"White Dwarf Archive Free" Topic

Wow! I was on GW's site today and they now are offering a White Dwarf archive for free! That's right, they are putting up articles from White Dwarf for free. They don't have a lot there right now, just stuff from the last two years, but they say they will be adding more, hopefully older stuff. I'm just in shock that they are doing it for free. I guess I should stay quite and not give them any ideas!

The only problem is that you have to register on their site in order to download them.

link

That doesn't seem like a big price to pay. Go GW!

Yes, this is the world we live in, when GW's providing their White Dwarf articles (which are really just elaborate ads for their products) for free would be hailed as generous. We are pretty deep in Diminished Expectations territory.

I like GW's articles. They have some great terrain and painting articles that go into more depth than any other publication I know. I don't buy their magazine anymore, but I'm more apt to check out online articles, if that's what they cover.

I'm not interested in Chapter X fluff. Or any fluff for that matter.

Doesn't matter what sort of benefit GW does; someone will always come along and cut them down because they are "EEEVIIIL!"

Damon.

One problem I know they have, depending on the AGE of the article is they may only have first publication rights. The author may had the rights after that.

I know this is the case for some of the articles, but those are probably old ones that don't fit the current company ethos

Believe it or not, but not all of the White Dwarf articles are just catalog. I'm not saying that the magazine isn't a majority of those type, some are actually worthy content.

Most of the the articles they have on the site right now are painting guides, assembly guides, and new optional rules for their various games. They do have some more fluff type articles, but meh that doesn't bother me much.

I'm just happy, and a little surprised, to see them doing it.

This is cool. I'd be happy with just an index so I can find stuff.

Great going. Thank you GW.

I'm not saying that the magazine isn't a majority of those type, some are actually worthy content.

Yes, I'd agree that some of it is, and there are painting articles too. That said, the articles really are all published for the purpose of selling the models or the rules/armybooks/codexes, so they really are advertisements -- sometimes adverts can also have independent value in them to the customer.

That's one reason that it's always impressed me that they charge so much for the magazine, when it's really just a huge flyer for their products (I remember a time when it wasn't, and many of you probably do too). It's very impressive, you have to hand it to them! It's sort of like somehow getting people to pay for the adverts that run in front of a movie in the theater, if you can figure out how to do it, more power to you!

That's one reason that it's always impressed me that they charge so much for the magazine

No offense, but you've clearly never worked in the magazine business. Paper isn't cheap, especially in relatively small print runs and with the print type GW uses for WD.

It's also not subsidized by advertising from other manufacturers, nor can it effectively function as a loss-leader supported by massive sales. It's a good quality house magazine for a hobby business.

Avalon Hill published The General, its house magazine, that was still subsidized in part by advertising dollars AND was printed in-house by the parent company, Monarch Avalon. It had a $4.95 USD cover charge (over a decade ago!) and was lower quality paper and printing.

It's sort of like somehow getting people to pay for the adverts that run in front of a movie in the theater

And you most certainly *are* paying to see those annoying commercials. I noticed my ticket prices didn't drop when they started running them… :(

Way to go GW !!!

Good for GW – I'm not going to gripe about now being able to read the 1 article a month I'm interested in without having to pay.

Nice one !

I'd like to see them release the first 100 issues (complete, not just articles) of White Dwarf, as PDF's. I'd even pay if they came on a CD.

Well ain't that a thing and a half! Looks like somebody at GW did some real thinking and came up with a great idea! Glad to see this. Will be doing some reading as their painting and modelling articles always interested me.

Hope they do some of the early RT era WD's – say issues 92-140 – some really good stuff back then.

Not bad at all – within five minutes I had registered and found two interesting articles…

Having sold my old WDs I would be interested in a CD/DVD of them – much better than piles of paper for the odd article or two.

Andrew
blog.kings-sleep.me.uk

I tried to register, but just kept getting dicked around. The concept of being from Australia seems to befuddle them.

somehow getting people to pay for the adverts that run in front of a movie in the theater

even better, getting the advertiser to pay for it then the movie goer. brilliant.

There was a time when they didn't have adverts in front of the movies in theatres? \-:)

Anyway, I managed to register fairly easily -- not quite without a glitch but hey, it's a British company (-;)

Not much there at a glance I'd care for personally. Still, it's always nice to have the option for freebies and who knows, they might put something useful up later.

Good quality…*rolls eyes*

I'm not referring to content in a subjective sense (e.g. whether or not you care for the subject matter, etc), I'm referring to paper stock, color photography, page count, etc, all of which contributes to cost, and all of which GW, like 'em or not, delivers.

And not that it should matter, but no, not a big fan and not a subscriber of WD, but there's really no debating their production values.

though to be fair White Dwarf has quite a print run

In Hobby Land, maybe, but not in Publishing Land. :)

All that aside, don't let me get in the way of anyone's anti-GW rants! They're givin' stuff away, boys. Hang 'em! :D

No offense, but you've clearly never worked in the magazine business. Paper isn't cheap, especially in relatively small print runs and with the print type GW uses for WD.

So I wonder then why the people who send out catalogs don't all charge us for them. I mean, paper isn't cheap ….

It's sort of like somehow getting people to pay for the adverts that run in front of a movie in the theater

And you most certainly *are* paying to see those annoying commercials.

Really? In addition to the price of the movie ticket? Is that how it works at your theatre? Does someone come around with a cup?

Because that's what GW does -- they charge for the product, then charge again for the glorified ad for the product.

You know, I usually dont have much love for GW, but I cant really get behind the idea that they somehow owe us a free magazine every month.

LOL They can't even give some thing away free right…..damn GW

So I wonder then why the people who send out catalogs don't all charge us for them. I mean, paper isn't cheap

You don't really think catalogs are free, do you?

Also, if you can't tell the difference between the print quality of White Dwarf and, say, your local grocery store inserts or the Oriental Trading Company catalog, there's really no helping you here. :)

Really? In addition to the price of the movie ticket? Is that how it works at your theatre? Does someone come around with a cup?

And perhaps you think television is "free", too. Quaint.

But as I said, don't let facts or reason get in the way of a good hate!

Let me save you the trouble of more unreasoning responses. I'll just say now that you are 100% correct: knowledge gained from years in commercial game development and print publication are clearly no match for someone's uninformed hatred for a toy soldier company. All the internet prizes are now yours. :)

Evil, evil, evil.

But don't go getting excited about old magazine reprints, as they do not fit the current ethos and so, bless their evil little hearts, I really cannot see that happening. Mind you, the articles in the first 100 would be of zilch interest to the current GW buying market, and us old grey beards are not their primary market.

Evil, evil, evil!

GW articles for free???
No, something must be going wrong some where, this is too good to be true. When does that solar eclipse in India start again? And when does the resulting chaos from superstition over there begin?

the articles in the first 100 would be of zilch interest to the current GW buying market

Not to mention they would need to re-acquire licenses for Traveller, AD&D1, Runequest, Champions, and a few others if they wanted to sell that material (again). Some of those articles were also sold to GW for "first use" only.

Also, in the case of AD&D, some of the old WD material would make it painfully clear that WotC and TSR did not invent several of what they now consider "their" iconic monsters. I can only imagine the royalty-free annoyance of the British creators of the Githyanki, Githzerai, and Slaad at this point…

WotC has produced two important lessons with regards to magazines: first, reprints twenty years later are not simple or trivial from a legal standpoint, and the Dragon reprint CDs are now considered by WotC to be one of their biggest mistakes; second, the OGL that was "good for gaming" convinced the industry that games magazines need a license to cover games.

When Palladium tried the second one ten years before the OGL they became a pariah in the industry. Now its the standard line of thought and has basically killed games magazines outside of the historicals market, where they don't appear to hold with such foolishness.

GW will only re-"print" articles they own fully. Bank on it.

Sorry, bit out of the loop.

Is there more to read on WotC and Dragon reprint CDs?

And OGL – what is that?

I'm not sure what you mean by that question, but the CDs in question were pdf scans of the first 250 issues of Dragon magazine. The included the covers and every page, nothing was left out. They even include the first issues that Gygax produced before he started Dragon. I can't remember what that magazine was called right now. The CDs are long out of print now and don't even pop up on eBay very often. No I'm not interested in selling my set.

The OGL is the Open Gaming License that WotC released D&D 3.0 and D&D 3.5 under. It allowed pretty much everyone and their brother to produce supplements for D&D, no matter what their capabilities were, without having to pay a license fee to WotC. When D&D 3.0 was released, within 3 months there was a huge glut of crap as everyone thought they were a game designer. I'd say somewhere around 300 products were released, and probably in the 1,000 plus range before they released D&D 4.0. It actually backfired on WotC. I think they did it thinking it would increase sales of the main rules, but I think they lost money on it. They really tightened up and changed the license they released D&D 4.0 under. It wasn't released with the OGL, just a different license that still allows other publisher to produce products for D&D 4.0, but in a much more restrictive manner. It's quite draconian in my opinion, but better than the old TSR days of not allowing anyone to produce products.

If you are interested, you can still release products using the OGL, as the license is still valid. You just can't also release the same thing for D&D 4.0, because of the license for D&D 4.0. You have to use either the D&D 3.0 or D&D 3.5 rules and SRD.

The Dragon set is one of the best things I ever bought.

I don't care for WD very much but if they did the same thing, put the issues all together on a CD (or even DVD now) set, I would probably buy it.

I believe there was a CD with the early issues but it was pulled early, just like the Dragon set. I saw one up on eBay once. It went for more than I was willing to pay.