"Period popularity" Topic

I counted all the articles that were published in WI 1-259 (1987-2009) by period.

This produced some interested results … (full numbers on link).

Great stuff, very intresting. Never realized medieval would be so popular.

Can I ask what made you break it down into things such as WW2 and WW2 Africa foe example? Is there something notably different between the two?

Not having a go at you at all because I find this really interesting and your index has been very helpful, but I'm curious how it all works out :)

Dear Phil

Not THAT's real Data! Highly interesting too. thank you very much for doing the grunt work!

HMGS take note.

Not necessarily popular, but what was published (editor's favorite?)

Can I ask what made you break it down into things such as WW2 and WW2 Africa foe example?

No good reason except what I thought was useful when I encountered such articles when I was working my way through the pile. I was also considering what search terms people might use to look for specific articles.

In hindsight, I could have done the classification along other lines, but c'est la vie :-)

E.g. Ancients is all thrown on one big heap, while a further classification probably would have been useful.
Medieval is everything from 476AD upwards to 1400 or so.

Sometimes it was a bit difficult, e.g. there is 15th, but also Renaissance, and sometimes this could have been Medieval as well.

But this is the raw data. I guess the index might be refined in the future. For now, I'm happy all the articles have been entered :-)

Otto,

Thanks for the compliment.
I must say I did this primarily for my own use, because I was tired browsing through my magazines to find specific articles that one vaguely remembers from several years back.

I decided to make it public so others can use it as well. That's what a hobby should be about ;-)

Agree with Sabre6. And not just what the editor(s) liked, but what got submitted.

Very interesting. Would you by any chance be able to tell me what issues the boer war articles were in ?
Michael.

I venture to say that the top five probably never change. They may just switch positions among themselves.

Very interesting. Would you by any chance be able to tell me what issues the boer war articles were in ?

You can access the complete index here:
link

I suggest that 'What the editors liked' assumes that editors have enough material to cast some aside. Frankly, I think an article would have to be pretty terrible to be turned down flat. It might be rewritten extensively, but – having submitted to wargames mags for thirty years – I know that editors are always crying out for new submissions.

I'm also fairly sure that any connection between articles published and general popularity of an era is largely coincidental.

Phil thanks for responding. All good to know and thanks once more for doing all this hard work!

Cheers Phil. It's close between the top 3.

Thank you Phil.
Michael.

Interesting, and thank you for your effort!

Nice analysis! Thank you :) I have no problems in the way you have split things up. People are able to do the maths on their own if they want to combine those topics you've subdivided.

Cheers,
Aaron

Good work – if asked, I would not have put medieval at the top spot …… Good to see it there.

Very interesting. Thanks for your research.

(Some articles on the ECW, but nothing on the Thirty Years War. Strange)

but nothing on the Thirty Years War. Strange

They are grouped under 17th century.

The survey is interesting and I have gone back to it many times to peruse the totals.

One of the things that would be interesting is to know WHY the individuals chose that period of primary interest. I do not mean the reasons they would say. I mean the reasons that they cannot say, dare not say, or perhaps don't even know. That is the inner deeper psychological factors behind a choice. It's one of those bits of knowledge you can never really know.

It's an interesting set of data that Phil has compiled and I also appreciated the indices that he's produced for various magazines, but I'm not sure you can read too much into it, particularly due to some of the reasons raised.

It's not a survey of gaming preferences. It appears to reflect them to a degree (especially when like categories get grouped together), but that's about it. Do more WWII articles get published because more get sent in? Do more get sent in because more people play it or because writers see WWII being published? Are those sending medieval articles in better writers than those turning out renaissance ones, or does the disparity reflect their respective length of period? Maybe some of it comes down to who had a pint with an editor at a show and came up with the idea for a series.

I can't think of many people I've gamed with who appear to have secret reasons for specific eras though Otto. Panzer fetishists seem to be fairly open about it. When it comes down to it, the broad reasons for period selection seem to be (in no particular order):

- how you were first exposed to wargaming (because they may dictate your first armies/rules/research)
- media (whether it's WWII films on a Sunday afternoon and Warlord comic as a child or the Walking Dead)
- availability of figures and models (Airfix has a lot ot answer for)
- aesthetics
- availability of opponents/what people are playing down at the club
- historical interest (which can spring from so many sources)

It's probably more interesting to look at why people don't wargame certain eras, although then again, certain arguments are suspect. 'I don't play Napoleonics because of button counters'/'WW2 wargaming is just wall-to-wall tanks' seems to be an excuse. Don't play with those people, be flexible in what you'll play and in my experience it's not difficult to find someone who'll reciprocate.

I wonder if the medieval period gained since Glut of Ravens, Saga and Dux Bellorum have come onto the market. WW2 and ancients have been the mainstay of wargaming magazines for many years and I would expect that to continue for some years yet.