Spiking the Canon - Why the 40K 'fluff' is GW's most important asset.

The other night, I, along with millions of other individuals across the planet, went to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This was the 'first' one for my 8 y.o. son at the cinema - I am just slightly too young for the original 77 releases and so my first was Phantom Menace. I was buzzed, I was hyped. And at the end, I felt slightly - something. Something I have not been able to define. Mebbe a bit like a wedding or an event you have been looking forward to for ages, and then seems to go too fast. All I could think of, without having gone to see SW:TFA again, was that it was shame they decided to dispense with the Expanded Universe storylines.

Whilst I don't want to discuss that here, being this is a 40K post, my mulling over made me think that there are direct comparisons between the Star Wars universe and the 40K universe. I'm not on about specifics (although they will be there) - I mean 'big handfuls' which I will explain. And to be clear, I am talking about the Expanded Universe Star Wars, now rebranded 'Legends'.

Star Wars - massive timescale (Dawn of the Jedi - 37000 years before the films). 40K - massive timescale. Star Wars galaxy - huge. 40K - huge. Cast of characters? Both massive. Storylines derivative from other film/history/sci-fi? Check for both. Battles between giant space ships? Check. 2 legged manned fighting walkers? Check. The list goes on and on. But there is one feature that bleeds into the real world, which is also common to both. A die-hard fan base. A die-hard fan base who have pored over the legends and stories. They have relentlessly collected books, computer games, graphic novels, posters, ephemera, toys, collectables. All this has delivered an understanding - deeper than understanding, a belief - a genuine belief in how that universe is set up. And frankly, that is messed with at the company's peril.

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Galaxies - they're big.





Why the fluff is important.

Let me digress a bit and explain why I think the fluff is important to GW. Because, from my non-businessman layman's POV, the fluff is the only asset within GW's inventory, that is universally seen as more positive than not. I'll try and back that up. Do GW care enough about brand loyalty to do what we think is sensible policies to keep customers coming back (sponsor tournies, engage with customers via social media, have sensible sales - all the flash and jazz people argue that PP do and GW don't but should) - No. Do GW even do a barest modicum of market research - No. External engagement/advertising - rarely. Models of the highest quality design and production - OK - a harsh one but whilst some of their plastics have been gorgeous, I am seeing a recent rising tone of discontent with CAD produced stuff and whenever miniature quality is debated, someone can always come up with a smaller company with as gorgeous sculpts as GW. The only thing (IMO) that keeps many people coming back to GW with all its acknowledged faults, is the fluff. The 40Kverse is an awesome and infinite sandbox and has a grit (the grimdark) and aesthetic that other settings just cannot match. You want escapism, you want adult, you want MDK mayhem - you've got it.

So what happens when you mess with the fluff?

I never noticed that Disney put out a message about the canonicity of Star Wars after their takeover of the franchise, but when they announced that the EU was not considered canon going forward, many fans were disappointed. This took many forms, after all, huge swathes of storyline of varying import were just cut. The most extreme reaction was the formation of 'The Alliance to Preserve the Expanded Universe'. Sort of does what it says on the tin. Random quotes:

" I hate the fact that I have to hate this, this has all the makings of a good story, then you guys have to go and ruin it by making it not part of Legends."

"I won't spend one dime on Star Wars until they make it crystal clear how much money I've wasted over the past thirty years." (Could a WFB player be saying that regarding AoS?)

One of the similar groupings has threatened to release spoilers of new Star Wars films, seeing the earliest viewings then going viral on the internet with spoilers, unless the Expanded Universe is returned to canon status!

But wait, we would never go that extreme, would we?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plUPJ0inN4c


The video at link shows a player torch an entire Warhammer army as a protest to Warhammer being replaced by AoS. He takes 20 minutes to rant and do this. With my ebay-fu I could list an entire army in that time, and buy x-warmafauxinfinity hordes commander with the proceeds - but no - destroy the army.

Now, there is a debate ongoing that AoS has brought sales figures over the summer down (read it here started by Defenestratus: [URL="http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?62650-Did-the-Summer-of-Sigmar-kill-interest-in-40k"]http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?62650-Did-the-Summer-of-Sigmar-kill-interest-in-40k[/URL] ) and we can all name at least one gamer vexed mightily with the way End Times segued into AoS and the end of massed ranks square bases - I know at least one dedicated gamer who spends thousands - and now will only worship at the temple of Kings of War.

The upshot is that fans take their fluff seriously, and GW fans are no exception. Hence, my contention that GW needs to tread very carefully about changing 40k fluff - lest they suffer an AoS back-lash.

To finish, I'll list a couple of fluff traps waiting to happen - GW - mess with at your peril...

1. Squatting an Army. There are degrees of this, from the slow decline of the Sisters, to the Black Templars being subsumed by Codex Space Marines - but removing an entire army from the fluff will not win you any friends.

2. The removal of Slaanesh. Again, debates about whether or not Slaanesh is too adult a theme and has been slowly removed from AoS, are quite common at the moment. Retconning Slaanesh out of 40k does not only smash a considerable part of Chaos away, but also removes the whole reason for the fall of the Eldar.

3. The Slann/old ones/Necron piece. Remember when the Slann provided a suspected link between WFB and W40K - it was considered in some quarters the Warhammer World was a planet in the 40K galaxy. I think messing with this too much runs the risk of appearing like a huge corny Macguffin.

4. The missing Primarchs. GW - I know we are the playstation, instant gratification generation, but just don't go there please. Some suspense is a good thing.

5. 40K End Times. The daddy of all fluff perils waiting to happen. Do you advance the fluff and risk an AoS style backlash as big names go down - or is there enough mileage in '2 minutes to midnight' where we are now...?

Well that's my ramblings - I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on all things fluff/canon.

The question is; Where/ What is the baseline? Today's fluff or someplace back in an different edition (codex or game)?
1. Squatting an army; the meme sez it all. Was it a bad thing? Maybe, maybe not. Heck the orks are changed in style and play with every codex. Deff mobs, mad boyz, and stormboyz have all changed or 'forgotten' sometime in the past. Thinking in lines of " 'Ere we go". And Sisters aren't being squatted, They're just waiting in the wings for the True Writer come along and produce the Codex of pure awesome sauce, so that they soar like the flamey deathy phoenixes that they are. So there.
2. Yes Slannesh is a tricky problem to solve, the line between burlesque and a stripper is fine and a difficult one to walk. Hopefully GW find the right team to walk it.
3. True
4. Yes this.
5. It could work, it's been the last days of 41k for 40 years now, a slow advance in the story could work nothing as quick as the end of days warhammer but. They also have a nice out with the precludes, there in the neighborhood of 38k of story still to be told.

Whenever a discussion like this pops up, the only thing I can say regarding nerd rage is, "get over it."

I understand frustration about a hobby into which a person has dumped a few thousand dollars suddenly changing in a way that makes them no longer want to participate in that hobby. That is upsetting. By extension, I understand the frustration when fluff is changed, though I find that notion particularly silly, myself.

Ultimately, and I think this can be chalked up to human nature, people don't want the things they love to change in a way that they disapprove of. Is it really any surprise to anyone that life is full of change? That we really have very little control over that fact of existence? No, I don't think it is.

Rather, what I don't understand is holding onto the nerd rage for months, even YEARS after the "trauma." FFS, move on to something else! I am just as guilty of escapism as any other nerd, but there is essentially an infinite pool of dimensions to escape into. Life is full of so many truly painful setbacks and losses, it seems completely insane to freak out over a fictional universe changing or even disappearing completely.

I'm not trying to be insulting here, but it genuinely boggles my mind that there is STILL outrage over the WFB/AoS thing. Same about Star Wars. Am I the only one who just doesn't think stuff like this is a big deal?

I realize I'm slightly off topic, just wanted to vent a little. Feel free to ignore me.

Nerds. Our passions run deep. Like Marinara Trench deep, only deeper.

From the GW point of view, the main strength of their background is that it's largely mythical. 40k particularly is a supremely ignorant place. No inhabitant of the Galaxy really knows anything, and if they do, they're obsessed with keeping it to themselves.

With so little set in stone, it's much easier to retcon. I don't think we've seen any Marvelesque 'not actually dead anymore. See Reason Not Dead #48684' (not knocking that. I'm a True Believer you know).

Necron stuff? Mr Martypants prefers the old, I prefer the new (mostly because they're not mutually exclusive).

Slaanesh? Slaanesh isn't going anywhere. At all. It's followers are treating their God's disappearance as a massive game of hide and seek, and hitting new heights of depravity in the hope it will help them be the winner of that game. And we the reader? We know where Slaanesh is. Tyrion and Malerion kidnapped Slaanesh. One assumes they're currently trying to get Slaanesh to regurgitate all the Aelf souls it scoffed when The a World That Was went boom.

However....you always get self-appointed Lore Keepers in any shade of Nerd-Dom. Some are in it for their own knowledge, and welcome all the new stuff. Others? They take it a bit too far, and seem to confuse owning some (OK, a lot)of books with being the sole owner of the setting. And they tend to shriek very, very loudly when something happens that doesn't meet with their approval.