The Demise of White Dwarf (and the Games Workshop?)

There’s been a fair bit of talk recently about the Games Workshop’s decision to cease publishing its monthly magazine, White Dwarf. This comes not long after the magazine recently underwent a dramatic change in format and content, a change which it appears hadn’t had the desired effect.

A lot of criticism seems to revolve around the magazine basically being nothing more than a catalog for new releases and sadly I feel this is the case. The content of hobby related articles certainly has certainly declined, somethig I touched on here when I wrote about their painting guides.

I first came across White Dwarf at a time when I was playing more and more Games Workshop games. I’d started out with MB Games Heroquest and Space Crusade before moving on to Advanced Heroquest and Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Naturally I wanted to read more and so I picked up my first ever copy of White Dwarf, issue 132, promptly followed by plenty of back issues.

Issue 132 - December 1990

This magazine was read from cover to cover. It featured experimental rules, modelling projects, scenery projects (a dwarf mine, which I did try and build) and of course articles showcasing painting. Back then it had a true hobby feel, it engaged the reader, much like many of the scale modelling magazines of today.

Sadly today the thought of the Games Workshop publishing an article on building something not using products they sell is unthinkable and maybe there’s a general reluctance to even publish anything that not Games Workshop corporate standard. I feel the spirit of those days is missing now. Back then the company was build and run by people who were the age I am now. People who could write, who could create an evocative living world, one which I think no other company has come close to doing since. 

As far as miniature companies are concerned Games Workshop are unique in their longevity and I think this is a real difficulty for them. They have new younger followers, and they have older followers like me who both want differing things from the hobby. As a result they are having real trouble identifying their target audience. Do you sell vast amount of kits to kids who will play with them until they move onto something else, or do you cater to mature modellers who have more specialist needs? Which it is will decide on your magazine content and recently they’ve been going for the sale brochure content and it hasn’t worked.

So what will the future bring? There will be a new monthly magazine called Warhammer : Visions and a weekly White Dwarf magazine. I had a quick conversation with the guys from my local store and they weren’t a 100% sure what the content would be but suggested that the monthly magazine will be more hobby based, the weekly magazine more gaming based. I really hope this is the case and I’m approaching this change positively, if the monthly magazine is hobby based then it certainly looks like good move from my point of view.

One final thing I will say is that the Games Workshop would do well not to neglect their older followers. I’ve left the both the miniatures hobby and the scale model hobby and then come back to them both. It is people like me that will pass the hobby on to our children. As things stand at the moment and despite the Games Workshop being a key part of my formative years, I imagine in the future I would most likely be teaching my children to build that other great British institution, the Airfix kit, long before I introduced them to the current Games Workshop range.