DLT Boycott of Planet Strike

Things have been crazy lately and the posts I expected to put up recently just have not made it onto the blog. I played a game last Tuesday (6/16) and learned a bit, and also got some modeling and painting completed this last weekend. I need to dig up the time to get those posted, and I commit to do that this week.

On another note however, the guys at DLT (a great podcast for those who have not listened) are organizing a boycott of the new Planetstrike book. Specifically the book, not any of the new terrain that is part of the release. Here is their reasoning:

I've received a few emails asking me to lay out a list of why we are Boycotting the Planetstrike book so that those who choose to join us can site why when asked by store staff.

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.

This is what is called a "soft boycott". Hopefully plenty of you choose to join us and help us send a clear message to GW about the current status of the game. That is, of course, assuming you agree! We don't want to put GW out of business, just flex a little muscle... or find out if we have any!

Some have suggested that we endorse players downloading the product rather than buying it. While I am sure many will do this, it doesn't send the proper message, it tells GW to be afraid of the internet rather than embrace it. We need them to understand that we want what they are selling but are willing to spend our money elsewhere if they are going to ignore groups of players.

I am not convinced that this is going to be effective. One of the DLT board members (Osbad) posted the following, which was an interesting read:

The lessons I learned from this in dealing with GW about stuff.

1/ Those of us that have strongly held beliefs on the internet are de-facto a minority. The majority of GW's customers are an unthinking horde, willing to scoop up any crap GW produce just because it has an official lable on it.

2/ Of all the forms of protest we tried, formal, old-fashioned, polite letters were the best received. While other forms of protest may or may not be effective, organised financial "blackmail" is of no effect if a billion unthinking fanbois ignorant of your campaign still buy the crap anyhow! On the other hand a handwritten, stamped coherent letter addressed to a named person of authority is likely to be read. Several will be read. While GW will NEVER, EVER admit they are wrong, the designers and others inside GW are still human beings who prefer, given various alternatives, to produce stuff that people want rather than what they don't want.

Those interested in reading more of the discussion, check it out here. I was only luke-warm originally on the planet strike book, and planned to look through it at the local GW prior to purchasing. If the book holds with the reviews, this is definitely a no-buy for me