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The Last White Dwarf

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White Dwarf becomes Warhammer Visions
Today, retailers across the world were informed that the current White Dwarf – January 2014 – is the last White Dwarf Games Workshop will print. Starting next month, the venerable magazine, which has been around since the very early days, will be replaced by a monthly “Visions of Warhammer” and weekly smaller news pamphlet.

Of course, if you get your Games Workshop news through the White Dwarf, you’ll be the last to find out about it.

#1 – White Dwarf Visions

Rumours about the new format are a bit all over the place. Still, on the surface, it appears readers will be getting “more” of their favourite Games Workshop magazine, if they want to.

Whereas so far, we’ve had the 150 pages or so White Dwarf, once a month, we’ll soon have a monthly “Visions of Warhammer”, which will come in at about £8 (compared to the current £5.50) for more “hobby content”.

On the other hand, the miniature news, currently the large front-half of the top-heavy current White Dwarf format, will be split off into a weekly or possibly bi-weekly 32-page format.

#2 – More, Faster Releases?

There’s a lot of hopes and fears out there about the thicker, more expensive monthly “Visions of Warhammer”. Personally, I doubt it’ll return to the “hobby-article-glories” of the old days, though I am certainly open to be positively surprised.

Far more interesting, personally, is the idea of a (bi?)weekly news-sheet. Not that I think it’ll be very interesting to read, but the implication seems to be, that Games Workshop is changing from a monthly release to a weekly or biweekly release!!

You thought 2013 had a crazy release-schedule? This sure looks like Games Workshop was only warming up for 2014!

#3 – White Dwarf Readers – The Last To Know?

The odd flip side is, that loyal readers and subscribers knew nothing about this. They still wouldn’t know, if they don’t read the internet.

That, personally, strikes me as exceedingly odd.

I know Games Workshop has their secrecy-policy about miniature releases, and I can understand their reasoning (which doesn’t mean I agree with it).

  • But why keep this secret?
  • Why not make White Dwarf readers be the first to know about changes to the White Dwarf?
  • Isn’t it almost inevitable, that (more or less) long-term subscribers will feel alienated, when they hear of these changes through the blogosphere? Or, assuming GW would’ve kept this totally under wraps, when the new “Warhammer Visions” arrives on their doorstep?

I really see no upside to keeping this one close to the chest (other than a cheeky Lord of Change as the current White Dwarf parting-shot).

There are no “miniature-sales” that could go lost. It’s almost as if they want to prove to the world that the White Dwarf is not a good source for Games Workshop news!

#3 – Thoughts?

Well, enough of my little rant.

What do you think?

  • Is a radical change (and a possible burning of the old White Dwarf brand) a good/necessary thing?
  • Is it headed into the right direction?
  • Is “Warhammer Visions” something you could be excited about?

Leave a comment and let me know what you think!

Z.

Zweischneid

Zweischneid

I am Zweischneid. Wargame Addict. Hopeless painter and founder of Pins of War. I hope you enjoyed this article. Don't forget to share your favourite miniature pictures and wargaming videos at www.pinsofwar.net.
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@Rekeiji @TolSenti True. There's this disconnect of "we're a miniatures company, not a games one", and one of the world's most pricey games - 2 days ago
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  • Michael Dudek

    Change is certainly necessary, but I doubt the approach of doling out spoonfuls of content weekly is viable long term. And not the change they needed, either, which was to put relevant, useful content into White Dwarf.

    They may have so damaged the brand over the last few years that there was no choice but to do something. But releasing even more frequent and more expensive dead tree material has me dubious already. I already decided to stop buying WD a few months back. I don’t see any way this will change that decision.

    • http://pinsofwar.net/ Zweischneid

      Well, to be fair (or cynical), I doubt they want to do the “content” part really.

      They want to have a more-frequent-than-monthly magazine to show of more-frequent-than-monthly releases, and they certainly didn’t want to do the “content-part” every week.

      On the other hand, the monthly premium-whatever will than need to sink or swim on its own. If it gets a team of writers/hobbyists that can give the format a fighting chance, it could be interesting.

      There is, of course, the risk that the “hobby-magazine” will be treated compared to the “miniatures-display-magazine” like the Hobbit game compared to the 40K-game, figuratively speaking ;)

  • ted1138

    Maybe it’s a good thing, put all the rubbish no one wants into a weekly mag, freeing up the monthly to be what it’s supposed to be, a hobby magazine…

  • belverker

    interesting, this won’t make my local gw supplier happy, they don’t sell many white dwarfs as it is and i doubt people will pick these up more then the old one, unless of course there are hobby articles and the like, although i’ll be more likely to get digital ones if that is the case as they will start taking up a bit of space even at a smaller size.

  • Trentat

    Oftentimes the comics industry likes to make a big deal about re-numbering long running series from a “Bold New Vision! Issue #1!!!” and promote this change to retailers as a “jumping on point for new readers.”

    More frequently though, from my experience, dedicated followers unhappy with the direction of a publication view this as a “jumping OFF” opportunity.

    Unless they can supply some quality content better than what I can find at Lé Blog dé Kouzes (http://leskouzes.blogspot.com/), Tale of Painters (http://taleofpainters.blogspot.co.uk/), or 3++ Is The New Black (http://www.3plusplus.net/) on a frequent basis for FREE, then I am through buying periodicals from Games Workshop.

  • Wilfen82

    It was with a heavy heart that I stopped buying White Dwarf at issue 394 after 20yrs collecting the mag. I just couldn’t stand the pound price hike for just more advertising and less hobby. I am sad to see the death of the old dwarf, I don’t believe it needed to happen if they had just focused more on the hobby, we progressively saw less and less of and from the articles. If they’d asked for help from the community in re-imagining WD I’m fairly sure they could of made something many people would of been happier with.

    But a new mag, professing to do what should of already been done, for another price rise! I’ll probably check it out in store, but buy it, no thank you GW I think not.

  • http://pinsofwar.net/ Zweischneid

    Well, they are changing the digital stuff right now it appears.

  • Guest

    It is all part of GW’s “divide and monetize” program. No codex is complete without its $50 “supplement”. Content that once would have been a simple WD article is now a $30 “dataslate”.

    Now they kill off and divide up WD itself, obviously hoping to create five monthly purchases out of one!

  • Hive Senteniel

    Supposedly GW will introduce new units and missions occasionally in this,which might encourage people to buy the ones with that kind of content. Quite frankly the WD seemed to be more hobby oriented not really gaming oriented which is fine.This new one might entice people who never bought WD to drop a few bucks for a new unit or mission.

  • KJensen

    As long as the content is still 75% advertisements, 10% bullshit and 5% useful material, I think the only real change we’ll see from this is a clamping down on rumours leaked from the WD offices and retailers.

    GW has since the early 0′s been struggling making good printed content (the physical prints and artwork have always been great, but the writing and content… not so much), whether it be WD or their very game rules. Unless they take a drastic turn in terms of their policy regarding the writing and QA for the games they make, it’ll be the same overpriced dregs they serve every week to people with more money than sense.

    Okay, that came out a bit more bitter than was intended, but they point stands – GW can’t make overall decent publications for the life of them. They seriously need to dip into the pool of talent that is their Black Library writers (for story content) and get some real game designers to write their game rules (for battle reports etc.) instead of whomever is just in the office without a task at the moment (the hobbyists running the current/previous WD).. =p

  • http://blog.waynemolina.com Wayne Molina

    I just hope they go back to the old style. I last played some 12 years ago and I have fond memories of articles like Chambers of the Horned Rat, Stillmania, and Tale of Four Gamers that showed how people went about building armies and campaigns without just showcasing the Studio army. I miss that; I picked up the Tyranid issue just to see how it was nowadays, and there’s nothing of substance in it. Showcasing the new army I can see, but then there’s a lackluster Battle Report (nothing like the ones I remember), and then just showing off some dioramas. No tactics articles, no modeling/painting/converting articles, no “thoughts on the game” type of things from people that don’t tow the company line, etc.