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Gatekeep the Gatekeepers? You Do Realize These Are Toy Soldiers, Right?

There has been a movement within wargaming over the last while, mostly vocally in the last year, in which new people are entering the hobby and having opinions about things. They are new, they have questions, and game companies (like Games Workshop) do things to accommodate them.

Some people saw the changing of Warhammer 40k 7th Edition (a very complex and convoluted ruleset) to Warhammer 40k 8th Edition (a much more streamlined version of the game) as exactly this: the new people entering the hobby were confused by the old rules so the company adapted to make it easier for them.

Old school fans were upset about this. They saw this as “New people are too stupid to figure out my game, so they’re ruining my game”.

If you spend any amount of time at all online you will find that some of the saltiest of these people are the ones who continue to thrive on The Horus Heresy (disclaimer: SOME, not ALL–Some are great) because when 8th Edition was announced, The Horus Heresy game could continue to be played relatively easily with 7th Edition rules. (Much of the problem with 7th Edition was all of the bloat from all the different armies’ special rules, but if you only have one army–the Space Marines–then you’re not going to run into that problem, and 7th Edition runs pretty well as Horus Heresy.)

You can also see this–in a major way–in the change from Warhammer Fantasy Battles to Age of Sigmar (we’ve written about that here) that fans of Warhammer Fantasy were pissed beyond belief that the game that they had devoted their hearts and souls to for 30 years had literally just blown up.

In a way, I can understand this. While I can’t understand people who throw hissy fits and burn their entire army in their backyard, I can understand people who were very invested in a game and then the game just, no longer exists.

(I should point out something right here because it’s pertinent. Warhammer Fantasy Battles is not dead and has never been dead. It is just no longer supported by Games Workshop. If you have the models to play Tomb Kings and your friend has the models to play Empire, and you have the right books, then feel free to play to your heart’s content. The internet is a big place and fans will–and have–found each other and the game continues in the fandom.)

But all of that aside, the argument goes that 1) New people entered the hobby and didn’t like the existing game and, 2) Games Workshop changed the existing game to accommodate the new fans. This, these people say, is a bad thing.

(Never mind the fact that it wasn’t that new people were entering the hobby and demanding it change; Games Workshop saw that new people WEREN’T entering the hobby and they made the business decision that they liked to make money, so they wanted to bring in new players. And, surprise, it worked.)

Gatekeep the Gatekeepers

However, there is a movement that, I believe, is a very small but very loudmouthed minority of fans who say that new people entering the hobby and changing it is something that MUST BE STOPPED. In fact, these people say, the new fans are now running show. The new fans have become the gatekeepers, deciding what is allowed in wargaming and what is not. And therefore, say these people, we must “Gatekeep the Gatekeepers.”

(I admit that I’m having a hard time coming up with a name for these “Gatekeep the Gatekeepers” people, but for ease of writing this they need a title. Calling them “old fans” isn’t fair to old fans because, after all, I’ve been in Warhammer since 1991 and I’m not one of these people. Calling them fascist sympathizers is a little too on-the-nose, though when you talk to them online that is definitely a vibe that you get. Instead I’m going to resort to schoolyard name calling and just refer to them as “morons.” Just to make everything easier.)

So why do I say that calling the morons “fascist sympathizers” is a little too on the nose? Well it just so happens that a lot of the new fans, and the target of much of the hate coming from the morons, are women, people of color, LGBT people, and liberals generally. And when morons decide, for whatever reason, that the target of their ire is going to be minorities and political opponents, then that makes them, well fascists.

Don’t believe me? How about this tweet from a conversation I witnessed yesterday in which one moron says that they “would rather nazis enjoy my hobby than commies trying to ruin it tbh.”

Let’s deconstruct that. Nazis, the people who rounded people up and put Jews, gays, Roma, and other dissidents into gas chambers and ovens, are more welcome than having the rules of their toy soldier game changed.

Because make no mistake: that’s what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about toy soldiers and dice and tape measures. But, no, that is so sacred that we would rather welcome Nazis into our midst than risk a change to the rules.

The Illusion of Vocal Minorities

There is an illusion here, and it’s the illusion that these vocal minorities represent silent majorities. But they don’t. There’s a comic posted here that essentially shows a game company with a lot of fans making changes to satisfy one lone person, then the game company loses all of its fans and the lone person says they don’t want the game after all. The game company is left with a game no one wants and no customers.

But here’s what all of this misses: the aforementioned morons are so terrified of communism that they seem to forget that all of the game systems that they are referring to exist in a capitalist world. Games Workshop changed Warhammer Fantasy Battles to Age of Sigmar not because liberals were complaining about Warhammer Fantasy, but because Warhammer Fantasy WASN’T SELLING. And Games Workshop LIKES MONEY.

Games Workshop made almost half a billion dollars last year, and companies that make half a billion dollars make their decisions because it will help their bottom line.

Games Workshop has made two statements which have been roundly criticized by the morons. The first of these (which I wrote about here) said “We believe in and support a community united by shared values of mutual kindness and respect… And if you feel the same way, wherever and whoever you are, we’re glad you are part of the Warhammer community. If not, you will not be missed.”

The second statement (which I wrote about here) said “If you come to a Games Workshop event or store and behave to the contrary, including wearing the symbols of real-world hate groups, you will be asked to leave. We won’t let you participate. We don’t want your money. We don’t want you in the Warhammer community.”

Think about your position as CEO of a half billion dollar company. You have shareholders. You are concerned about your shareholders because people have been criticizing you for losing shareholder value (which I wrote about here). Are you really going to say “Let’s alienate the vast silent majority of our fans because of a vocal minority”? No.

Alternative #1: You, being the capitalist, say “I am going to rescue Games Workshop from the PR disaster of fascist morons infecting it, and thereby retain customers and further grow the business.”

Alternative #2: You, being the ethical capitalist, say “I am going to rescue Games Workshop from fascist morons because it’s both the right thing to do and because it will retain customers and further grow the business.”

Because let’s be perfectly honest: Games Workshop LIKES MONEY. This has been proven time and time again. They are a capitalist company who is absolutely not being bullied by liberals into making their products more accessible to the working class. If Games Workshop is so appallingly “woke” then wouldn’t they be throwing caution to the wind and redistributing their wealth like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas morning?

No. All that Games Workshop is doing is that–THE HORROR–some of their Stormcast Eternals are black. They made female heads for the Cadians. Some of the lore (which is not even consistent as a self-contained entity) refers to LGBT people.

The lore, the precious lore. That’s what they’re afraid of.

#BattletechBelongsToEveryone

Lest we forget, Battletech has been a primary playground of the morons. For reasons that do not make the slightest amount of sense to me (and I admit this slices both ways) the hashtag #BattletechBelongsToEveryone is being thrown around by people on both sides of the fence. “Battletech belongs to everyone, including me,” says the newbie. “Battletech belongs to everyone, including me,” says the morons. It can’t belong to everyone if it’s going to survive. I don’t pretend to be as well versed in Battletech lore as I am with Games Workshop, so I’m not commenting much on this, but suffice it to say that there are a lot of people who think that their toy soldiers are more important than the other guy’s toy soldiers. Personally, I side with the people who are not including nazis in the “everyone”. #BattletechBelongsToEveryoneExceptFascistsNazisRacistsAndMorons

The Ultimate Problem with the Morons

The problem with the morons, and I say this as someone who has a website entirely devoted to wargames, is that they make their wargaming a lifestyle. It’s not enough that they play with their toy soldiers, they have to adopt the persona of their toy soldiers. So when there are changes made to the lore–changes which, generally, involve the inclusion of minorities–then these people who live and breathe the lore are personally hurt.

And, to some extent, the blame for this lies with the games themselves, I’ll admit. The Black Library doesn’t have hundreds of books that are gobbled up by fans because the writers haven’t figured out how to get readers to empathize with the characters. You root for these characters. Even when Games Workshop says that “the Imperium of Man is fueled by hatred” readers can say “well, what about Gaunt’s Ghosts? We love them. If I was in the Warhammer 40k universe I’d be honored to serve in Gaunt’s Ghosts.”

But that blame on the game companies can only go so far. The blame has to end solely, completely, with the morons.

Dear Morons: This is a game. It is not life. I understand that you have devoted a lot of time and a lot of money to this game, but you are no more entitled to controlling the narrative than the newbie who walked into a Games Workshop store (or a Battletech website) and picked up a starter set. When so much of your self identity is tied up in a game that you are endorsing fascists over minorities then it’s time to walk away.