lot of the sentiment @greyhunter88 @frankelee but unfortunately, common sense seems to be in short supply these days, and screeching and hysterics and finger-pointing have become the current fashion.

It’s difficult for pretty much anyone at the moment to even catch a breath to consider the implications of something these days as the inevitable clamor instantaneously erupts and demands a response … or else!

At least that’s what it feels like – is that the reality of the situation …  I’m finding it difficult to tell!

[warzanKeymaster 31125xp 2]

We have a saying over here… Catch Yerself On!

[limburger 21698xp 1]

@darthcheese the rules said that refusing to play an opponent gives that opponent an auto-win.

No ifs, no buts, no coconuts.

If a player had wanted to he could have abused that rules by doing exactly what that kid did :
dress up as a nazi or something equally offensive
make statements to the effect that you support them (especially if said opponent won’t play his enemy faction)
and thus annoy the shit out of 9 out of 10 opponents
Psychological warfare works and you need to arm yourself against it.

Sportsmanlike ? Hell no.
Effective ? Damn right
Can any of this be proven ? Nope … you do this subtle enough and they can’t lift a finger.

Tournaments can and will be won by rules lawyering the shit out of a game.
And as we’ve seen in actual sports … the teams will do the same to the tournament rules, because winning at any cost is super effective even if it is morally objectionable.

GW really are about 20+ years too late with a statement such as this.
It would be less silly if they had voluntarily accepted a ‘Mature only’ rating for their games in order to indicate that the subjects of their game aren’t exactly ‘kid friendly’ … but they didn’t. They still aim at teenagers and the only reason the minimum age is on any of their boxes is because the tiny parts make them unsuitable to smaller children. They have done nothing to help parents identify their product as possibly harmful in content to parents.

Instead we get empty statements about how horrible people aren’t part of their community.

I’d also argue that the kind of parents that need this kind of warning labels on products are not the ones we have to worry about. They already know what little Jimmy is playing and if any subjects are in need of an explanation.

The parents that don’t give a fck if little Jimmy paints Nazi symbols and actually agrees with that kind of morality are the actual danger here … and you never reach them with bland statements such as this.

[yoshiParticipant 3197xp 5]

Every middlefinger towards Nazis and similar ilk is a welcome one.

[tankkommanderParticipant 6420xp 0]

Actions speak louder than words https://youtu.be/ZTT1qUswYL0?t=94

[zorg 18801xp 1]

Eveyone is talking about the player but they may be better off going after GW and the tournament organisers. If you hit them in their pockets thing’s may start to happen?

[torros 23816xp 7]

I think the statement was not just aimed at one Spanish player. I hope it was also aimed at the the racist,Sexist and just nasty comments that from what I can tell from people retweeting floods the 40K groups on twitter. Some of things female painters and gamers  have to put up with from so called adults in those groups is disgusting

[zorg 18801xp 1]

Ooh not seen any of that but do you expect any better from selfish immature idiots. no one can fix stupid?

[limburger 21698xp 2]

@torros twitter is the sewer of the internet … expecting any intelligent life in there is a waste of time.

Also keep in mind that social media platforms thrive on such comments, because the algorythmes that push content to the top reward that behaviour and people with positive responses tend to be too busy playing games to do more than hit the like buttons.

Heck, this topic alone is proof that people just can’t stop feeding trolls.
Nobody would know that there was a big 40k tournament in Spain if it hadn’t been for that troll.

[redscopeParticipant 2718xp 2]

This event I believe took place in July. The wider community outside of Spain knew nothing about it. Itwas not until Lost Bell of Souls did an overview based on a spanish blog that this took off. From the post we get people posting on Reddit. Stupid youtube videos of people blaming GW who it should be pointed out have nothing to do with this event. If you want to know why GW released a statement it is because people started claiming GW refused to comment on it.

So GW release a statement which is pretty much as you would expect. They dont really have much power to stop people turning up to 3rd party events, they are not a poltical party or make the laws in Spain or even control who buys the products. They can only control the business they are responsible for.

Then it lands here. Not shock but once again the same people use it to take cheap over reaction pop shots at GW. Every single GW post it is the same people making negative GW comments. Even when in this case they are doing the right thing. Every GW review they make negative comments and yet people hardly comment on other game reviews. GW really does bring out the trolls.

I get the fact GW dont always do the right thing, they are an easy target because they are biggest player but the constant negative abuse they get is completely unfounded.

 

[limburger 21698xp 0]

that’s the problem with these things in current pc climate.
If companies don’t respond then they’re part of the problem.
If they do respond we get empty bits of nothing like this.

No sane company in the world is going to take responsibility for things they didn’t organise.
And in a worst case scenario that means they will have even more reasons to want to control everything within the hobby … which is exactly the thing people currently dislike about GW already. I predict enforced official paint schemes as a ‘feature’ if this escalates. They already do a good job of telling people to not be too creative by making sure that their models are never featureless ….

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 3]

This old chestnut again

• Somebody does something
• Some People get outraged
• Companies make a statement

To quote the Mandalorian, this is the way.  Or we could quote Battlestar Galactica – all of this has happened before, all of this will happen again.  It so predictable.

The statement is a bit like Schroedinger’s Statement – it simultaneously both sincere and insincere. It is sincere in that the majority of people, not just at Games Workshop but generally in life, take that approach to life.

At the same time it is also insincere in that it isn’t that anyone is making any special effort to change the world, it’s only reinforcing a sort if prevailing sentiment, they’re saying some words to placate a social media mob.  If people weren’t getting angry about it on social media companies wouldn’t be making statements. But you can bet your life that if fascism were popular, the prevailing public opinion, they’d be playing the Horst Wessel leid in stores and telling you who could play Warhammer and who couldn’t.  Warhammer is ultimately driven by the need for a business to make money.

I can’t really argue with the sentiment, but at the same time I am not really going to laud them for it either.  It’s easy for companies to say things in support of what everyone already thinks, when the only push back is going to be complaining about them making a statement at all.

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