Games Workshop seems to be taking the creator out of their content with no recognition for artists that work or contribute to them, only hands…
More and more Games Workshop looks to be trying to remove the individual creators from everything they produce. From codex books and game systems, right down to their presenters and tutorials, identities have become non-existent in Nottingham.
Support your favorites and subscribe to these former Games Workshop Artists’ channels:
- Louise Sugden Leaves Games Workshop to Start Rogue Hobbies
- Peachy Leaves Games Workshop & Joins The Painting Phase
- Duncan Rhodes Has Left Games Workshop
It seems like GW has made their painting team even more generic than ever before, as they are taking out any recognition for the artists in their tutorials, and you can only see the creator’s hands. We understand they work for them, and they don’t have to really give them anything, it’s just interesting to compare the old videos to the new ones, and see what direction they are heading in.
They have at least started adding artists’ names or tags to their Warhammer Community Posts (sometimes) there are even a couple of catches with that…
Only Hands: Games Workshop is Taking the Creator Out of Their Content
We’ll mainly be focused on the people working directly for GW today, but we’ve talked about how it may not be worth it for content creators to work directly with GW, which you can read about here.
Onto the current changes, GW seems to be making with their own tutorials. They are taking out the presenter in almost every way possible, leaving it feeling very non-personal and giving basically no credit to whoever is actually doing the tutorial. And by basically no credit, we mean nothing, not even a name, a face, or even allowing comments.
Booooooo!
Let’s compare two videos, both from the Warhammer YouTube channel.
As you can see in the older video, the introduction has Duncan Rhodes quite clearly featured, and he’s able to do a nice little intro into what he’s painting to put a face to the video.
Well, almost on cue with this article, Games Workshop has removed the video we were referencing with Duncan when we were editing this post. As you can see below, they even replaced his face thumbnail on their playlist!
In their newer tutorial videos, they have replaced the face time in the intro with a link to their website.
This isn’t necessarily bad, but it just seems so much more generic and boring than actually seeing who you’re going to be painting along with, and by doing this GW takes away any credit from the artist and gives it all to themselves.
Before, at least Duncan received some credit for his work.
In the first video, every chapter has a little aside with Duncan where he explains what’s happening, but nothing like this in the newer video.
At the end of the first video, you also get to see Duncan as he goes over the steps.
The newer video ends without ever even seeing the presenter.
In both videos, there are no links to the artist, but that has been pretty standard for a long time, but the newer videos have nothing for the creators at all.
Names Are Great, Links Are Forever
Warhammer Community is starting to add artists’ names and tags to their painting posts featuring work from the community, but they don’t link anything, so in some ways, it really doesn’t have much of a point. Who is going to copy-paste a name into Instagram or Google?
Strangely they still don’t put any tags for the people who work for them in their posts. They just say things like “the team” in most cases, and while they put the first names of staff in the article, there are no tags or even last names. So if you wanted to search for them, you would have to really do some work to find them,
Just interesting to see how they are taking away basically any credit or easy of access to their partner creators or staff, but to what end?
Why Is Games Workshop Doing This?
Well, the most obvious reason would seem to be competition. They don’t want anyone using GW as a springboard to get their own potentially competing platform going. When you look at both Peachy and Duncan Rhodes, they are now quite successful outside of Games Workshop, and they used that fame to help propel them.
It could be that GW never wants any of their creators to be able to have this post-GW success anymore.
Peachy himself has a fascinating video about why they don’t give credit to artists or partner creators, which you can check out below.
What do you think about new videos being only hands and how Games Workshop treats their content creators?
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About the Author: Rob Baer
Rob Baer
Job Title: Managing Editor
Founded Spikey Bits in 2009
Socials: Rob Baer on Facebook and @catdaddymbg on X
About Rob Baer: Founder, Publisher, & Managing Editor of Spikey Bits, the leading tabletop gaming news website focused on the hobby side of wargaming and miniatures.
Rob also co-founded and currently hosts the Long War Podcast, which has over 350 episodes and focuses on tabletop miniatures gaming, specializing in Warhammer 40k. and spent six years writing for Bell of Lost Souls.
Every year, along with his co-hosts, he helps host the Long War 40k Doubles Tournament at Adepticon and the Long War 40k Doubles at Las Vegas Open, which attracts over 350 players from around the world.
Rob has won many Warhammer 40k Tournaments over the years, including multiple first-place finishes in Warhammer 40k Grand Tournaments over the years and even winning 1st place at the Adepticon 40k Team Tournament.
With over 30 years of experience in retail and distribution, Rob knows all the products and exactly which ones are the best. As a member of GAMA (Game Manufacturers Association), he advocates for gaming stores and manufacturers in these difficult times, always looking for the next big thing to feature for the miniatures hobby, helping everyone to provide the value consumers want.
While he’s played every edition of Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy (since 5th Edition) and has been hobbying on miniatures since the 1980s, Titans of all sizes will always be his favorite! It’s even rumored that his hobby vault rivals the Solemnance Galleries, containing rulebooks filled with lore from editions long past, ancient packs of black-bordered Magic Cards, and models made of both pewter and resin.
