Tuesday, June 23, 2009

The Planetstrike Boycott

The guys over at Dice Like Thunder are calling for a boycott of the new Planetstrike book. Upon reading it, I have to admit that MiggidyMack makes some interesting points as to why people should boycott the book.


1) We aren't going to support new books until they support old ones.
Planetstrike doesn't support all the armies equally, leaving two completely out,
the Inquisition. Even Chaos Daemons only gets a passing mention. If Inquisition
players have the same treatment to look forward to as Apocalypse then this
product needs to ignored.
2) It doesn't actually have anything new. It gives
rules for something players have already been doing. The entirety of the rules
can be summed up in 3 bullet points, all that you are missing are the assets,
which have several redundancies from previous books and 3 codex's given short
(if any) attention.
3) The state of the FAQ's and Codex's is down right
insulting and planetstrike is only going to make that worse. The fact that some
players are having to wait over a decade to see their army supported by GW is a
travesty. GW is wasting a release this year on a book that has nothing new
rather than supporting codex's desperately in need of it such as Necrons and
Dark Eldar. Rather than address the problem with simple online web updates and
giving someone who really needs it a new codex they release planetstrike.
4)GW doesn't believe that veteran gamers can affect their bottom line. It's time
to show them that if they aren't going to support us it will hurt them. Players
quickly graduate to "veteran" status and find themselves wishing for more
responsive support. Putting a dent in their profits on one product shows them
the real long term risk. We can flex our muscle here and GW might just start
taking players who want a balanced and updated game seriously.


Considering that I am supporting the release of Planetstrike with a painting contest, I am on the fence with this boycott. I also understand that my readers may also be participating in the boycott but still want to enter into the contest I am hosting in July. Along these lines, I am making a simple change to the entry requirements that should allow folks on both sides of the topic the ability to participate.

5. Work in Progress showing the unpainted model(s) on the new planetstrike book or the packaging for one of the new terrain kits, and a picture of the completed work.


The above change means that people can use the book or any of the new terrain to show that the models were painted during the defined period. If anyone has any questions about the boycott, post them here or head over to the DLT forums to discuss.

7 comments:

  1. Perhaps iggidymack shuld get over himself and support all the new GW 40K releases if he wants GW to keep alive, this economic climate is not the time to 'dent their profits'. They do have correct channels for your questions, just give them a bell and ask. And as for races not being included, the DE have a lot in the new PS book and I wouldn't be surprised if these will be receiving a new codex alongside the Space Wolves, also heavy in this PS book.

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  2. I agree, you dont have to buy the book if you dont want to, but you shouldent be entirly dependent on other peoples opinions to make a choice to buy, yes planet strike is biased, but why should that stop me from adding it to my collection. The bottom line is if you play the game and want to add another way to play then get the book, its not like this is the new rule book. Simple economics you buy more the average unit cost goes down over time and you see more product release. So take it or leave it but dont let some one else call the shots for you, you can read the demo copy easily for yourself and decide, if anything this release will be giving us some cool terrain. I also saw a similar boycott for cities of death circulating around a few years back, bottom line there will always be haters.

    Scott
    BH Senior Editor

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  3. Let me start by saying that I really appreciate the feedback and discussion. I hope to see more of it here! Don’t get me wrong, MiggidyMack and I disagree on a lot of things, but in this case, I really don’t feel this is about him getting on his high horse. I think he feels, as do others, a level of frustration about the rate at which certain armies have been updated.

    Mr Syxx, I agree with you that everyone needs to make up their own mind when it comes to something like this expansion. I was, and still am, a huge supporter of CoD, and also recall the hatred from others when it came out. This time, I can understand the frustration some players are feeling with the rate of updates being released. I do feel that this frustration has been self generated to some degree by excessive rumors and speculation, but I think it is a valid frustration to a point.

    As to the point of letting your money do the talking, I think it is a valid approach on an individual level, but I would argue that noone has the right to stop or hinder someone from making their own decision about a purchase, and therefore this approach on an organized level isn’t effective. A better approach may have been on the release date of PS, everyone that is protesting PS should instead buy a box of dark eldar warriors. This would give a clear message of what people want instead of the vague message, if any, that this boycott will generate.

    The bottom line for myself on this topic is that the Planetstrike contest has been updated to allow people on both sides of the debate to participate. Personnally I will not be purchasing PS initially, but I don’t oppose or frown upon others that want to buy it. (Yes, you could call this riding the fence, but it is an honest reflection of how I feel on the topic.)

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  4. I always vote with my wallet, and GW has gotten precious few of my dollars over the last three years or so. I will not buy Planetstrike for my own reasons, but some of MiggidyMack's comments are legit.

    I do find it a bit odd that someone feels I should "support GW" for their own sake, or who feels that somehow GW has ever been beholden to the idea that more product sold = a lower price point. Really?

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  5. I'm surprised people aren't more up-in-arms about the terrain releases. GW has already stated that the Codex has entered localisation (which presumably means translation) and that what we're really waiting for is the new models to be sculpted - making the terrain is theoretically what really cut in to the release date for them...

    I find that, although MMac did state quite a few reasons for this boycot, his overarching gripe with this is that his army did not receive the love he felt it deserved. Fair enough. But to then go on and on about it throughout the podcast, while throwing in any possible reason he could come up with along the way makes it a point of comedy, not to be taken seriously. Furthermore, his army is, to be frank, a niche army. It will get plenty of love when the new Inquisition Codex comes out...

    Pt. 2) is quite interesting. Yes "people" have been using rules like these for ages, but these are rules they agree with their close gaming group, and are not necessarily useful in pick-up type games - and completely useless for any kind of serious tournament play. Rules also require planning, testing and then printing so that everyone has a copy. Not as many gamers as you would think are prepared to go through that - they'd prefer to be able to open a book, read the rules and play with them. The book also means that everyone has a common point of reference.

    While from his "game-designer" point of view, this release is a waste of time, not everyone goes to that much effort to play the game - they use the rules as printed. If everyone did so, no-one would be using Fluid 40k or even the official rules anyway...

    In summary, while I understand his points, I think he's just completely over-reacting to the whole issue in his usual knee-jerk way.

    If you think about it, will boycotting Planetstrike do anything more than bring about more Space Marine releases sooner?

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  6. Had to edit my post, it came out all wonky!

    I just thought I'd hop in here and clear up a couple points.

    1) We are only boycotting the book. I've read through it just felt really light.

    2) It's more than just MM's army that is being ignored, my Chaos Daemons got nothing and they are (theoretically) a 5th edition army I bought to replace my ignored Dark Eldar!

    3) The key to a boycott is to TELL GW why you're boycotting, which means telling the store when they ask you about it. It works better than people think, businesses just don't react publicly to it (that would make people do it more often).

    Mack does react to things strongly (actually more strongly on the show than in real life) but this wasn't actually his idea at first. He did hop on it pretty darn quick, but I think it's important to note.

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  7. One other thing I would like to point out. I joined the online warhammer community about 4 years ago, and even then we were hearing rumors about the game designers working on planetstrike...so I don't think this is a new concept they've been working on.
    Personally, I think that this is coming out now partly because their first draft of the new dark eldar rules had to be scrapped for whatever reason ( or so sayeth the forums )...

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